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?

And actually. This is verging on hounding me now and feeling like a personal attack so I’m going to bow out.

I hope all those who struggle as a result of abuse peace and strength 💐.

Good luck to you then, by how trusting you seem to be you'll need it. Good night.

Nasty.

You have no idea of my personal circumstances and you couldn’t resist that nasty dig.

Wow.

ftfoawygtfosm I honestly do not have any beef about your son or my son.

I think in general I am very cautious about unknown people and especially unknown males.

When it comes to males I know I guess I trust them to an extent but I don't think I 'owe' anyone my trust even if I have known them a long time.

All the people who commit crimes against adults or children are known to someone, sometimes people are not surprised, sometimes people are surprised and shocked.

Of course I hope I can trust my son. But every single abuser is someone's son. For the record my son is a fabulous little boy, he is literally the bravest not I have ever met and my husband is literally the kindest man o have ever met!

Yet, despite my amazing family, I am very cautious about people, I've just read too much really.

"bravest boy I have ever met ...

ftfoawygtfosm I have said repeatedly I do not want this to be personal and I have not been hounding anyone. I felt Camel was very much hounded up thread.

I just want to talk about the issues.

Yes. Hang out at their brothers home.

I had a fwb for about 8 months, met online then irl about 3 months after exdp cheated on me. Never had fwb here when ds was here. Nice bloke, it fizzled out, we still message each other from time to time. Now I'm more sure than ever it would have to be really serious, a year plus, for a guy to even meet ds. Met some odd men when I was online dating, asking too many questions about dc too soon, even after I'd given my stock response of sorry it's too soon for me to talk about my kid, and trying to change the subject. Gave me the creeps. I find it hard to trust people now, but that's maybe not a bad thing?

My own stepdad isn't pervy, but my mum did move him in very soon after meeting him. She didn't leave us alone with him for a long time, but still. They argued loads and we argued loads, I'd take my mums side, he'd throw a tantrum, and she'd take his side and remind me it was non of my business. If he broke stuff, filled the laptop with viruses via porn, etc he'd blame me (in the end, I learned how to access his cookie log/cache in his browser, just so I could show my mum what he'd been looking at ). I'll never throw my ds out, unless he commits some sort of unspeakable crime. And I'll never put anyone before him, he's my number one priority. And having another man move in, would just feel like having another person to look after anyway, unless it was the right type of man, sadly increasingly hard to find...

This thread is a more than a little crazy.

But in the end, you teach your children to take good precautions, but if you want to eliminate all risk then you're really trying to keep your children in a glass cage ... and really, really not teaching them how to cope with the genuine risks in life that you just won't be around to protect them from.

Apart from anything else, children grow up and get minds of their own, luckily.

Accepting the risks that can happen is searingly painful if you've been one of the unlucky ones. But I don't see what else you can do if you want to be a healthy parent, and not one that passes on their own deep wounds.

I think unless you've been abused yourself you can't possibly know how uncomfortable you'd feel leaving your young child with much older adults (I'm being careful not saying man or woman)
Personally I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving my dc with their older siblings friends, even if I'd known them for years. Most children are abused by someone they know and trust. Pedophiles aren't the weirdo in the bushes. They're (unfortunately) people we trust.
Its also not ott to assume siblings abuse their younger siblings

Italian greyhound
What does 🔁 mean?
Round in circles

Thanks, SleepingStandingUp. Hard to see it on my phone! Now on PC.

OKPedro and camel, agreed.

With abuse comes awareness. I'm sure the people mostly telling camel to seek help have never been abused.

It's not such an extreme viewpoint if you have been abused.

All abusers are someone's son or brother or husband. They are usually really nice, afable charming people. They don't look or act any different and they do not come with a sign above their head announcing their arrival. Yes sometimes their are red flags that get ignored but oftentimes there are none.

So my default position is like camel. I do not allow my young and tween children to be looked after by males, even their cousins and people they have known all their life.

I would not use a nursery with a male nursery nurse. I would not see a male nurse and when seeing a male Dr, if undressing is involved, they call a nurse. I would not use a male babysitter.

