Unintended D pic

[AspirationaJess]

I’m in desperate need of advice and guidance.

I have a 14yo daughter. I am in a 5 year relationship with my fiancé who also has a daughter.

We are in the thick of selling his home and buying a home together.

I have an incredibly acrimonious relationship with my ex. He has a criminal conviction for domestic abuse and has caused no end of misery for us from the emotional, to financial to psychological. I have my children 11/14 days.

To the issue at hand.

My daughter and I had words as she overheard a conversation that we were reluctant to share fully with her re the house sale and she was mardy about it.

Fast forward a few hours and she sent me a code to access her Snapchat account which I manage from my email. According to her, she was logged out or something.
So I sent her the code and somehow she accessed my Snapchat account. On reflection, I suspect she knew she could obtain information re the earlier conversation behind my back and tried her luck.

I don’t particularly use Snapchat but last week while I was away with work, my fiancé and I were sexting (utilising the hotel WiFi) and one picture was saved in the chat. Unfortunately, this was a picture of his erect penis.

I’d like to be clear that the intended audience was me. No one else. The fact that she has had sight of this is horrifying and embarrassing and the emotions we (partner and I) are feeling are incredibly wide ranging.

There’s a full digital footprint of what happened- her asking for the code, me giving her it, her telling me she accidentally accessed my account then her saying she saw something she didn’t expect.

My daughter is more concerned with the fact that people of our age ‘shouldn’t’ be doing this. How this somehow makes HIM a weirdo and she feels weird about him.

Obviously we would never have intended her to see this and we are very frightened that this has the potential to be misconstrued. Especially as her dad is proactive with devastating results at times.

I’ve spoken to her about privacy. About how we haven’t done anything wrong by doing those things in an adult consensual relationship. About how we never intended her to see it. About how she was not the intended recipient and how she can’t communicate him being weird in relation to this because it has a certain connotation.

We are honestly incredibly careful and aware of our dynamic and our intimacy and I’m devastated we have potentially exposed ourselves to something which will be taken massively out of context and be life altering.

I’ve woken up to her playing music and being cheery. Saying she’s fine and no visible signs of upset.

She does have a habit of saying things to provoke a reaction and i have massive worries she will drop this in conversation to her dad or someone else with unknown results.

We honestly don’t know what to do. If anything.

We’ve flip flopped around attacking this head on and speaking to authorities or a solicitor. We’ve thought about ignoring it and continuing on as though nothing happened. We’ve thought about calling off our entire relationship incase IT’s misconstrued.

I think the issue is massively more risky because of my malicious ex being incredibly vocal about not liking my partner or me and being very bitter about the punishments he’s been given because of his behaviour. He’s said on numerous occasions he will ruin my life and he’s also intimidated he’s not comfortable with our children living with another man. For all of these reasons, we have major fear.

Any input would be appreciated.

Your anxiety around her fsthers behaviour is getting the best of you. I'm still scared of my ex, it's a funny place to be in and people rarely understand how much control those people have over your.

Your teenage daughter accessed your personal account, she then CHOSE to snoop around, and found a picture. 14yos aren't stupid, they know about sex, porn, sexting, she knew what she was doing by snooping around your account. She was in the wrong, you were not, neither were your partner. You stick to the truth if it comes up "she went on my personal snap chat and looked through my messages and found what you'd expect on an adults phone in a long term relationship." It's perfectly normal to send, receive, and have sexual photos of your partner on your phone. She should respect your privacy more.

So if that's not appropriate do you think having sex with children in the house is inappropriate? How do you think parents conceive subsequent siblings? Is it also inappropriate for adults to masturbate with children in the house? Kiss? Cuddle? Where's your line?

@Katrinawaves right so you want to treat a 14 year old as an adult, okay.

No but a reasonable expectation of privacy with safeguards in place (which they were, her daughter just found a way to get through them) is completely reasonable even if you have children.

