I Cannot believe I am having to talk about this...

[filee777]

I've just come down the stairs having gone for a bit of a lie down, up at 5.40 with the kids this morning, to find my husband looking at porn while my child is in the room with him!

My three year old child!

He jumped up and opened the door, meeting me at the bottom of the stairs and asked me 'why i wasn't still sleeping' and i sort of said 'can i come in' and he let me, but when i checked my computer there were open pages of porn on there!

I said 'what the hell is this' and he said that he just 'wanted to see what would come up in google'??? so I said 'with our son in the room?' and he said the boy had been playing on the other side of the room - that doesnt make it any better in my eyes.

hes just tried to give me a cuddle and i ignored him and he asked 'if i was pissed off' with him and I very much said yes, did some dishes and have come upstairs.

i dont want to talk to him or even LOOK at him right now, my bloody kid was in the room! Surely that is TOTALLY unacceptable????

So annoyed.

Lets ignore her tireddog...there is an op out there who if she comes back to this thread does not need to read some of this shite.

I feel desperately sorry for the OP

Horrid situation and the thread has turned into an unhelpful spat

Exactly....
The best advice was at the beginning. Contact nspcc and childlike. Get your husband out.

Bloody hell. I'm so sorry Filee. I can only imagine how upset, angry and confused you must feel. I can only say that in your position, as much as it would kill me and as much as I wouldn't want to believe that my DH was being abusive, I'd have to seek advice from someone official. It's just too big an issue to fuck up. But I am so, so sorry that you're in this position. It's life changing.

Well feel free to let your imaginations run wild :)

Or use the report button if you think it's a PA? That's what it's there for and I'm sure MNHQ won't mind.

I don't have any more to say than I have. I hope the op gets some RL support to deal with the situation because I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

I actually think Internet porn is potentially very addictive and it sounds like it has got out of control for your partner. Without condemning him, I would suggest he goes to sex and love addicts anonymous. I don't think you guys can deal with this on your own if its gone this far.

Skye......the evidence of the grooming is already there. Why do people seem to think that grooming consists of actual physicality? The OP's partner damn well thought about what he was doing to the point that he jumped up when OP came upstairs. If he was being a knob, he would have been more relaxed. "Grooming" basically means making the abuser's targets minds weak to the point that they do not believe that they have seen what they have damn well seen and "acceptable". Then the "overt" stuff starts. OP , if she takes the right advice will have the luxury of nipping something in the bud before looking back with regret at all the "innocent" stuff that she ignored.

I think it's useful to have a bit of balance on this thread. This is real people's lives. What the husband did was highly inappropriate and I would too be livid with him.

But...was it abusive? If the husband engineered things so that the child was able to see the screen or was being cuddled or sitting next to dad, whilst husband was watching? That's a yes for me. But was husband absently or discretely looking whilst child absorbed in something else and couldn't see anything? Not so clear cut and could reflect nothing more than sheer stupidity / selfishness, call it what you will.

In that situation, I would want husband out of the house and I would casually and gently ask my 3 year old about their day so far and take it from there...

It doesn't matter what is intention was just now.
The point is he was looking to get off in front of some porn whilst in very close proximity to a young child.
Either he is so bereft of any sense of proprietary that he should not be alone with a child
Or he was grooming so should not be alone with a child.

For what it's worthi find it hard to believe that a loving parent can be in any doubt if this was appropriate so my instinct would be he knew exactly what he was doing.

I understand what you are saying and obviously the safety of the child is paramount but this is somebody's life and family that we are talking about.

I'm not justifying his behaviour in any way but trying to say rationally that there is a difference.

Should the OP really break up her family and get him arrested if he has just been a totally stupid twat? Would you all really kick out your husbands and report them for child abuse, the second that you walked in on that scenario?

I agree that the end result was the same but you have all hung the guy as a paedo already.

Could you not use paedo?
It's not the fucking Sun comments page.

I don't think this debate will help op AT ALL.

It was highly inappropriate and it is WRONG to have poem on in the same room as a 3 year old. End of.

I think we're all agreed she should get him out so she can think it through. She should also contact nspcc for some advice, anonymously if she likes.

Op...are you still reading? Hope you're ok x

• porn on

A link to our guidelines
Thanks

Just spoke to dh. Asked a general q re watching porn with 3 year old in the same room.. From his pov,it isn't abuse-against the law AS LONG as dp wasn't sat there tugging his todge or trying to engage dc in any activity. NSPCC will offer advice.

filee I'm really sorry, but I side with the majority here (well, everyone bar one in fact).

There's one thing which isn't clear to me from what you've said. Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but if not then I think you need to ask yourself this.

IF in a moment of madness I decided to have a sneaky look at porn with DH out of the room and DS nearby (not something I'd contemplate, by the way), and if I was taking the utmost care not to let DS see it... I wouldn't jump up and block the door, leaving DS with the computer. I'd just shut the laptop. I'd rather get caught than leave DS to see anything like that. Shutting the laptop is just so much easier and the more obvious thing to do, even if you're panicking. The fact that he didn't makes me wonder if there was something else he didn't want you to see or find out about. I don't know what, and I'm not going to speculate, but does what I'm saying make sense?

Maybe this is something that can easily be cleared up - something down to the layout of the room and/or the type of laptop, I don't know.

Oh dear that would make me livid and send massive alarm bells ringing..... what have you decided to do?

OP doing a course in sw, is that right?

I don't think it matters one jot whether op is doing a course in social work or in cake decorating, tbh

Kringle, I assume your husband isn't familiar with Section 12 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003?

Back off on the questions about OP's training please. Afaik she's a few weeks into the course and absolutely not a social worker and shouldn't be expected to have the knowledge that a social worker does.

I would assume so, his role is current(till retirement in 6 yrs). I'll text him when he gets to work and ask the question.

OP

I suspect all these posts are quite worrying for you as you probably felt pissed off with your husband's stupidity initially and hadn't thought about the legal aspects of an adult watching porn in the same room as a child. Though, obviously if you are training to be a social worker it should really have been one of your first thoughts, if not your first.

Your priority is to your child, not your relationship. Your 3 year old can't protect himself so you have too. What age is your other child? Is your husband your son's biological father?