Should I let my children see my paedophile FIL?

[FiremanSamsFireEngine]

I hope you can help me with this awful situation. Over 3 years ago, when I was pregnant with our first child, my husband and I discovered that my FIL had been arrested for downloading thousands of the most serious levels of child pornography, systematically for over a year. He plead guilty and was convicted. My DH was shocked and devastated as you can imagine, and I didn't ever want to see him again, and certainly not let our children (we have now had 2 kids) ever have any contact. At the time my husband said that our children would never have to have any contact with him.

Our children have never met my FIL, and my husband has limited contact with his family. 3 years on and my husband now wants our children to attend gatherings of his extended family where his father will be present. He no longer wants his father airbrushed out of our lives.

I am freaking out. I don't see what good it will do to introduce our children this man. It goes against every single one of my instincts to protect them - physically and emotionally. As they get older (they are 3 and 2) they will start to ask more and more questions. I don't know how I will be able to answer why they don't see their grandfather often, why he doesn't touch them (over my dead body) when they see him. What if they go to embrace him? etc etc... It's just going to get more and more complicated and horrible.

A paedophile is someone with a sexual interest in children, not just someone who assaults children. He has demonstrated a seriously dishonest nature (he managed to keep his obsession a secret, even from his wife, for over a year). I do not want our children to have contact with someone like this. It will just get more and more emotionally complicated for everyone.

Me and my husband have been at loggerheads over this for some time. I have finally agreed that we'll attend a family gathering next week and the kids will be introduced to the FIL, but with strict ground rules. Just an introduction: "this is Daddy's daddy", no physical contact, and that this is not the start of some sort of reconcillation. I feel sick about it, and am very worried I am doing the wrong thing in an attempt to make my husband happy (he has acknowledged he is only doing this for himself, not for the kids).

What would you do? Could you imagine yourself ever agreeing to this?

I won't be able to check this forum until tomorrow night, but hope I can get some sense from other people (due to the shameful nature of this I have been unable to talk to friends about it) and will be able to reply then. Thanks in advance

There would be no way in hell I would let my DCs see FIL if I was in your shoes.

Also DH would be XH very very quickly if he wanted them to meet his father.

Even if I didn't have children I would not be able to stand in a room with a child rapist or paedophile. If my husband expected me to do this with my children I think I would think he needed some seriously counselling to accept what has gone on.

I would INSIST that my children are not forced into the company of a pedophile, regardless of who he is.

If my DH tried to force me to allow it to happen I have to be honest and say it would be a marriage-breaker for me. My role as their mum is to protect them from everyone who may bring them physical or emotional harm or who is a potential risk to their welfare. I have recently banned someone from our home who is within our immediate family for his completely inappropriate behaviour towards my 4yr old and I am taking a lashing for it but to be frank if they don't like it they can get lost.

My kids safety is paramount and no family title would influence me otherwise. It would not even be a conversation in our house - it wouldn't happen.

What are your thinking ??? Because other people will be there you think they will be safe? Really?

soup are you suggesting that people on this thread that are adament they would NOT let their DCs have contact with a known paedophile, and would not compromise that just because the paedophile was their FiL, are being hysterical?

But he would need counselling, wouldn't he? His dad, whom he loves and has a lifetime relationship with, supports child rape. That's surely enough to screw anyone up?

As others have said, you are in an extremely difficult and unenviable position OP.

Sex offending (particularly where the victim is a child) is still one of the taboo subjects in our society. The overwhelming reaction is always - they should be locked up and the key thrown away. However, I believe there to be around 250 000 individuals on the current sex offender register - the prison population stands at around 88 000 and prisons are fit to burst. Therefore, in order to lock up every sex offender, we would have to release all murderers, arsonists, violent offenders and robbers that the prisons currently hold.

That is, of course, not to say that sex offenders should be free to continue to behave how they want. Those who do not go to prison (and I make no judgement on the rights and wrongs of this decision by the judiciary) and instead receive a community penalty are subject to demanding orders. You talk about your FIL undertaking counselling - I am assuming you mean a sex offender treatment programme?? These are demanding courses with a huge emphasis on increasing victim emapthy and taking responsibility for the offending. Of course, even after the completion of such work, there is no guarantee that the offender won't re-offend (although some research suggests that these programmes do decrease the risk of re-offending)and I fully understand your concerns about FIL now having contact with your own children.