If parents have sex in their bed under the same roof as children and take reasonable measures to avoid their child seeing it (rule to always knock on a door before entering, doing it when they are already asleep etc) but their child doesn't knock / wakes up and comes in, would you say they were irresponsible for having sex while their child is home even if asleep? If so, what is your solution? Don't have sex if at home?

@INeedToClingToSomething

Personally I would be removing internet access and phone use for some time until she could prove that she was mature enough not to engage in such behaviour.

I feel that anger at the daughter isn't going to acheive a thing and the above could apply to both the adults and the child in this situation.

No, she shouldn't have deliberately tried to access your account, ideally you wouldn't have given her access to technology that you don't understand, in which case it wouldn't have happened.

I feel that you're conflating your understandable anxiety and fear around your ex with the situation at hand. The two aren't connected. It sounds as though he's really put you through the wringer, but don't jump before you've been bitten.

This is not the first time your DD14 has seen an erect penis, I will bet. There is no need to contact a solicitor, the police, your local MP or anyone else. What is done is done, explain to her honestly how you feel, and what your worries are, and why. She's old enough to know. Use it as a learning experience, for all of you. Nobody is to blame, it's a set of circumstances, you're all human. No amount of getting angry with her will help, it will make it worse.

Whatever you do, don't volunteer information to your ex as ammunition for him to shoot you with. Presumably you're low contact, keep it that way. He will think all his Christmases and Birthdays have come at once if you tell him about this, there is no need for him to know. If he finds out, fine, then deal with it, but no chance you should be telling him about this.

Even though he's a domestic abuser and has made their lives hell. Not a chance, and I'd be telling my 14 year old (in age appropriate way) how her dad has been and the potential imap t of this

Don't be ridiculous. That's like saying you are a pervert because your dd walked in on you whilst you were having sex.

ap if you click on an image and swipe it, it saves.

my point is that I didn’t intentionally save the image.

and you can have 2 accounts linked to the same email address. As evidenced!

My daughter was with her dad when the sexting was going on. I was in a hotel and my partner was home alone in his own house.

we don’t live together yet.

You haven't done anything wrong op. Keep the evidence of the conversation and move on.

Id be fuming with my DD if she intentionally accessed my account and snooped. I understand you wanting to appease her so it doesn't get blown up with your ex, but by not punishing her for such a gross invasion of your privacy you're giving her the impression that you and your partner have done wrong, not her. It sounds like your ex is still controlling everything that goes on in your house from afar for this to induce so much anxiety in you rather than annoyance that your personal acc has been accessed; understandable I guess after all you've been through, but something to be mindful of -your anxiety about your ex is making you react in a way that implies guilt to your DD. Again, you have done nothing wrong, stop apologising.

What is your relationship like with your DD usually? Does she get on with your DP?

and you can have 2 accounts linked to the same email address. As evidenced!

I don't use Snapchat so had no idea this was possible 😳 So was it an accident that she accessed your account?

And? What if the dude was masturbating in the shower? Is it ok for the DD to barge in on him?

Poor kid. She must can’t to bleach her eyeballs. I can’t understand kids doing dick pictures but thought it might be due to under-developed brains/wiring not complete. No idea what would possess a supposed adult to do this?

Calm down and get a grip. Your daughter deliberately tricked you to access your private messages.

What she saw isn't the problem. It's your not dealing with her manipulation, slyness and deviousness that is the problem.

Contacting a solicitor? That made me laugh out loud!

Focus on why she is wanting to access your messages and shit all over your privacy.

I agree. She needs to understand that she did something wrong here

Because some people find dicks sexy. Some people find naked pics of their partner sexy.

It's not that complicated.

@Josette77 I would expect him to lock the room, honestly I am sick listening to people trying to victim blame a 14 year old. Did she do something stupid - yes because she is 14!

She is 14, she does daft things I expect the adults to take steps to protect her. If she chooses to disclose hopefully she will get support, because I do feel it is exceptionally grim to see your mother's boyfriends erect penis but hey maybe I haven't drank the Coolaid.

