Family and Friends Forum

Thankyou a very interesting article and it does explain so much. Hugs xx

That's a good article.

Made me feel a bit better for sticking around, as I dont see the monster that the media portrayed.

Good article

outlines what I believe is the case for my husband- porn addiction leading to this, no interest in children and actually when confronted with the child's side of it is hugely remourcefull on the reality of it.



so sad that the label of paedophile is used for these cases!

Thank you for this - it is such a grey area and a compleatly new one for me. But seams to make sense - i can see how they may slide into that grey area without actually realising/processing the information they are receiving.

Please don't take this the wrong way. My son has been convicted of viewing child porn 3 times in the last 10years. I understand he would never hurt a child and during all our conversations he admits he is addicted to porn. He has been on the course and has the books. He has still done this again. Even though he has a beautiful family now. These photos are vile and have a poor victim at the heart of them. Why are they available to view online, and WHY aren't the people abusing them ever caught. Why aren't these images banned. Not making excuses for my son. He has made his own choices. His baby won't be able to see his dad again for a long time. He will be labelled as a terrible paedphile, a danger to children and will have to move away

I believe this is my husband problem over the period of time I have been with him 10 years,, at the being I found him talking to many different women sexually and told him if I found him doing it again it was over,, the 5 or 6 later found out he had done it again,, then 28th October 2020 we got the knock on the door I believe my husband has no interest in children I believe it more about the talk sexually to someone,, but this time it involves a police decoy that caught him,, is it possible my husband has a sexually addiction to talking to people about sex because reading the article just so much of it I could relate to but then I think is that just for people accessing images or could be any of these categories

Any advice welcome

Thankyou so much for posting this. I am brand new here and have been to hell and back over the 3 years and been so alone with it all as I have had no-one to talk to fully about it. I have joined groups for SA and told my close ones about the porn addcition but not the actual nature of the acting out. In these other groups, all the partners were dealing with their husbands having affairs and vewing adult porn, but this is next level and so devastating. The BIG question that I jsut could not settle on was "is he a paedaphile" I feel so frightened even typing the word. This article was very very helpful, We are still together and trying to make our marriage work. I still findit difficut to look him in the eye let alone touch him. He is 1000% in recovery but I still cannot settle with what happened and "who is he?" WE went to the authroties voluntarily with what happened and was dismissed with a "warning" there was not abuse veiwed (that I know of) but something else very dangerous happeened. It all got dealt with by the authorities but did not go public - relieved abotu this but also feel like I am harbouring a dirty secret. I havn't had any other partners to talk to that get this. Thankyou from deep in my battered heart and soul for sharing this - it was the first forum post I clicked on.

Thankyou Lee - Yes the biggest question is why and it is really holding me back and constantly circling in my head and causing me so much internal stress. It is keeping me from investing back in the marriage. We are still together but so intimately distant and have hit a brick wall in recovery so much so that we don't even talk about it anymore. In the beginning, we had all these meetings and he really opened up and talked and then so much happened and we are now in a holding pattern.

Are there any groups where I can talk to someone about all this? I find these forums a hard way to communicate but I will keep trying - but it is a huge relief to find this and I finally feel that someone can relate to me - it's be so excrutiatingly lonely.

Thanks x

Hey Vickie,

Your story sounds similar to mine. I read that article and felt exactly the same as you. Is sexual communication in the same ballpark as viewing indecent images? I don't have the answer unfortunately.



I have been with my husband 13 years and about 3 years ago I caught him talking sexually with women via KIK. He was giving fake names, fake ages and was not asking to meet up, so I thought it was a 'fantasy' sexual outlet. I was very hurt and angry, especially when I saw the KIK profile was 5 years old, but I stayed with him as I was 6 months pregnant at the time, following 5 years of fertility investigations and IVF. Not sure if this is a relevant factor, but the fertility issue lay with my husband and he had a really hard time accepting it. I thought the sexual attention he got was bolstering his confidence, especially as the log in coincided with our infertility journey.



Then last June, we got the 'knock'. He had been caught by a police decoy claiming to be a 13yr old girl. Now I'm completely torn. He's lied repeatedly to my face that he'd never do it again but did just that - the internet infidelity is honestly enough a reason to call it quits. It sounds so much like an addition, this compulsion to converse in this manner.



He's desperate to fix it, but I'm not so sure. I literally cannot get over the fact that he was so desperate for a sexual kick/attention he was able to overlook the recipient's age. That his
moral compass failed to kick in and he stopped being able to tell right from wrong. He's a dad, he's supposed to protect children, not abuse them. Or am I being short sighted? I've told him I can't give an answer yet as to whether we can fix this, as I need to understand the full consequences of his sentencing and whether I'm prepared to deal with them and put our child through it. I'm really struggling with the definition of 'paedophile.' It horrifies me.

The difficulty I have processing is if VPN used and dark web etc surely this is all different? They knew what they were doing. How can porn addiction be a reason?