Your MIL, in my opinion, is wrong to minimise his offending by saying it was a non contact offence. In my mind, non contact offences are just as damaging as contact offences. By down loading those images, your FIL in contributing to the supply and demand of images of children being sexually abused. The children in those pictures are real, as is the abuse. Also those children will grow up and will have to live their lives knowing that there are pictures on the internet of them being abused and little can be done about this. Psychologically this is very damaging.

Did you say that FIL is no longer on the sex offender register? Is there a Sex Offender Prevention Order (SOPO) in place? I believe that these are managed by the Police Public Protection Unit and will set out conditions that the offender must stick to. Failure to do so will result in breach of the SOPO and your FIL could be returned to Court. The reason I ask is that this could set out rules about things like contact with children at family parties and gatherings etc... If not, then it really is down to you and your H to decide how best to protect your children.

Once again you are in a tough position. Sex offenders can often be very pleasant and plausible individuals. It is important that people do not fall for the high level of manipulation that they can possess. If you truly do not feel comfortable with this situation, then your H perhaps needs to respect your feelings at this time. I agree with others who have said that if he feels he wants to have a relationship with his father, then he should do so. Would he go to the family gathering alone? I wish you well and hope that you are able to make a decision you feel comfortable with

Yes, he does LePrune.

I don't think it's relevant what attraction the FIL may or may not have to the children. The OP's job is simple: protect her children from harm. FIL is s convicted paedophile and she has the benefit of not having a history with FIL, unlike her DH, so she can see things without the conflicting emotions he is suffering with.

I feel for OP and her dh I really do.

NO wouldn't even need discussing. Your DH should put his children befre his feelings, i'm sure it must be very hard for him but that's for him to deal with.

No. Never.

No way. You DH needs to get his priorities right.

I cannot imagine the hell you're going through OP. Your dh's memories of his father are loving and warm. I think he's compartmentalised his dad's behaviour. I couldn't. It's part of who he is. The fact that he's been caught recently doesn't mean he didn't harbour feelings of sexual interest in children prior to his conviction or since.
I can see why your dh wants his dad back in his life. That's his choice and his prerogative as an adult.
Your role is to protect your children from harm - you can only do that by not allowing your fil to see your children. I cannot understand your dh's attitude towards his dad seeing your children. I think you need to categorically state your feelings to your dh that it would severely compromise your marriage. Huge sympathy to you, I hope you can make him see reason.

Sarah - he's had three years to choose to work through this. It is not reasonable of him to act as though he only found out yesterday. I'm sorry, but he has kids, he does not get to hang onto 'shock & disbelief' indefinitely whilst putting them & his wife in this situation. He just doesn't.

At the time my husband said that our children would never have to have any contact with him

This is how he reacted initially - now he thinks it's OK??

How the hell could you face your children in years to come if you put them in this situation, even if all he does is look at them and never touch them? How the hell would you expect them to be OK with that?

Agree with posts by Pagwatch and KatieMiddleton.

FWIW I was always abused when the house was full of relatives too. My mother knew there was something dodgy about the abuser but she normalised it and allowed him accees to her children. She regrets it bitterly.

As it stands, we have no contact with one side of the family at all - some of them deny it ever happened, some of them know it happened but can't cut contact for whatever reason - but the way it works in our house and our side of the family is, if you go to that man's house and have to do with those people, we don't see you, full stop.

OP, I do feel for you and it's going to be hard, but your duty is to your children not your DH.

You poor thing, what a nightmare :(

Do not give in to husband on this point because once he knows he can whine and bitch you into doing what he wants, he's never going to stop. You could end up with FIL coming to the house or anything.

I would not deliver my children to this paedophile and his supporting cast. Its just pure grooming - he's grooming everyone. What if he says "have you got a kiss for grandad" in front of everyone? Everyone will just think its okay and have you really got the strength to grab the children and run in the face of all that peer pressure? Abusers are master manipulators.

Your husband is going to have to suck it up - remind him that when the DCs are older they are going to be furious that he put them in harms way with a paedophile just because he couldn't stand up to his family. I think your husband is being groomed - can you speak to SS or your GP for specialist Child protection advice?

