Family and Friends Forum

Hi everybody. We are a year down the line and hubby has just started a custodial sentence. I am currently doing the Informplus course for families of offenders. My husband completed the course this summer and found it great. But a year since the knock and I still have moments when I don't understand how this can happen. I was pregnant at the time of offending, we had waited years before trying for a baby.

It's been explained to hubby it's a compulsion, like gambling and that these offenders just don't care about the consequences anymore because they're feeding a compulsion. And it takes something like "The Knock" for them to snap out of it immediately.

I can understand a compulsion/addiction with pornography but I just struggle with how he could end up looking at illegal images, and worse distributing 3 images and didn't realise it was child abuse and illegal. It's just so out of character, he's never broken the law before and now has 4 adult nieces and was a brilliant uncle to them growing up.

I kept asking him how he didn't realise it was really wrong, he says it's like a blur. He just keeps saying it didn't feel real and that he hated himself and didn't care about anything or anyone when he felt so low. So basically any morals or conscience went out the window suddenly one day.

I just sometimes maybe don't believe it. I think of when I'm watching a movie, I actually forget it's not real. I end up crying at the sad parts or jumping at scary parts. Sometimes I worry if he has a conscience or would just do anything to get that high feeling (or whatever offenders get from it).

How can he be so excited expecting his first child, decorating a nursery, building a cot BUT also viewing iioc????!!! How can he say he'd never harm a child, yet I keep thinking they are real children online suffering? It still feels like 2 different people and I still can't put them together.

Can anybody please help me understand?

Jayjay thanks for the response. Baby is doing really good. Thanks for the advice I'll look up what you recommended. It's just constant mental torture, I thought after a year I'd have more of a handle on it but just as confused. I keep going back over everything in my mind trying to make sense of this or look for signs. Hope you're keeping well xx

LilyRose84 thanks so much, its comforting to know I'm not the only one who still goes round in circles in my head. Some days I think ok so it was compulsive porn addiction which caused desensitisation leading to illegal images. Simple. But when I actually try to make sense of it and think how my husband was essentially living a double life, the excited expectant father coming to my hospital scans and helping choose wallpaper for the nursery. Then at the same time being the guy who was offending and how he could live as those 2 people etc. How did he justify it to himself?? How can he say he would never hurt a child after he has crossed so many lines already. Im just so confused. Its made me doubt everything in my marriage. Its made me doubt myself xx

Smile thanks for the response. I honestly think they don't realise the effects this would have on the family. Maybe they justify this crime to themselves or convince themselves they won't get caught so there's no consequences. Sometimes I wonder do they even realise at the time its illegal.

And I think youre so right when you say they probably don't even have the answers themselves xx