A awkward Question to single mums

[Issy777]

How would you trust meeting another man when you have kids?
This will sound a horrible, uncomfortable question but I recently was witnessed to something my best friend went through a few years back
She was a single mum to her 9 year old daughter, met a guy in a restaurant we went to (a waiter) he was way too fast with her
To leave out the gruesome details, she caught him stroking daughters leg. Was horrific
She's now scared of meeting someone again. I'm in a bad relationship n think I only stay because i have two daughters n I just wouldn't.. couldn't trust another man, not just cos of what happened with bf but because it's something Iv always feared
What if u meet a guy he acts like Prince Charming, u become close so you're ready to introduce him to your child ? How can you trust his intentions? What he'd be capable off?
Just something I want to know as I know it's holding me back I know there's obvious going to be no way of knowing but for instance when and how long would u introduce your dc to new guy?

merville I don't think it's the generals of Camels opinion that anyone disagrees with. It's the fact she is raising two kids who she can't trust and seems to think Will abuse their sister or anyone else given a chance. That she doesn't think any man should ever be alone with any child Inc their own. Its the extremity of her opinion. I couldn't cope looking at my son every day and thinking soon I won't be able to trust you around your baby sister

And I think there's some bloody good sense in that attitude Re live in and alone time. Although I guess things get complicated if you were to get pregnant for example by new guy. But anyway, it's a reasonable safeguard. I'm not sure someone shouldn't have any relationship at all until the kids move out at 25 having split from their partner when pregnant, there is surely a way to balance their needs with your wants

I would find it very difficult to trust. But I would try to approach it very rationally - nothing is 100% certain, but you can draw good clues from the people around them, just constantly being aware if any red flags come up, using your best judgment, not giving him the benefit of the doubt, always putting children safety first etc.
For now, until I meet someone I think I can trust, I'm happy to be single and just focus on raising my child as best I can. It's why I don't think I could do online dating - I'd rather meet someone through other people I know and trust, and get to know him as a person before dating. As I said, there's no 100% foolproof way to avoid dating a creep (creeps will lie and manipulate).

I don’t allow anyone I don’t know access to my kids.

And their so called step mother aka their dads gf has damaged them emotionally by her attitude towards them. I think that type of attitude should be called out as abuse and given as much attention as other kinds. Emotional abuse is just as damaging and in my experience it tends to. Be quite common from new female partners towards their male partners existing children

I have a family member who dated a single mother with a daughter for 20 years, love of each other’s lives until she died of illness fairly young. They never lived together. As an adult and a mother I understand a bit more why she made that choice now. They still had a loving relationship and a good life but she put her daughter first. Respect to her.

FWIW, I understand @cantankerousCamel's position a bit more now. It's mostly due to magical thinking: 'If only he wasn't put in that position, due to no fault of his own, he wouldn't have abused me'.

I still struggle with that re my dad. I love my dad, I can't help it. I felt so sorry for him while he raped me, he would apologise constantly while he did it. I had to say 'it's okay, I love you Daddy' while he raped me because I didn't want him to feel more guilty than he already did. He even cried a lot, and I felt really horrible for wishing he would stop crying and just get on with it, because I didn't want to have to keep comforting him. I felt so sorry about it that when I told my therapist, I almost cried from the guilt of accusing him, and that wasn't to the police or anything, he wasn't going to get in trouble.

We want to love these people so badly we accept their reasoning. 'I'm sorry, I had to' or 'I couldn't resist' or 'If only you hadn't left me alone with her'.

The truth is, it is the rapist trying to escape their own conscience. No one wants to feel bad for raping, so they find something else to blame. My dad blamed his dad. Her brothers blamed being left with access. And because we want to love that person, because biology and society conditions us to love them unconditionally, we accept their excuse. We feel so sorry that they were made, by circumstances outside of their control, to rape us. It's desperately sad, but natural for us to do that.

The saddest thing of all is accepting it's a lie because then you have to grieve the good person who never existed. It's so hard to accept that no, your funny, kind, helpful dad is at the end of the day a paedophile who abused you. Because no one is wholly good or wholly bad, and he is funny, he is kind, and I want that to be the end of the story, but it isn't.

I hope @Camel gets the help she deserves to accept this truth, because rape doesn't happen due to circumstance. Rapists choose to rape and seek to make the circumstance fall into place. The best tool is not avoiding men to avoid rape, but giving your children the power to overcome whatever bad things happen to befall them, not just rape, but anything. So they have your support behind them 100%.

I think that power dynamics can affect how people behave. If my parents had been around more then my brothers would not have had access to behave the way they did.

I am no more saying my children WILL be unhealthy towards their sibling than I am saying ALL men are abusive. It’s simply mitigating risk.