OP your FIL's conviction may only be the tip of the iceberg, for all you know he may have actually abused children out with the family or close or distant family members, in the past and they have never come forward due to fear of not being believed. Certainly you describe your DH family as being dysfunctional and as minimising your FIL behaviour so what message might this send to cousins / family friends etc?

I'm not trying to catastrophise your situation but this is exactly how abuse is alowed to carry on within families, by these myths such as "oh he was only looking at pictures - he wouldn't really do anything" Wrong - all paedophiles start somewhere,usually at a young age and usually by finding a way to justify their perverted thoughts, feelings and behaviour as normal before they move on to committing actual offences against children- how do you think looking at thousands of images and possibly entering into online dialogue with other such paedos might go some way to justifying his thoughts and behaviour?!

Family members minimising his behaviour,

believing that abusers don't abuse their families' children (wrong again - this is in reality who they are most likely to abuse due to having access),

believing that abuse won't happen if there are other adults present (wrong - again lots of abuse is carried out during family events when everyone else is downstairs etc),

the perpetrator appearing plausible, socially engaging etc (well they don't have horns in reality)

are all among the common ways that abuse is carried on and hidden witin families. Especially dysfunctional ones - (wonder why they are dysfunctional?!)

Please have no contact with him

I am not a forgiving person. I would not be able to get past this at all.

Absolutely No to the DCs seeing him. Just no. Never ever ever.

In your position, if DH chooses to 'forgive' and resume a relationship with his father, then he will have to do it on his own. The 'rules' must be completely clear that my children are not to be anywhere near this man. He is not in their family.

There is no going back from something like this. But I wouldn't be divorcing him over it. I would make it clear that it was a dealbreaker and if he wants to stay married he prioritises our children.

I am sorry you are in this position OP.

Excellent post mynewme

No, just no. I couldn't care less what ructions it would cause, safety of children come first. Wtf is your husband thinking??

So your husband wants to take his children to spend time with a man who will be looking at them and be sexually attracted to them? And your husband is ok with this? He doesn't feel the need to protect his children from this? He is ok to be with his dad, knowing that his dad isn't looking at his children with the eyes of a doting grandpa, but is probably wishing he could get 10 minutes alone with them?

Your husband is happy to take his children into the company of his father, knowing that his father will likely be having sexual thoughts about them?

We know what's wrong with your fil, but what the hell is wrong with your husband?!

I would take the children and leave him rather than allow him to offer them up to someone who I could almost guarantee would be looking at them as sexual beings.

How can you say kids, this is grandad - don't sit on his knee, don't hug him, and for god's sake don't go anywhere alone with him. You'd need to explain to them, wouldn't you? And that's another problem. How to tell your children that grandad is a paedophile.

And this may come across as a hysterical post. I am aware of that. But it is something I feel so very strongly about that it makes me a bit hysterical, tbh! You would have to prise my children out of my cold dead hands before I would let them into the company of someone I know to be a paedophile.

A lot of naivety on this thread

I wouldn't but an AWFUL lot do

No way no day, not up for discussion, just a flat firm no. Forever.

It would be a marriage breaker for me too if my Dh was insistent upon it.

Hecate it is not that simple to seperate the father who raised you happily and well and the pervert who looks at indecent images.

Her DH will not be seeing the latter but the former. It is very hard to know that the two are one and the same and even harder to imagine that the family man in the family setting would be looking through the indecent eyes/mindset.

To be it seems likely that the OP's DH is working on a leave it in the past, we've moved on, it was years ago, he'll get back to normal, forgive and forget, let bygones be bygones, etc. That in the heat of reaction he may well have declared his intent never to allow his father to see his children, but that is not only a very hard thing to physically implement, it's a very hard thing to cope with emotionally. Especially if he chooses to keep a relationship with the man himself.

I'm not saying any of this is right or wrong. Just trying to understand.

In a way to me it's better to have a known paedophile than an unknown one. I should imagine many families have one in their midst without knowing it, or with their head in the sand about it.

Photos of the children, details of their lives, and so on will be passed on by mutual family members, and there's very little way to stop that, even with long distance families.

Do not serve your children up on a plate for this pervert to enjoy. And if your DH thinks that's OK, he needs ditching too.
Urgh. Just urgh.