Shocked at DP re porn

[helpwhatnow]

(Have namechanged for this for obvious reason)

I've been with my 'D'P for almost 6 years & we are due to get married in a couple of months. We have one child together who is 4.

Tonight after he went to bed, I logged on to the internet & decided to check our family safety monitor thing, that basically monitors website activity & warns of any potential viruses or malware. I know that sometimes late at night my 'D'P accesses porn, it's never really bothered me unless it becomes too frequent & our sex life suffers. So, tonight I notice that there are quite a few porn websites he's looked at over the last week, and I realised that some of them are in the morning - when our 4yr old is up. The pc he uses is downstairs in our dining room, and the screen can easily be seen. So basically, he's been looking at videos, mainly hardcore ones, while our child has been in the next room watching cbeebies. Now luckily my DC hasn't seen anything - I am 100% sure of this, DC would have definitely told me as DC likes to play some online games with 'D'P & always tells me. But... I am so shocked, I really have no idea what to do.

I confronted my 'D'P as soon as I saw this, at first he tried to deny it, but then admitted & repeatedly apologised, promised never to do it again, suggested I blocked his access to these sites... but I'm furious with him. He put our child at risk of seeing such inappropriate things, I'm sure it would be classed as a child protection issue if DC had seen anything. I can't believe his lack of judgement, and it really worried me. The thing is we had an issue with this a long time ago when our child was a small baby, he was watching porn on the laptop instead of keeping an eye on the baby. I went mad at him when I realised & wouldn't let him have access to the laptop during the day for ages, and assumed that it wouldn't ever happen again. Now I'm starting to worry about how long he's been doing this, and how long our DC has been at risk of seeing any of it.

I really don't know what to do. It's crazy really, cos I'm sure if I was reading this post from someone else I'd be saying 'leave the bastard' but my feelings are so jumbled up. I managed to keep calm-ish when I spoke to him and really hammered home the huge issue that it is, and he agreed with me completely, but he can't answer why he didn't automatically view it that way. I said to him that he'd never sit & watch porn on the tv in case DC walked into the room, so why would he do it on the pc? He couldn't answer.

I'm devastated really, I feel like I don't even know him any more, that I have no trust or respect for him but I don't know what to do. Sure I could block his access, but he's an adult, I shouldn't have to control him like that! The crazy thing is, in every other way he's a great dad. I know it sounds such a cop out, but he really is. He plays with DC, has never laid a hand on either of us, and DC adores him, misses him when he's at work... can I really take that away from DC over a 'could have' situation? But then do I want to be with someone who can do something like this?

I don't even know why I'm posting here, I think it's just easier than discussing with someone in real life - especially at this time of night.

Any words of wisdom?

"You want him to lose everything he's got over this?"
You're missing the point, Really. Unless I'm very much mistaken no-one posting here remotely gives a fuck about this waste of space or what he's got to lose. if you think this sort of behaviour is even remotely acceptable I hope and pray you don;t have kids.
Nyac's point is well-made - the damage that is done to children by exposure to parental porn use is well understood (and borne out by her experience). don't risk it.

I was asking because my step-dad purposefully showed me porn, so was intrigued to find out what 'damage' it did, genuinely.

I do have kids, thanks. Have you spuriously decided I'm a terrible parent too?

Actually, someone here does care about this man very much. The OP. And the child in question. So I do think it is sensible to not get into a wild flap and make any life changing decisions.

-The child didn't see it.

-He wasn't wanking, he says he was bored. Yes, this concept is out of your frame of reference but hasn't claimed to have discovered a laser in his pants. It's quite plausible.

-He agrees with the OP that he's not been very sensible and he's agreed not to do this again. He's embarrassed.

-He's generally open and honest about his porn use and the OP doesn't seem to have any major issues with very casual use.

-The OP has no other issues with him whatsoever.

Where does anyone get the idea that that equates to him being a worthless sex offender who should be thrown out of his home with no further ceremony?

Oh and my husband and I have sex - with my child in the house. Regularly. Lock us up!