All addictions are addictions. Just as bad as any others. Heroin addicts will rob their own grandparents. Gambling addicts will lose their home and family and end up living a double life. No different to porn addicts. The problem is that there are many children being abused online. Noone is doing anything to stop it .you hear of men viewing it, but never hear of the people who are abusing these kids. When are we going to find the vile perpetrators. And no i don't think that our son's, dad's, husband's and anyone else is innocent viewing these awful images. How could we. But I know that certain people are mentally ill, and why else would they throw away a brilliant life, because they are addicted to something that shouldn't even be there to look at

I am trying to understand why the images of children being abused are not being investigated. Where are these children. Why is noone being found, and why are the Internet allowing these images to be available. Whenever these people viewing these images are convicted, there is never another person who supplied them with these vile images. You don't read that John Smith of This Avenue, has been found guilty of watching indecent videos of children, created by Mr Smith at Number 4 noavenue . Mr Smith has been abusing these children, but has never been caught. So he continues to film his indecent acts with children. He won't ever get caught, just like the big drug dealers. Why also are we allowed to watch people being beheaded on social media, which someone has videoed. I'm not defending anymore here, if anyone touched my grandchildren, I would not hesitate to do the worst to them, believe me. I want the paedophile who is abusing the children to be caught. The people watching are the sick followers, addicts, mentally ill, mostly loners, autistic individuals. Scientific research suggests these individuals do not go on to abuse children. If we can get rid of the people abusing kids and stop the pics online. Stop this access and dark web. Why why why have we got these vile pics and videos on line. Social media has made people rich and others lives hell including children ????

Totally agree with you Catlady. My husband was arrested because of a download to our PI address. The police were referring to a certain image, on a certain day, at a certain time. This makes me think that they were aware and probably trying to build a case about the person who shared it. If so hopefully it will lead to whoever filmed it in the first place.

After all some poor child/teen has been abused making it. Trouble is, if people like my husband did not watch it (yes I do believe he is suffering from a mental illness/ addiction) then there will be no need to make films etc. I know what he did was wrong, but I am sure he would not ever touch another child.

Hi all

I am new to the forum as my world has just been shattered by my husband's recent arrest. He has suffered from an addiction since early teens and he has disclosed that his arrest has unlocked memories that could possibly imply that a childminder abused him. He has never remembered anything about his childhood and he says he is not manipulating me nor does he know what these 'flashes' mean. I want to believe him so much but he has been an addict for so long and has become so good at lying that the trust has been destroyed. I am just so confused as I don't hate him and feel like I should. I love him and pity him and all I want to do is look after him. It doesn't help that my social worker is awful and all she wants is for me to hate him. I also think she is going to take away all contact which will be debastating for our two very young children. I really don't think he's ever harmed them but understand he needs supervised contact but the worry of all contact being stripped is just too much.

Thank you so much for responding lee1969. Knowing what I do now makes so much sense about his personality all this time. I just don't know how we could ever regain any sense of a relationship knowing how far over the line he went. I know he is doing all he can to get better and feels a relief that it is out, and he is a broken man. I just know that the rest of the world won't understand it and me and my children face being victimised if this gets out. I also want to hide from friends as how can I face them when I'm keeping such a huge secret. I am just so confused by my feelings as I can't see him as a monster but can't get past what he has done. I also don't understand if he can ever truly get rid of such thoughts (given how long he has carried this and whether his cognitive thinking is irreparably damaged) or whether he will just be managing his addiction for the rest of his life. I just can't bear all this uncertainty.

Thank you so much for your wise words. I really don't want to make rash decisions as I know my feelings are all over the place and we are at such an early stage. It doesn't help that the social worker clearly wants me to hate him. We've also got a lot of financial decisions to make as we're worried he's going to lose his job, which means we could lose the house. I am solely dependent upon him for money and now my intention to start work again are in jeaopardy as I don't have the wraparound care that he provides. I also have to register my eldest this year for school so if I have to move it's just going to make everything so complicated. I just don't know what to do and everything is so uncertain and hard. I can't bear being so alone with all these decisions and not being able to have my friends around me is making things so much harder. I am all over the place and I just don't feel like I can do anything to make this all better.

I just wanted to reply to you keeptrying and say I'm sorry you find yourself here. I'm 2 months in with 2 young children. My husband isn't living with us and hasn't been charged yet. He disclosed historical abuse to me after he was arrested he was abused as a boy by someone in a position of trust. He never ever told anyone he remembers it vividly and I honestly never knew. It can leave you really mixed and feeling messed up when you find this out about someone you care for but also someone who has brought you into this painful situation. He's having counselling at the moment and it's really helping. It's really showing his personality traits to not speak out or express anything that could lead to conflict. Although he always seemed confident self esteem has been an issue all his life which I didn't know either. I think this journey unlocks a lot of information we would never have known about our partners. I haven't decided what I will do in the future yet and I plan on waiting for the evidence and facts and then seeing what I should do. I found in the first few days and weeks I felt immense pressure to cut him out of my life completely and the thing that's helped me is just putting our relationship on pause making that clear to him and then talking as much as we can on the phone about everything. Good luck in your journey x

Thank you Saphire for sharing and pausing the relationship seems a good way to describe things. It's really interesting that you mention that he struggles to express things as this is what my husband is like. He completely lacks the skills to express or show his feelings despite me being the complete opposite. I'd just wish he'd have shared his problem before it went so far. I'm so glad this forum exists- not that I'm glad so many of us are facing this, but it does make me feel less alone. Xx