@Marblessolveeverything at the age of 14 my daughter knew right from wrong and the ops daughter had planned to snoop, tricked her mother into giving her access and appears to have got off Scot free simply because there was an intimate photo in the ops PRIVATE communications with her partner.

If there was no such picture and just general messages would the op be pussyfooting around her daughter as she is now or would she be furious that the daughter manipulated her and spied on her private messages?

The daughter now knows she can can get away with all sorts by wielding the photo over the ops head as some kind of get out of jail free card.

Trouble lies ahead.

They did take steps to protect her. It was in her private app!

Exactly the same as a locked door. They literally had a virtual locked door she busted open.

She is 14 not 4.

Have you ever sent or received sexy pictures? Nude pictures?

OP did the technological equivalent of locking the door and her daughter did the technological equivalent of picking the lock.

Yes, kids do silly and reckless things. The fact that her behaviour is down to her being young and foolish rather than a 'bad' person doesn't make it any more ok to suggest that OP has been irresponsible for having a private picture in a private account just because she has a child (who then happened to essentially hack it).

If a mum and dad have sex while their child is asleep in the house, and the child has been taught to always knock and wait for an answer when entering a closed room, but the child wakes up and doesn't knock, so walks in on them having sex, would you really say that they had done something wrong? Or would you think they had put adequate safeguards in place but they were ignored by the child?

@Josette77 no because I work in child protection and am well aware anything shared online is never ever ever private.
Strangely enough I survive. My partner thankfully is of the same mind.

And @whatsitcalledwhen I would lock the bloody door! It isn't the same. Once it is uploaded it is never going to be private it is always accessible, how on earth do you think they catch paedophiles ?

The ignorance on how "private" these apps are is rampant.

I am not engaging any further because to be quite frank it is making me despair if the adults haven't the cop on how on earth can the teens.

I’m not ignoring the abuse of trust. I don’t actually know she hacked the safeguards intentionally, I merely suspect she did.

what I will say is she DID go in to the specific chat with my partner once she obtained access. Obtaining access takes you to a landing page and you need to go into each individual or group to view the contents.

I personally think the 2 things CAN be dealt with separately. I have and will continue to discuss with her that it wasn’t acceptable that she viewed/accessed/obtained access to my Snapchat account. That’s NOT blaming her for the image she saw. She didn’t need to see that and I’m wholeheartedly disappointed she did.

i have many safeguards in place to protect her. One of the reasons I manage her Snapchat account is a safeguarding issue.

one of the reasons I think she snoops is because I’ve had to keep information from her so that her dad doesn’t find out. By that, I mean things like when we go holidays. I can’t tell him too far in advance because he had us back in court to argue it’s not a safe country to travel to. Or he cancelled their passports because he didn’t want us travelling with my parents.

family members have been burgled when he knew they were out of the country.

I’ve been breathalysed numerous times after family events.

my mortgage didn’t go through due to fraudulent payment investigation.

his family sit outside of my house monitoring everything we do.

i could keep going. But the fact is, she shouldn’t be responsible for whether something is a success or a failure because she tells a friend or even him and I’ve tried everything to remove the risk of her having to keep secrets from him.

but this is something I’m going to have to be clear about, probably starting with the fact that I can’t tell her things because of his actions.

something I’ve been trying to shelter her from. Living in the hell that is family court, you quickly understand to keep kids away from acrimony and I’ve just managed every thing myself.

As long as the photo has been deleted, I would deny there ever was one, should your ex husband ask about it. It's none of his business, it's very unfortunate your daughter snooped and saw it, but you have done nothing wrong.

Well she’s above the age of criminal responsibility and she committed a criminal offence unlike the OP, so…

If a 14 year old boy had spied on your innocent naked 18 year old daughter @Marblessolveeverything would you still take the view that it was the 14 year old who was the victim here?

OP’s teenager deliberately accessed this content which was password protected and not readily available to her. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. She is not the victim here, OP is

That's exactly what I thought. Snap chat is for kids isn't it ? Be more careful in future and it is not legal to send a picture of an errect penis to anybody