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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Please help - just found out FIL is a paedophile

665 replies

anon4 · 10/02/2008 15:44

I am in a desperate situation. Have just found that FIL is a convicted paedophile and I am 5 months pregnant. The whole of DH's family is deeply dysfunctional. I am already (within days of this shock) being put under outrageous pressure from DH's entire extended family to forgive and help FIL's attempts at rehabilitation. However my absolute gut instinct is to have absolutely nothing further to do with them and not to let our future daughter anywhere near them. I couldn't forgive myself if anything would happen, and I put mis-placed 'family loyalty' above the safety of our daughter. My protective maternal instincts are in overdrive. DH is split, and wants to see if we can work on compromises such as allowing them to see her with us present. I cannot even stomach that, and don't want her to be near these people. We are both in deep distress. I don't know what to do: follow my instincts but will bust up my DH's family, or bow to pressure to allow them some sort of access to our daughter?

OP posts:
PaulaYatesbiggestFan · 10/02/2008 22:21

i was hurt on a horse but still let my daughter ride

i was abused as a teenager and i still let my daughter alone with my dh

dont think the two compare

maybe i am over sensitive but hey

OLDroot · 10/02/2008 22:21

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Pan · 10/02/2008 22:21

seeker - no probs. And the answer is still the same. Not for any appreciable length of time at all.

PaulaYatesbiggestFan · 10/02/2008 22:22

oldroot you dont know that

monkeytrousers · 10/02/2008 22:22

Sorry if this has moved on but re this, "For example, I think it is an overreaction to not let him see the newborn baby. Let's be realistic - letting him peer into the pram at her face isn;t going to cause her harm and is extremely unlikely to give him a perverted thrill."

That isn't the point. Him getting on or off on things is not the point. Him being utterly untrustworthy is, emotionally ^especially. We make emotional, trusting bonds with families when we give birth. We are not tools in anyones rehabiltation. The mother has an absolute right to protect herself and her child from emotional distress.

OLDroot · 10/02/2008 22:22

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KerryMum · 10/02/2008 22:22

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OLDroot · 10/02/2008 22:23

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hunkermunker · 10/02/2008 22:23

I still would like the 1 in 4 children has had inappropriate sexual contact with an adult thing clarified, please.

VictorianSqualor · 10/02/2008 22:24

Kerry, your argument that xdh wouldnt abuse them for whatever reason, IMO, is a justification to yourself, one which any one of us could make for any of the men we may leave our children with, and tbh, utter bollocks.
Do you think if he really was a paedophile he'd be worried about you?
I'm also saddened that even the man you chose to have children with you wouldn't trust not to be a paedophile, just to be able to control his urges because of what you might do to him.

PaulaYatesbiggestFan · 10/02/2008 22:24

i beg to differ oldroot

25 years went past before i dealt publicly with my abuse...i have friends who have kept the secret longer

PaulaYatesbiggestFan · 10/02/2008 22:24

i beg to differ oldroot

25 years went past before i dealt publicly with my abuse...i have friends who have kept the secret longer

hunkermunker · 10/02/2008 22:24

Um, I mean "thing" as in "scenario" - I didn't mean inappropriate sexual contact with "an adult thing"

seeker · 10/02/2008 22:25

Hang on - 'the assumptions some of US have?"!!!!!!

You are assuming that 50% of the population are potential child abusers - and you're saying that other people are making unreasonable assumptions?

OLDroot · 10/02/2008 22:25

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sprogger · 10/02/2008 22:26

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KerryMum · 10/02/2008 22:27

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overprotected · 10/02/2008 22:27

I have namechanged.

I grew up protected from all men, because of the possibility I might be abused by them. The reason for this was that my mum was abused by a family friend, and when she told she wasn't believed, so she took the view of some on this thread, that her children would be protected from all men, in case they did to us what was done to her. I have one sister and a brother, and we have all experienced this in different ways.

As a teenager I felt unable to relate to boys at all. I found it impossible to be alone with them, I wasn't able to form relationships, because I had grown up never knowing what it was like having a one to one relationship with anyone of the opposite sex. The first time I was kissed by a boy I ran away because I had been brought up to believe that intimacy from anyone male was wrong. It has taken me until I was 25, and several years of counselling, to finally accept that all men are not out to get me.

My sister on the other hand, rebelled when she was a teenager. Because she craved love she went looking for it, and became very promiscuous. She fell pregnant at 13 and had a termination, and did the same at 15. She has a serious drug addittion, and she has been unable to hold on to any relationship.

My brother has never had a relationship because he grew up knowing that men should not be trusted, so he doesn't trust himself to be with a woman, because he feels that if he ever had children with a woman, he would not be allowed to have a relationship with them, in the same way we were never allowed to have relationships with men as children.

And we didn't grow up as part of a disfunctional family, our mother was an inteligent, level headed woman who said she was always there to protect us. She never told us that men were evil, she just never let us be alone with any of them, and once we got older it became more obvious that this was what was happening.

Those who think it won't damage your children, think again.

monkeytrousers · 10/02/2008 22:27

People have the right to judge every situation on its own details - but until those details are known the mother must always trust her protective instincts and, I'd say, stubbornly resist any attempts to rush her into a decision.

This is plain logic. The father, hoiwever torn, will hopfully understadn this.

seeker · 10/02/2008 22:27

Can we have a source for the 25% figure, please?

PaulaYatesbiggestFan · 10/02/2008 22:27

Oldroot

you NEVER know,,,,,,,, you dont

Pan · 10/02/2008 22:28

oh I don't know OLDroot!! An hour, an afternoon, that sort of thing. The men she knows also have children, genearally, so being alone with them is unlikely to arise. Of the two men who don't have children, one is gay, and she chats away happily most in his company than anyone elses.

KerryMum · 10/02/2008 22:28

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ladylush · 10/02/2008 22:28

OLDroot - I think your attitude is sensible. I would not hesitate to ask my db to babysit my 3 yr old.

MommaFeelgood · 10/02/2008 22:28

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