I do not allow my child to be looked after by males except her dad, who despite being a total idiot, I trust him to an extent for this. Like camel I don't think I ever fully trust.

My daughter has been to two different houses for sleepover now because one of the mums has a boyfriend and he has started to stay over, I have stopped the sleepovers if I know he will be there, he works away for weeks at a time so if he is away then I may say yes. He does not even live there and there has been together 2.5 years but I don't know him well enough. I was quite annoyed as at first she never even told me that he had started to stay over or would be there. Hence sleepover stopped. Even when we like and know people, what about the people around them?

Also do we ever really know people well enough?

CRB check isn't worth anything as if you have never been caught or charged or sentenced then it will come back clear.

Camel did take a lot of bashing on this thread and I really think many were projecting. She repeatedly said not to take her words personally as it was her viewpoint for her life and she called no ones son a monster.

I do not think all men are abusers or paedophiles but most violence and most sex crime, yes 98 % of sex crime is male.

The namalt brigade can piss off as everyone knows that but far too many are.
Women do this yes but 2% versus 98%. No not 98% of all men but 98% of sex offenders are men.

I don't let my child have male teachers if in a smaller setting or one on one so sue me.
Her dance teacher for instance is female. She is 9 now but I wouldn't let her have a male teacher till I was sure of her (probably 14 or 15) and even then never 1 to 1.

And the mothers introducing their children to men after weeks please stop and think of your children. One act can wreck their lives. Abuse stays with you forever.

Abuse stays with you forever. yes!

While I don't subscribe to as extreme views or actions as camel I can understand why she feels as she does.

As I said I was very cautious about who dd was left with when she was growing up. And I do think that was very much due to having been a victim myself.

Other parents are to my mind lax in many ways, I despair when learning of in real life or on here parents introducing new partners within weeks of meeting them, when they BARELY know them at all. There's NO need for it!!

Oh lord. All this 'well if you'd been abused.. knowing look'

I have been abused! And I do think it's extreme to think EVERY man is a would-be rapist. I DID think that, and then I went to therapy, and realised limiting your life to an extreme because of something that may or may not happen is harmful in other ways.

Be prepared for the worst, hope for the ... average?

My daughter knows body rules, knows she can talk to me if she feels bad about anything. She might be abused. She might be abused in school by a teacher or an older child. She might be abused by her ballet teacher. She might be abused by her own father (I doubt it, but nobody really knows for sure).

And if she is, she will still be a wonderful, wonderful girl capable of amazing things, and we will get through it together, and I will make sure whoever did it faces consequences. All of that minimises the risk of PTSD.

One's life is not over after abuse. Mine certainly isn't. But if you never, ever trust anyone because they might abuse, it suggests that a) your life is over if you are abused, b) they can't tell you if they ARE abused because you will feel so horrible that all your precautions were for nothing, and c) that life is best when intensely limited 'just in case'.

I will not be taking ridiculous risks- no new friends/boyfriends/girlfriends around my daughter, no throwing her at random people to babysit- but to take such intense precautions, to never trust anyone, is too much.

Also- hypervigilance comes with its own health risks, so there's that.

Think this post has spiralled our pf control lol
Hope no one took offence but this is the reality SMs face
What happened to my friend was awful there were no red flags except maybe he moved in too fast and liked to spend time as a "family"
How can u tell? There's just no way of knowing

@Issy777 have you given any more thought to leaving your unhealthy relationship and just being single for a year or so? Or dating low key with no access to the kids?

There's no way of knowing for sure but there's indicators sometimes - red flags, even Amber flags maybe.

But if you introduce a new boyfriend or whatever to your DC before when YOU know them very well - which yes I would say takes AT LEAST 6 months, then you're not even giving the situation enough time for you to observe if there's indicators, it isn't long enough for the mask/rose tinted glasses to slip.

There's even research on this relating to even just the romantic aspect. Generally speaking the first 6 months to a year we tend to be on our best behaviour in a new relationship - there's believed to be evolutionary reasons for this of course.

But nobody can keep up a front for that long so as time goes on less endearing traits show through/we start to be less careful about being on best behaviour.