I've googled it

It isn't posters here who have decided that exposing children to sexual material makes you a sex offender. Parliament did, when it passed legislation to that effect.
if you think risking exposure of young children to this sort of material is a matter of not being "sensible" then you need to get a grip. The law of this country has moved past you. most people, I suspect, think that's a good thing.

beautiful your stepfather was a sexual abuser of a minor, I am very sorry

Nobody saw it though.

I asked you before hat, and you conveniently ignored it. Who here has said those things? Who has called him a sex offender you are way out. Clearly not reading the thread everyone else is. IF the child had seen it would have been an offence, they didn't so no harm done ths time. Op was pointing out to him the seriousness of what could have been. I don't see the problem? I don't understand your point, because you keep saying things, which aren't in this thread.

Beautiful, your step father was an abuser. Sadly the law and most people would say you were sexually abused. :(

So, he was sat watching hardcore porn because he was bored and had no physical reaction whatsoever? Why not watch kittens on youtube?

The fact remains that he couldn't leave the porn alone, not even when he was looking after a child.

Wank off as much as you like when you have some privacy. But not when a little boy is sat next door and you're supposed to be looking after him.

He wouldn't be trusted with my child, that's for sure. i don't care about the porn use in itself, it's the fact that he can't keep off it when a child is nearby.

Completely agree with Gay40

Despite the comments on this thread that imply it's an offence that is treated seriously - when I discovered that my now exH had regularly put our DD at risk of seeing porn in a similar way as the OPs DH (when she was asleep in her room, he was masturbating with graphic porn on screen immediately outside her bedroom door) - neither social services or the family court system were able to help.

The advice I got from SS was hopefully, he won't do it again and the family court system wouldn't have considered 'the risk' as a factor in their decision making about contact. I even contacted a psychologist who specialises in porn addiction and his advice was similar to SS - let's hope he's learnt his lesson

I was advised to ensure that DDs school and carers were aware so that if they observed any unusual or sexualised behaviour, they could alert SS - but because DD hadn't disclosed, no-one was interested in helping me prevent it from happening.
I do the best I can to make her aware without slagging off her Dad, but she spends more than half her time with him and it's very hard.

OP, this was the dealbreaker for me - my marriage was not a happy one but once I knew the risk exH was taking, it was unrecoverable. Whatever my views about porn, his casual attitude to DD's wellbeing meant that I no longer wanted to be married to him

It was suggested that the OP call the police and social services. It's a nutty suggestion and I'm happy to say it.

It's nuts.

Beautifulwho
I work in a behaviour unit. Some of the kids have been kicked out of mainstream for overtly sexual behaviour. I had to make a complaint against one boy who was using sexually inappropriate language/ gestures towards me & had been expelled from mainstream for doing the same. It may sound extreme but unfortunately he & a few others have behaved like this because they were exposed to porn at
A young age ( under 10) by parents who knew & didn't care or just didn't bother to supervise. It is damaging. It may sound extreme but unfortunately that's what I deal with on a day to day basis & the kids have told me that that wish they hadn't had seen things like that.
Op your dp did a stupid think. I don't understand why you'd want to look at porn or even think about it when you're looking after children. At the very LEAST it makes you a neglectful parent. Just sounds weird to me.

So this was a late at night thing, but has now become a morning thing when your child is getting ready to leave the house. Sounds like a growing dependency. Not good. That's even without the risk of your child seeing it.

A lot of people with sick minds love to accuse people of being a sex offender at every opportunity, don't they?

Either that, or they get their kicks from breaking up relationships via internet forums.

Not necessarily sick minds MrMiyaggi, more unfortunately due to real life bad experiences.

Theres different shades of grey though isnt there. He shouldnt be watching porn while the kids are in the next room, obviously. It would be awful to purposely expose children to porn, or be completely careless, ie watching it in the same room as them or making them watch it.
Watching it in the next room, well it would depend if it was a quick glimpse, or watching a whole movie etc. It depends how quickly he can and would have shut the screen down if little one appeared.
Theres exposure to porn and theres exposure to porn iyswim

Two of my kids have walked in on me and my dp having sex before. By your theory, that would make us sex offenders and our children at risk, but im pretty sure that has happened to most people with kids at some point. Seeing something with sex in/on it is not necessarily damaging in itself.
I do hope your dp has learnt his lesson. Social services probably wouldnt do anything because nothing actually happened. You did the right thing in your reaction, and i dont see what more you could reasonably do unless its something he keeps doing, but you said according to internet history it was a one off.

