Trigger warning as this mentions a pedophile

[Solarus]

Trigger warning as this mentions a pedophile
This is a true ongoing case. Posted on behalf of a person involved who wishes to remain anonymous.
I will not say as to which side of this case they belong.

Please note that this has been extremely simplified, but the person involved would like unbiased opinions on who is making the right and/or wrong choice.

Real names have not been used, below you will see code names.

Mother (M)
Daughter (DD)
Mothers Best Friend (MBF)
Best Friends Husband (BFH)

Things to take into consideration.

Mum and best friend are very close and have been friends for many years (before best friend met husband).

Mum is a single mum to a young girl and older boy.

Best friend's husband would baby sit while mum had a break from the children and spent some time with best friend.

Last year, (DD) of 4 years old told her (M) something that was not right.
(M) acted upon what she was told and got to the truth.

The truth was that her (BFH) has done unspeakable things to her 4yo (DD).

When confronted the (BFH) admitted he had done wrong, so whilst the (M) made the call to the police, the (BFH) went and handed himself in.

Initially (MBF) was just as upset and angry as everyone else.

However after a few months things change and the (MBF) decides to stand by her husband believing he is just sick and will get better.

(M) had to cut contact with (MBF) in the best interests and safety of her (DD).

The questions here in all of this, although broken down and very simplified, is the (MBF) making the right choice risking her whole future, friends and family for her husband knowing everything he did?

Has the (M) done the right thing cutting off the (MBF)?

Please also note the police have and still are dealing with all of this. The victims' family are getting all the care and support they need and are doing well.

thought maybe hearing public comments from unbiased people would/could still get through to her. I sincerely hope she can save herself from a life of misery.

The words of strangers will mean less than nothing to your friend. I worked with a couple where the husband was convicted of viewing and disseminating absolutely vile images of child sex abuse. He admitted it, pled guilty, and was sentenced to prison. His wife accepted that he'd done it but resolutely stood by him. She would listen to no one and in the end her own children completely cut her off, went NC, and told her that if she ever attempted to contact them or her grandchildren they'd report her for harassment. She just couldn't understand why they couldn't 'be forgiving' because 'he'd admitted what he'd done'. She later contracted cancer and even that didn't change the situation. She died unreconciled to her children whilst her DH was still in prison.

All you can do is say goodbye to her and if you feel it, tell her that if she ever 'sees the light' you're open to her contacting you.

Op, I'm so so sorry about what happened to your dd. Of course you've done the right thing. That "friend" is complicit. She enabled her H to have time with your child. I'd be astonished if she didn't know what he was up to. I guess some people get a kick out of enabling abusers.

I also know a couple like this. I've posted a thread about it at the time, many name changes ago. The man was arrested for category A images and footage, some of which he'd commissioned himself, of babies and toddlers. Babies being abused!! The most evil man I've met. But we didn't know at the time, and the wife invited us round to our house, they offered to babysit dd (then a baby). The wife knew because the police investigation had begun before my dd was born. All internet devices seized. We found out a year later.

I always disliked the creepy husband so I "hell no"-ed the babysitting but I still went round there and met up with them and they did take turns cuddling dd, always supervised. I feel sick whenever I think about what could have happened.

I'll always blame the wife too. She knew what her H was like. She knowingly put my baby in danger. They're still married. If I ever saw them on the street or something, I literally would go violent and attack them on the spot with my bare hands. It's been years but I'll never not be angry about it. The thought of staying friends with her is utterly inconceivable, I couldn't imagine it for a moment.

Your poor dd. Such a brave girl telling you what happened. I can't begin to understand how she could do it. Some mums I assume wouldn't always believe their child. I'm so sorry. I can't think about this it's too fucked up. I hope people in his local area discover the truth!!!

I worry about the person who thinks that any of these are hard questions. Of course, the Mother should end the friendship. No, her “best friend” should not be sticking by this man. That she has chosen to speak volumes about how little she feels for the mother and the poor child.

You are 100% doing the right thing OP. Do you think that there’s an element of her trying to manipulate the rest of you? Perhaps she feels she so loved, she can do what she likes and the rest of you will forgive her.

I simply can’t understand women who stay with child abusers.

Oh come on! Is this a serious question? Would any sane person think that the child's mother is wrong to cut off a woman who voluntarily chooses to be with a paedophile?

This is a very odd question, are you hoping someone is going to say that the woman should be staying with her husband?

I think the op is asking so she can try and get the MBF to realise. Not that strangers online are better than the mum of the little girl he S/A.

MBF has made her choice and that comes with consequences. Maybe she'll be happy rehabilitating her sick husband and his sexual attraction to small children. Mother should not be a part of this in any way shape or form though. Cut all contact, now and forever.

I can only think that someone who stands by a paedophile is probably a paedophile themselves.

Only someone who shared the kind of warped sick fettishes of such a reprehensible individual would stick by them.

So as far as I’m concerned I would consider the friend to be just as much of a paedophile as her husband.

She would be dead to me.

@MayThe4th exactly this.

OP, I'm so sorry your daughter and you have suffered this.