I suspect/believe similar advice is given to people who've previously been victims of domestic abuse. To take it slow, be aware of certain behaviours etc. It's another thing we see on mn far too frequently sadly, victims of da leaving one abusive relationship only to end up with another abuser. And that's not their fault there are many complex reasons why victims of abuse are more vulnerable to more abuse/abusers than other people are. But that's why they're advised to be more cautious.

I once spoke to an expert in the field of child abuse. A person who designed training for those working in this area. I didn't tell him I was a victim but I suspect he figured it out.

He said a couple of things that really stuck with me

1 that paedophiles who abuse within their family/close circle are no less an abuser than those who abuse strangers. He was firmly of the belief they were simply lazy in not seeking outside that circle, fortunate there were victims already available to them. This was against the accepted wisdom at the time (almost 30 years ago)

2 that certain people are more vulnerable to being targeted by abusers than others - again NOT their fault but for a variety of complex reasons. This again was against accepted wisdom at the time. He said he was having a particular battle with getting police to accept that someone who's been raped once is actually MORE likely to be raped again. This has since been borne out by several studies undertaken by various charities that deal with victims.

It's REALLY hard to address though as the very people most vulnerable to abuse tend to be the hardest to reach. Not least because if their abuser/potential abuser is in their life they don't want them knowing how to protect themselves.

Such a difficult thing to deal with.

I think this thread is helpful. I hope it is making people aware that there are different levels of vigilance.

I think some degree of vigilance is hard wired into us. Experiences might amplify of course.

I am a Christian and I think to some degree Christian women or other faith groups might be more vulnerable as family is seen as ideal. Not 'just having a boyfriend'.

If I lost dh I would probably remain single but this thread has shown me I could have a non-live-in-boy-friend. I am still not sure I would bother but this thread has helped me to see that a single parent could have an emotional relationship without rushing to re-marry.

I mean I knew it all along but this thread has helped me see that if i did lose dh I would have other options than to stay single or get re-married.

Hope that makes sense.

graphista That's interesting
Did he say why women who had been raped were more likely to be raped again?
My abuser was a family member, my father was an alcoholic. My mother was trying to hold the family together while living in poverty and with an abusive husband. I was a good, quiet kid.. I basically had a target on my head

Makes sense to me Italiangreyhound :-)

OkPedro I'm so sorry to hear that.

Thanks Italian

Okpedro we could be twins! Also alcoholic father, quiet shy kid.

Yes - he said it was only his opinion but basically girls/women who'd already been conditioned by "lesser" or rather different types of abuser. So usually emotional or physical abuse in their other relationships meant they were also vulnerable to more vile abuse. Hard to get the terminology non offensive. I've read/noticed various studies, news reports etc since and what the "experts" seem to be learning is that potential victims develop certain mannerisms that mark them out as a suitable target (which is NOT to say that it is EVER the victims fault just that predators hone in on mannerisms that they know mean someone is less likely to fight, tell, remove themselves from the abuse).

It's things like body language, speech and voice patterns, and one study noted that potential victims have something different about their natural body odour - meaning the bastards can literally sniff us out

With my dad obviously he knew me though. One of the reasons my sister doesn't believe me is because he never did anything to her. But these creeps have personal preferences like any normal sexually active person and we're very different physically, but also I'm pretty sure she would have made a real fuss, told someone fairly quickly probably several people and I think he recognised that and it was an act of self preservation

And bro escaped sexual abuse because I don't think he has any interest in boys. Though he got other types of abuse so certainly didn't escape it

But I've also been assaulted by strangers, vague acquaintances and had dates be more persistent than is acceptable. I did go through a stage of thinking wtf is wrong with me!

Especially as the stranger assaults were broad bloody daylight when I was in rag order! Definitely not "looking sexy"!!

And I think it's a fairly normal reaction to think "why me?'

Talking/listening to that guy was revelatory. At the time I met him such ideas were very much being dismissed, rape and sa and Csa were seen as rare and there was a LOT of victim blaming.

Something else he said which I didn't at the time take much heed of until certain events.

He said it won't be recognised just HOW prevalent it is until there's a major scandal involving large number of victims. Not something anyone WANTS to be true of course but I must admit that popped back into my head when all the Jimmy Savile, rolf harris etc stuff started coming out.