Family and Friends Forum

There are some things that you never forget – for me, childbirth definitely hit that category, finding out that a loved one had downloaded images of child sex abuse, was also high up there. When I was in the thick of it, the thought of feeling ‘normal’ again felt impossible

At the time, it nearly broke me. The pain from the emotions was unbearable — anger, hurt, sadness, fear, loneliness, guilt, all in the same second, then numbness. Even now, writing the words feels hollow compared to how crushing I remember the pain felt at the time.

It wasn’t my partner, but it was a close, loved one who was a big part of my life.

When I found out, the future became terrifying, we all had kids, lived in a tight-knit community.

I thought I knew nobody going through the same thing. However, in reality, my next-door neighbour could have been living the same nightmare, and neither of us would have known.

Over the last 5 or so years, I have incidentally met 3 individual families who have been impacted by this crime, it has compounded the reality of just how isolating this crime still is. It has been 8 years for me, but it's sad to see that many of us are still going through the trauma alone.

That’s what has prompted me to jump on and write a little about what life is like when you are through it. When you have been through the legal system and the supervised contact, when you know whether the press are going to report your case or not, when your loved one is no longer on the Register. When the major turmoils have passed and it’s just the smaller ones that are left to navigate.

Life for me has settled down and is good again. It didn’t happen suddenly — my new life slipped in gradually, and I didn’t really notice the changes until I realised one day that I had gone months without thinking about the crime.

Part of me feels bad writing about my life now that it is positive again, because I know that for most people, life will never be the same again, it will always be harder, and in some ways that is also true for me, sadly the crime divided the wider family, there are close relatives that I will no longer be able to have a relationship with. I would love it if that changed, but given the amount of time that has passed, I am now resigned to the divide.

Christmas and Birthdays are particularly hard even now after 8 years, it used to cast a big shadow on festivities, now it’s a smaller one, I try not to dwell on it, but it is there. But the big emotions that used to affect me daily have now passed, I hope they also pass for all of you.

· The deep, dark secret no longer defines me. I don’t rehearse every sentence to avoid giving the secret away. If the secret did come out now, I know that I would have the strength to cope.

· I can answer the phone or the door without dread. The cold sweats and racing heart are gone.

· I no longer torment myself over whether I should support my loved one or step away. I have made my decision based on my values and his actions. If anything changes, I know that my decision can change too.

· I have a better understanding of ‘why’, somehow this makes it much easier to process. I had to figure this out over time, he didn’t know himself at the outset.

· I no longer feel a sense of shame for struggling to cope. I was fine on the surface, but I felt guilty seeking help from my GP or calling the Samaritans, thinking that these services should be preserved for victims of crime. Luckily I was able to get help from the LFF helpline and friends and family course – which I totally recommend if anyone is able to do it.

· I carry more compassion. I apply it very quietly to my work and volunteer choices in life. I thought that I was aware of the world before, but now I realise that I had never given families of perpetrators a thought, I had never considered the pain and stigma that is carried. That’s changed.

· His crime is no longer his defining feature. It’s not first and foremost in our conversations. It does still come up occasionally, but it’s not all encompassing.

· The length of time the legal process took, the uncertainty of press coverage, the supervised visits, social work discussions, it was all hard, but for me, nothing was harder than the shock of Day 1. When something hard comes along now, I know that I have the strength to get through it.

· I no longer routinely divide my life into “before” and “after .” I imagine that this would be much more difficult to do, if it was my partner.

· Days and weeks can pass without the crime crossing my mind. When it does, it no longer destroys me. I am able to view it much more objectively.

· I don’t carry his guilt anymore. I can laugh and have fun without thoughts of the victims in the photos, though as I write this, I can feel a flicker of guilt, so maybe this is something that I still need to work on.

· I can accept that I didn’t know beforehand, I couldn’t have known. It’s not my fault that I didn’t know. Having faith in a loved one, didn’t mean I was a bad judge of character. This is a complex crime, it is poorly understood, thinking about it logically now, why would I have known?

· I can make informed decisions, without second-guessing everything and wondering if I am missing something.

· I don’t wake up every morning wondering if he will still be alive.

Good luck everyone, it's a long, horrible, lonely process, but there's light at the end.

Sorry about the formatting. No idea, what has happened with the font or font sizes/ bullet points, but hopefully it's still readable.