I actually don’t think it is good for siblings to be in positions of power above other siblings, short of abuse, I’m not sure it is a healthy dynamic. Maybe that’s my personal experience but I’ve certainly read of other experiences that suggest this is not uncommonly painful to the younger child or a mark of deep regret to the older children.

I DO leave my husband with his children. I have to for work but due to his biological reality I cannot and will not ever fully trust him. He is much less likely to abuse because he is their biological father, this is a factor.

We are talking to a woman here who is asking about how to mitigate risk regarding men unrelated to her children. The answer is simple; you don’t have men around your children. Like if you don’t want your children to get burned, you don’t have them around fire. You don’t want them to drown, you don’t put them in water. This is the baseline.

Maybe you live near a river, so you have to have them near water, so you mitigate that and assess that risk.

I have to, every day. For me it means that I sometimes come home early unannounced, listen for anything untoward. This isn’t every day, or even every month and he knows it happens (my other half) because I’ve told him. It’s not him I don’t trust, it’s all men, however innocent they appear.

But my advice to anyone who wants to remove risk is simple; don’t let males have access to your children. Ever.

An occasional bit of babysitting doesn’t put one child in a position of power over another.

I’m truly truly sorry for what you went through but you exiuerenced an unhealthy and terrible situation. To extrapolate from that into normal family dynamics is wrong and is likely to emotionally harm your children.

But my advice to anyone who wants to remove risk is simple; don’t let males have access to your children. Ever.

I am really sorry for what you went through but I have to disagree with this. Whatever the percentage of males that commit abuse compared with females is and even if the majority of abuse by females is by the mother this will not eliminate all risk. I would hate someone who had this fear of males to leave their child with a woman who was abusive.

The safest person for me to leave my girls with is their brother. Objectively he is the safest.

The least safe, if I base it on my experience is a woman of a particular minority group.

If you want to keep your kids safe , don’t leave them with a woman. Ever.

I think both men and women can be damaging in a number of ways. So the line is just be careful who you leave your kids with. Always put them before yourself/wants/wishes.

Oh. And step mums. They can do massive damage emotionally. So don’t allow your ex to have a new partner ever either. Never. Ever.

I think some people need to take a good long look at why they are so defensive about this subject and taking things so personally.

If it wasn’t something you feared, you’d be able to rationally discuss it. That you are incapable of anything but emotive, irrational conclusion jumping and nastiness says nothing about my thought processes and everything about you

Exactly Camel. Lundy Bancroft also highlights that in his first book.

How DARE you minimise the experience of my children becausenit doesn’t fit your warped view.

It is not nonsense to say women abuse too.

Why does common sense work in picking the woman and not the man?

It only takes one error of judgement whether the person you leave your child with is male or female.

How would you feel if your husband kept checking up on you because all the reported cases of women abusing were by mothers therefore you could be a risk to the children?

My daughters were 4 and 6. They were playing in the front garden.

A women, known to have done this before and known to the police, stopped her car and tried to get them to get into the car.

They were running in to me as I came out the door having heard the gate.

Now, tell me it’s nonsense. Tell me you never read about it.

I wouldn't be leaving young vulnerable clueless little girls in a male's (esp teenage or above) care. I know someone who was abused by an older brother and I've seen other cases. Sure there are sweet, nice, sexually non exploitative boys but there are also.somr who are not and it's not worth the risk. The vast vast majority of those who are not, are never going to be open and honest about their proclibi, they'll hide it and deny it to the max.

Marco

Again back to the road analogue.

You walk down the middle of the motorway you might not get hit by a car but you very well could.

You walk on the pavement you might have some nutter mount the pavement and hit you anyway but it’s rare.

So of course you choose the pavement because the risk is so much less

That you are incapable of anything but emotive, irrational conclusion jumping

Don't you think there is some emotive, irrational conclusion jumping on your side?
Because of the horrible things that happened to you, you don't trust any men. Based on your research what percentage of children are not abused.

Earlier you said you could eliminate risk by not leaving a child with a man, now you are saying it will minimise the risk. There is a difference.

(proclivities).

The family I know of, in conjunction with the brother, are in denial and the girl has withdrawn her story, but of course keeps raising it because it won't go away. Look at the damage done to her and her family (it's her younger sister I know of her through). It's not worth the risk. Too many men (pretty much from childhood) have an inclination to an exploitative type of sexuality that most women just can't even conceive of, therefore can't believe.

CantankerousCamel
How fucking dare you. It’s not your experience. But it’s mine. It does happen, its rare yes. But it happens.
Your naive to think women are not a threat. Statistically less of a threat, yes but still a threat.