Words I never thought I'd ever say.
Words I thought I'd never have ask people around me to consider.
What I will call 'Life Before' was absolute bliss. I remember running over the Yorkshire Moors, the sun shining and the trees beginning to turn beautiful hues of gold and red for autumn, I was without a worry in the world and thinking - Life is perfect!
I had an extra special spring in my step - I'd met the man I loved and with whom I wanted to spend the rest of my life. We'd recently started our IVF journey and hoped that by some miracle that two could become three. But if it didn't we were both content and happy that we could have a wonderful life together. We spent our free time walking the dogs, going on kayaking and hiking adventures together and exploring new places. He supported in me in my own personal adventures and endurance endeavors. In winter months we retreated to the house where together we'd do chores, DIY jobs, read, watch TV, he would study and I'd work on my current crafting projects. He loves cooking so meal times were often special - He enjoyed new recipes and I enjoyed eating them.
All pretty normal. We both had good and fulfilling jobs. He was a specialist in his field and well regarded. Our future together was ours for the making and looked so positive - Our hope for children might not be possible but we were very fortunate to have found each other and to be fulfilled and satisfied in our lives.
I remember at the time, in blissful ignorance of what was round the corner, thinking just how fortunate we both were and feeling very grateful for how life an unfolded.
Life was absolute bliss.
But he had a secret that I didn't know about. There is no way to sugar coat this - Prior to our relationship he had a conversation with another adult about sexually abusing a child. Thankfully the adult was a decoy police office and the child was not real. He had been arrested shortly after this conversation took place and was under investigation by the police. I did not know. The conversation and subsequent arrest was prior to us being in a relationship but we were friends.
I now know he was released under investigation for 18 months and for the whole of our relationship I was non the wiser.
Until...I was away for a couple of days and messaged him but I didn't get a response. At first I thought I'd got the date of a conference he was attending wrong, but as lunchtime passed I started to worry - Had he been in a accident? Had there been an emergency of some kind? Were the dogs okay? Had he gone to help his ex?
I heard from him that evening, I got a message - He'd been arrested and could we talk?
Phew - He was alive.
But then my mind jumped to what he could have been arrested for... A driving offence maybe?!
The relief I felt didn't last long. He explained to me that on a website that we were both familiar with (A kink website/network /forum) he'd had a conversation with a police decoy, porting to be a mother, about sexual abusing her child. Oh how I wished he'd actually been helping his ex...He'd committed one of the worst possible crimes.
Life was all of a sudden a daze. It felt dark and lonely, like I'd been transported to a parallel universe. Christmas festivities were in full swing but I was only in them as a zombie, vacant and distant passenger.
Was this really happening?!
What did this mean?
Who was this man?
Was he sexually attracted to children?
How had I got this man so wrong?
Was he the man I thought I knew or a monster?
Were any children harmed?
How and why had he come to this conversation?
What did he say in these conversations?
Had he done this before?
What would happen to him?
Did he think it was real?
Did he want us to have children for sinister reasons?
What about the IVF?
Would I ever be a mother?
Who can I talk to?
That night and subsequent nights and for many weeks after, I slept very little. Every time I closed my eyes I had a montage of children with sad, confused faces carrying pain and in need of safety and love, combined with the faces of horrible, dirty men and then to my partners face. I had flash backs to some of the horrific news stories of child abuse and the voices of victims that I didn't even were retained anywhere in my memory. How was this part of my world?!
In the weeks that passed I looked at every adult and every child and wondered what was going on in their life - Was the child safe? What was happening behind closed doors? What were people doing on their phones?
The world made little sense to me. He came to visit - I was now part of his secret.
I some how felt complicit letting him visit my home town.
I felt dirty and ashamed.
When I first saw him I expected to see him in a completely different light, see some kind of sign that would tell me that he wasn't the man I'd fallen in love with, he was a monster. I could throw him out of my life, kick him to the gutter, banish him as evil. But what arrived on my doorstep was an man who was deeply shamed of both the crime and for not being honest with me. But he was still a just a man, a human, the same one I'd last seen and with whom shared my blissful happiness. He wasn't the monster I expected to see - There were no signs.
The next 4 months unfolded and ended with him in prison.
This blog is to share my journey.
It will be cathartic for me but I also hope it has other benefits.
... Helping partners and family members on this journey feel less alone.
... Sign post support available to both partners and family of offenders.
... Sign post support for anyone concerned about their online behavior.
... Raise awareness of laws related to the sexual exploitation of a child that I don't feel are well know.
... Give an insight into life as a sex offender.
... Give an insight into being a partner of a sex offender.
... An insight into the criminal justice system.
I will only be talking about non contact and online sexual offences.
Whilst on this blog I may show sympathy and empathy towards offenders and their families - I absolutely do not condone what my partner did or anyone else committing crimes that exploit and harm children.
I ultimately want all children to live a happy and safe life, free to explore the real and online world without being exploited or harmed. I have nieces and nephews with whom I am very close and the thought that any of them could be exploited and abused in anyway makes me feel sick to my stomach, but I also worry about how easily it is for anyone, including children, to access disturbing and illegal material online and loose a grasp of what is real and not real online, the consequences of not understanding this and the lack of accountability there is by the government an big tech companies.
To be clear I do not blame anyone but my partner for the crime he committed. He made a choice and he will live with the consequences for the rest of his life but I think more can be done by both government organisations and big tech companies to reduce the number of children being impacted by online activity - Not just those related to sex offences.
I don't know what the answers are. I don't know what the punishment should be. But I do think the approach to tackling these crimes, how we manage sex offenders and most importantly how we make children safer needs to change and part of that is having a open dialogue with all people and organisations including victims and their families, perpetrators and their families, professional, charities and the tech companies that is in someway are involved in facilitating these crimes and to the government that could be doing more to stop them.
Beautifully written!