Family and Friends Forum

Hello Paris

I am sorry that you have found yourself here, but you have come to the right place for support. You and your mum have had a terrible shock and it is important that you look after yourself the best you can. When your family member feels ready he will hopefully open up and tell you what has actually happened.

If you haven't already it may be a good idea to contact the helpline for support for yourself, your mum can ring them and so too can your family member if they want to. As well as this forum the helpline will be able to support you every step of the way through this.

I am thinking of you and your family.

Hi, I'm sorry you have become part of this "club".
You are at the very beginning of this really long winded journey. Its hard but all you can do is take each day at a time. There's a wealth of Information on this forum that wasn't there when I first when through all this and there's also the helpline you can call and also a live chat facility you can use if you need to. There's also a course called "Inform" which is done via Zoom with around 6 people in a similar position to you that you can ask to join. It runs for about 6 weeks, once a week and goes through most aspects of this journey. Its a safe place to ask questions and get support.
Again, I'm sorry you're here but I'm very glad you found us. X

This is going to sound harsh, but you & your mum are entitled to honest information from your person sooner rather later, as it will impact all your lives & you need to be able to prepare adequately (esp if he is living with one of you). I guess I was pretty blunt with my then OH about this, and thankfully now the forensics report is back he was honest about what was there (very little in his case thankfully - but I'll never know if it was unsolicited as he claims). In my case as a spouse I wanted to know honestly if I should be contemplating things like moving area, changing my children's names etc and I felt OH needed to deal with the situation he had placed us all! Of course, sadly him telling you doesn't guarantee anything, because lies & minimisation are quite common. But I very much sympathise with your mum on this and think it's ok to need answers. But also sadly for her the 'answers' she will get now might not be the actual answers - only forensics etc will really answer her questions.

Hello Paris

The trauma of the knock can leave shockwaves with everyone that has experienced it and it can affect each family member differently. It sounds like your mum may be experiencing it by being on 'hyper alert' worryinging that the police will come round again to take your family member away. It is a fairly common reaction with this trauma, as you had no warning of it happening the first time, so your brain goes in overdrive thinking when will it happen again. Many forum members are traumatised by the door bell which can last a significant amount of time but on the whole this does improve slowly overtime. I think there is somewhere on the forum information on trauma so I will have a look for it and signpost your there.

It maybe that your family member who received the knock was traumatised too and may at the moment not able to talk to you.

It may be beneficial for you to speak to the helpline about how you feel you are holding the family together and worrying about your mum and family member. It is important that you look after yourself and can process how you are feeling.

It is lovely to hear you say you are a close family. You will all find a way to navigate your way through this. It is still very early days, so take one day at a time and try and do something kind for yourself (even if its only small) every day.

Thinking of you.

This is the link for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that you may find of interest to look at.

https://get-help.stopitnow.org.uk/family-and-friends/family-and-friends-forum/topic/3807

It is a very normal reaction. I know my mother in law finds having my ex living with her stressful & I can understand why. I also live with a degree of fear about what new trouble he might get into, though it's definitely lessened now the forensics are back (18 months in my case). I don't think I could have coped with contining to live with him. I do think if your person wants to live with her it's up to him to take responsibility for the situation he's put her in, to engage with her & do what he can to allay her fears. Also she may not want to do those usual normal things with him, especially if he won't talk about things, and that's totally OK. Nothing in this situation is her fault. It might be helpful for her to look at counselling and possibly anti-anxiety medication if she would be willing. Also to talk to the LFF. But all in the context of really knowing that her reaction is very common and totally understandable. Your person also needs to engage with the needs of those around him.

I'm 8 years into this nightmare and I jump every single time the doorbell rings, The phone rings or cars pull up outside. I developed CPTSD. I completely understand how your Mum feels. I wonder if she should try to get help with this from the NHS as soon as possible, otherwise, like with me, the rot can really set set in. X

Hello Paris

I am pleased that it is helping you to be able to speak on the forum, the helpline are also really good to contact too if you haven't already.

There is no right or wrong way to feel and it can vary day by day. From what you say I can easily see you have a very strong bond with your family member and by hugging and reassuring them it truly reflects your unconditional love for them. They are very lucky that you are there for them.

Please make sure you do not neglect you own wellbeing, which is so easy to do when you are trying to support others.

Hello Paris (and hello to your mum too),

I totally understand how your mum is feeling, how scared she is. I'm a mum of someone who is being investigated too and at first my imagination was telling me all kinds of things. Our son tried to tell us things but it was so awkward and I felt so raw and afraid that I didn't want to ask some very specific questions and I think if our son had started telling us some info I would have left the room.

In the end my daughter took her brother out to the pub and she was very blunt with him and found out lots. She then spoke to me and asked if i wanted to know what he'd told her. I was still far too scared but I asked her to tell me what it wasn't rather than what it was. So she mentioned some scenarios that it wasn't but which were on my list of terrified wonderings and for me that helped so much as it removed a few of the nightmares I'd been having. I still had bad times when I found myself thinking he could have been lying to our daughter but so far we have discovered that he has been telling the truth. What he has done is bad enough but it helped not to have to worry about things unecessarily.

