Family and Friends Forum

So this evening after having a chat to our son who lives over 200 miles away, I was devastated to learn how much he has been struggling about the events surrounding my husbands offence. We started to chat about Christmas and I expressed a wish that we could have a better Christmas this year. It led onto a conversation about the events when he confessed to how much he has struggled and has sought out counselling. He is married with a beautiful daughter and I always believed he had enough to distract him from what has happened. Even though we have spoken at length about what has happened he has never told me how much he has struggled, he said he wanted to protect both my husband and I from his own feelings as we had enough to cope with. Whilst I don't think we will ever fully recover I have reassured him we can move on as a family and are always here to support each other. No matter what others think we will stick together through thick and thin. I am proud of him for protecting us and for recognising he also needs help and support before his thoughts become destructive. He loves his Dad very much and has been so supportive since day 1. Part of me feels a failure for assuming he was okay, the other part just reinforces the impact this situation has on families and how important it is to check on everyone's welfare and not assume everyone is coping.

It just adds another dimension Bitterbean to an already complex situation, I hope your son and his partner work things out. Hopefully they can work through this and support each other. I do believe in quoting wedding vows I.e. "For better for worse", this is definitely "for worse"..,

xxx

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Thank you all Ladies for your lovely kind comments. I have to say despite being upset I really am so very proud of our son, he had continued to demonstrate his loyalty and support and is so eager to help and do what he can to make things right for us both. He was outraged at the press coverage (as we all were as he came to court and heard a totally different account to what was written). As a wife/partner to the offender it is horrendous and we have our issues to deal with but trying to imagine the trauma of seeing your once popular and sociable father who you have always looked up to, who has provided and cared for you and who you love deeply in my mind is unimaginable. Heartbroken yes but so proud and very fortunate to have such a lovely young man in our lives.
Thank you all again. Xxx