You're wise to have no contact with your former best friend since she's sticking with her husband.

I can't completely condemn the best friend. Abusers are SO manipulative, and she probably sees the fact he went to the police (albeit once found out) as a sign he is truly sorry.

There was a famous case where a man experienced paedophilic urges for the first time in middle address and viewed CSA images. He was found to have a brain tumour. When the tumour was removed, the urged disappeared. When the urges returned, he went to the doctor and the brain tumour had returned.

I'm fairly confident that's a true story, but also think it's probably been exploited by many paedophiles to excuse their behaviour as having some underlying cause they can't help.

Of course his actions are inexcusable and your reaction is entirely proportionate. I wish your daughter a full recovery.

I can't completely condemn the best friend. Abusers are SO manipulative, and she probably sees the fact he went to the police (albeit once found out) as a sign he is truly sorry. nope I don’t buy that.

There are some actions which are unforgivable, and some lines which can’t be uncrossed.

OP, I have no idea why you care so much about your ex-friend’s future happiness. Does she give a flying fuck about you, or your DD? No, she doesn’t, or she wouldn’t still be fucking the nonce who abused your baby.

Agreed. Seems totally obvious to me.

Yes, correct decision. Little one needs to know that this woman is no longer a safe person.

Yeah, quite unbelievable that the mother of a SA child has to even ask if the nonces wife is doing the right thing staying with him.

@fatphalange and @Naunet you both make a fair point and I apologise unreservedly to you both and to anyone who has actually been in the situation of finding out their partner is a child molester and told the OP what they thought about bf staying with him based on their own lived experience of dealing with this themselves. I can’t imagine how awful it must be to experience this. You are correct that I was wrong to assume no one posting advice had experienced this situation themselves. In my defence, at the time I posted, I hadn’t read a single reply to the OP which suggested someone had actually found out their own partner had done the same thing. All the posts I had read up to that point suggested this is what others thought they would do if they’d been the bf without any actual experience.

My own history as a survivor of child abuse is that many of the people who should have believed, protected and supported me did the complete opposite. I learned at an early age that I couldn’t trust anybody and that people don’t always do what I think they should do or even what the young me wanted and needed them to do. Many members of my own family have chosen to stay in contact with the people who protected my abuser. Consequently, I’ve learned to look not at what people say they would do but what the evidence suggests they actually do in reality. Unfortunately, the reality is many women do stay with child molesters. Personally, I am 99.9% sure I could not do this myself but as I haven’t ever experienced it I cannot say with 100% certainty.

What I was trying to say to the OP, no doubt very clumsily, is that not everyone knows how they will react until something actually happens to them. That’s certainly NOT to say no one will leave their partner if they found out something like this, just that it’s not always possible to tell for certain in advance.

The husband admitted what he did and handed himself in to the police. So why on earth is the friend choosing to defend him?! He's not even defending himself, he took himself to the police. The friend is seriously in the wrong and I'd be wondering whether she has something to hide too, and in defending him she is actually trying to protect herself.

The mother has done all the right things including cutting contact with her friend.
I hope the little girl is getting all the support she needs.

However much the majority of the posters on Mumsnet tell the OP that they would never stay with their husband if they found out he had molested a child, the reality is that most wives and girlfriends do stay with their paedophile partners. or the majority of woman who are married to a paedophile are either paedophiles or paedophile sympathisers.

We need to give up this crap about “you don’t know what you would do” surely if you apply that kind of thinking to something like staying with a child mollester you can apply it to any scenario in life.

Nobody knows that they wouldn’t abuse a child themselves for instance? Or that they wouldn’t ever become a serial killer? After all, “nobody can say for certain what they’d do”

It’s a load of bollocks and allows some of the most awful people in society to try to gain acceptance of their equally awful behaviour, namely that of defending a paedophile and minimising their actions as consequence.

The man isn’t responsible for this woman staying with him. She and she alone is.

And by saying that we shouldn’t be so hard on the women who choose to stay, you are also minimising what happened to the OP’s dd. The only victim here is the child and her parent. The friend isn’t a victim if she chooses to stay. She’s an accessory as far as I’m concerned.

Don’t ever tell women that they don’t know what they would do. Because no decent woman would stay.

In fact if my partner turned out to be a paedophile there’s a chance I’d be the one doing time, because I’d want to kill the fucker myself. Obviously in that instance I don’t know that I would, but I 100% do know that I wouldn’t be sticking by him.

He needs locking up. I don't understand how she can stay with him. It's just a deal breaker isn't it? You have to have certain boundaries in relationships, and him being a paedophile is definitely crossing a line. He most likely abuses her too.

I would cut off all contact as well. I hope your little girl will be ok 💐

Having historic experience of these situations, the only adult man that ‘babysits’ my daughter is my husband, her father.

M does not have any choice to cut contact. Social services will be involved and will ensure she safeguards her child. Unless MBF has nothing more to do with BFH, M will not be able to continue he the relationship unless she only sees MBF on neutral ground for example. Unfortunately I have been involved in exactly this.

I take it MBF doesn't have children of her own? If so are they safe?