It's understandable why we jump to the very worst conclusions at first because our loved ones doing anything at all has been beyond our comprehension. And of course you're not wrong to continue loving them as whatever your person has done there is far more to him than this.

Hi Paris

In answer to your recent post I believe you are a good person who is kind and compassionate in supporting their family member even though you do not yet know the details of what has actually happened.

Your family member is very lucky to have you in their life.

I am imagine you Mum is conjuring all sorts of things by not knowing what your person is facing. Eventually though, whether your person divulges or not, you'll be able to be in court at sentencing and it'll all come out then. You can also send a representative to be there on your behalf or have someone phone the court to find out but I sincerely hope your person finds the strength to admit what they've done.
Its not unusual to want to stand by your person, in fact it's very common. I was with my ex for 30 years when we first got the knock. We divorced fairly early on but I supported him. X

For what's its worth, I don't think it's wrong to still love them and want to maintain a relationship with them, but I guess I feel very strongly that it's up to them to take responsibility for the horror of what they've been doing and what they've unleashed on everyone close to them. TBH if my OH - as he was then- had just refused to talk about it I think I'd have throttled him, so your mother is clearly a better woman than me! He's also accessing help - specialist counselling & SLAA - and has monitoring software on his phone. Both of those were red lines for me if he wanted to keep up contact with me and our children. I guess I couldn't have gone on doing 'normal things' while he failed to engage with the enormous hideous elephant in the room. And I don't think it would benefit him in the long run either.



Also - and I know this isn't easy to hear - the claiming up doesn't feel like a great sign regarding what he might have done.

Just to add, you can also ask him to give you full disclosure with both the police and his solicitor (if / when he gets one).

I guess because of my own experience I just can't sympathise with how 'hard' it is for these men. I just can't. Hard is having the police ransack your house while your 8yo sits bewildered on the sofa, hard is having to pick up your 11yo from school that day and tell them that their dad has been arrested & you have no idea when / if he'll see him again (because I had no idea at that point), hard is becoming a single parent overnight, hard is worrying you won't be able to hold onto the house because the major household income just disappeared, hard is finding out what 'Category A' means, hard is worrying if anything could have happened to your own children or any other children offline. So I guess I just could never bring myself to care what my OH or any of these men found 'hard'. I still don't care TBH. I just have no sympathy. I can respect the ones who take full responsibility and work hard over many years to never offend again, but the ones who just sit around finding everything too 'hard'....I just don't have the patience with that personally.

I especially agree with the last part of your post, Sad&Scared. I feel an offender HAS to scrape the bottom of the barrel to rehabilitate after this crime. Full truth and face up to it head on.



Whilst hating what my son has done - I admire his sheer guts in striving SO hard to get back on track.....

If the Police believe illegal images or chats have been found on a device/ip address, they will seize the device and look through it. At that point they will arrest, caution and interview the suspect and if necessary they will search the home and/or other devices. When they have that information, they may send the device if applicable off to forensics for a detailed search. This can take months and months. The suspect will be released on bail or remanded into custody. When the Police receive the report back from forensics they gather all the evidence they have and send it to the Crown Prosecution Service. They then decided whether there's enough evidence to charge the suspect. If they decide that prosecution is likely to be successful, the suspect will be interviewed again with a solicitor and a court date will be set. This will be at a magistrate's court and will be the plea hearing, so the suspect will plea either guilty or not guilty. This is a very short hearing. The person is then either released until sentencing or remanded back into custody. At this point the person will probably have a meeting with the probation service for a pre sentencing report to be compiled. This report looks at every aspect of the persons life, their childhood, education, employment, relationships, housing and either they've shown any remorse and understanding of why they've committed the crimes etc. Finally comes the sentencing hearing which is usually at Crown Court but occasionally is at the Magistrate's Court depending on the seriousness of the charges. In my persons case, it's taken 3 years to get to sentencing and the hearing keeps getting adjourned the evening before which causes even more stress and distress. So basically, depending on what the Police are alleging, you are in for a long journey. Please don't take what I've written as Gospel. This is just my experience. X

Hey Paris87, I haven't been on this forum for nearly a year, but just felt the need to for some reason. We were in this situation a year ago. There were lots of conflicting emotions, lots of fear, anger, shame. I don't know if I have any great words of wisdom, but just to say somehow we muddled through and I think us, sticking by him helped him to make the changes that he needed. He started having specialist counselling with someone from StopSO and this has really helped him to understand how he got there. However it took a while before he was ready for that. I'd say at the beginning you're all just in survival mode just getting through the days, but that does pass. The other thing I'd say is that, this isn't your whole life, or your mum's or even his. This is one thing and although it may feel overwhelming at the moment, it's not all he is. People can and do move on from these things. Keep supporting each other and look after yourself too. Remember to do fun, normal things. It's allowed. It's great that you found this forum. You sound like a very caring and supportive family member, your person and your mum are lucky to have you. Good luck. X