Surely you can see the difference between kids accidentally walking in on their parents having sex (presumably behind a closed door and when the kids are supposed to be asleep!) and someone putting on their favourite selection of hardcore porn while their kid watches TV next door in the morning?

Just the thought of wanting to be sexually excited whilst in charge of a child rings alarm bells.

And this started when their son was a baby so no....not a one off.

yeah of course, i can see the difference, but the actual "child seeing sexual activity" end result would be the same wouldnt it.

Just saying that a child seeing something sexual isnt always going to be without question, damaging.

It needs to be avoided, and he shouldnt have done what he did, and i just hope hes had his wake up call.

No, it isn't the same. A child fleetingly seeing their parents having sex is not the same as a child seeing a parent watching hardcore porn, or seeing the porn for themselves.

its not that different if you put "fleetingly" into both scenarios instead of just the one you want to make sound more loaded.

In actual fact when my daughter walked in on us having sex at 3, she looked really freaked out and ran out crying. It upset me for ages, although she hasnt mentioned it since, and seems undamaged. We still have sex in the house though obviously.
In this case, the children DIDNT see anything. All im saying is in a house with children in it, children are bound to see sexual things at some point. Its a grim thought, but whether its damaging is surely down to how you deal with it, and "exposing children to porn" covers a whole multitude of scenarios of differing levels of severity, and in this case the children werent exposed to it. They very stupidly were put at risk of being POTENTIALLY exposed to it, which is a bit different.

My nephew was fostered by someone who used to just watch porn on the TV during the day while my nephew (about 4 or 5) was around. Horrendous. My nephew was removed from that persons custody (hes a damaged person, but i dont think its from that) There was a boy at my ds school whos brother watched porn in the house in front of the other kids. He was suspended from school at 7/8 for telling another boy he wanted him to suck the wee out of his willy :O
Awful.
Thats damaging.

What the ops partner did was stupid, but youre lumping it all into one bracket. He needs to not be so stupid and naive, but nothing actually happened. They saw nothing.

Thank you all for your input, it has helped me to see some different views.

We had a very very long talk last night about it, and I feel that we are on our way to resolving this. He knows that there wont be any further chances, and he has to prove to me that he is capable of self restraint & common sense. He's admitted that his porn use does increase when he's feeling very stressed out, but accepts that it is not an excuse, and was really shocked when he thought about the risk he'd taken. He maintains he wasn't wanking (and I do believe that) and it was just 10 mins browsing on a couple of websites while DC was watching a favourite program on cbeebies. He also said that he wasn't aroused by it (not sure what to think about that, but the fact is I'm not able to see inside his head, so can't say for sure that he must have been) and it was more like a fascination, like some people have with horror films I don't think he's going to be able to really explain it in a way I'll fully understand, but I do accept that he understands how inappropriate it was.

It sounds like you have resolved this pretty well.

I am very much anti-porn, so would have handled this very differently, but based on what is OK in your relationship I think it's plausible that he got into a habit of surfing porn when bored (and looking after DC can be boring, hence MN) without considering how fucked up it was to be looking at that kind of material with a child nearby.

If this incident has opened his eyes to how routine looking at hardcore porn had become in his life and convinced him that he needs some boundaries on his porn-consumption, then that's good.

You are right, I think, to focus on the fact that no harm was done. Yes, he was careless and irresponsible, but your child is entirely unaffected. So there's no need to act as though he was.

One person said they'd call ss. One. Which is ott as nothing happened. The op said if it did she would call them and the police IF the child had viewed porn. Which you deemed an over reaction. It wasn't as an offence would have been committed then.

See hat. It helps to stick to the facts . You've repeatedly said things in your posts which simply were not said on this thread. No one has called him a sex offender, no one had said call the police, no one has said it WAS a criminal offence.

You sound like you have resolved this op & his reaction if genuine will hopefully stop it happening again. It's good to get another perspective. I'm sure this thread will run & run for ages though but I think you did the right thing.