Sex Offenders Wife Community Group
A place where wives, ex-wives, and girlfriends of sex offenders can share with each other.
I'm new and my story is different from most.
I've been married to my husband for 15 years. We live in Illinois. When we met, on our second date he told me about a prior relationship he had with one of his students. She was 17 when they began a relationship and he was her 36 year old teacher. They were together for 4 years and broke up after she turned 21. He left teaching as a result of this relationship, of his own accord - wasn't fired or disciplined or reported for it even though many people in both of their lives knew this relationship was happening. In fact, he had dinner several times in her home with her parents. He proposed marriage. In fact, the police investigated their relationship once after she turned 18 and they both said everything began after she was 18 and all consentual. After they split up, he did a ton of work on himself and then met me. He's been nothing but completely honest about his past, and I've watched him continually work on himself and even lead men's groups to help other men get in touch with their inner demons and work them out before they do things to blow up their lives. He's never been unfaithful to me.
Over the past 15 years of marriage, we've had 3 children. They are all 13 and under now.
Fast forward to 2018, 20 years after his relationship with the student. Me Too has caught up and she decided to level criminal sexual assault charges against him. He admitted to their relationship, and his honesty cost us our living hell. She was ready to put him away for 75 years in prison. He wound up accepting a plea deal since our attorneys did not feel that any jury would be in any way sympathetic to this situation and it was too much of a gamble, so he wound up being convicted on 1 count of criminal sexual abuse of a child age 13-17. He received 30 months probation and 10 years on the sex offender registry.
He has 9 months of his probation left. The journey has sucked. His therapy group isn't about helping him recover and heal as a whole person, it is a beat-down until he accepts that he is nothing more than a predator and a child molester. The narrative that they want him to accept about himself makes it really hard for him to see himself in a way that lets him be a positive contributor to our family and as a father to our kids.
This woman, when she came forward with what happened, took everything from me and my kids. My life as a wife is hell. I have to be 100% responsible for working a full time job as almost the sole support for our family, as well as taking them to all their sports and activities that my husband will never see. Plus I have to listen to him struggle as a person who is being told he is a piece of garbage in our society.
We are Christ followers. We have received a lot of spiritual support from our church, or I should say, he has. But I really have no one I can talk to who truly understands what this is like. I was really working on forgiving this woman for what she did, until she decided to crusade for legislation in our state that is named after her. Meanwhile she currently lives 10 states away where everything that happened to her isn't even illegal there - why not be a social justice warrior in the state where your own kids are in school and in such danger from these "predator teachers"? I have lost hope in being able to forgive her. She is without compassion or mercy.
How do you cope? How do you help your partners cope?
Thanks for reading and listening. I will do my best to contribute where I can here.
I also should add he's been on the evening news several times, once at his arrest, once at conviction, and most recently dragged through the newspaper again as news of her social justice crusade has been reported on. Protecting my kids from this BS is incredibly triggering and I feel the effects of this anxiety and PTSD on a regular basis. I am not asking anyone to sympathize with what my husband is going through either. He has plenty of support and outlets to process that. I am asking for help dealing with my end of the crap. I do not want to hate my life. I am tired of having to be both mom AND dad to my kids when I have to step in and fill his gaps due to the mental and emotional struggles he deals with constantly being under fire from "therapy" and his probation officer.
Someone asked about still being married and I have the same question. He has owned his actions as well and has not tried to justify anything. It’s so broken now but divorce doesn’t feel right either. He took responsibility and is a different person the last 20 years we’ve been married. I’m at a loss daily. We are still in the midst of the fallout.
If you have questions or need any support while you are in the midst please reach out, I know what you are going through and maybe it will help to share stories.
Do any of you do a support group in person in your area? Im thinking about looking into that. Is it beneficial? I feel it’s been more valuable to me in my healing to be in contact w others who have walked a similar road than to do 1:1 counseling. I want both, but I think they provide equal value and support.
Honestly, I found zero support groups for people like us. There are support groups for spouses of sex addicts, but this is so much different. That is why I sought out this group.
My youngest son was barely 5 when this started so he’s clueless to all of it. He sees his ankle monitor and used to ask questions about it and he knows “dad got in trouble”. He has expressed sadness a few times about that and about why dad can’t go to certain things. But I’m there for all of it for them, and I think they feel supported. They know it isn’t forever and are looking forward to probation being over. My husband will miss all of the girls youth sports careers. He comes off registry when our son turns 16, so he may be able to watch a couple years of high school sports.
We remind them that God prepared us to be able to handle this situation when it came - and He did set us up to deal with this and I feel we were protected. So we try and drive that message home that God might not withhold consequences from sin but if we put our trust in Him, He will walk us through them.