Author Archives: Rainbowgirl1980

Not literally. Or so I hope.

However, I hope this is the last Christmas since 2019, where I have to wake up to an empty space in the bed beside me.

Yesterday was a lovely day. We made the most of it.

He is out of the hell of prison. He was here with us. That means the world and I count my blessings because we are so fortunate compared to others.

However, an undercurrent of sadness threatened to engulf the day. I could feel it. I could also sense it from him.

It’s 4 Christmas s now since the knock.

The first 2020, where he was living in his own flat. Woke up separately and he had to leave in the night.

Then the toughest of all, the 2021 Christmas, when he was in prison. The first and only Christmas I haven’t spent with him since 1998. It was a very tough day, making the most of phone calls even finding a way to play silly games with the kids whilst he joined us on speaker phone. Talk about making the best of a difficult situation.

Christmas 2022 feels a bit of a blur now. He was released on 9th. We spent 2 weeks adjusting to life together (all be it him staying at his parents house). Christmas we were so grateful to be together. Him slipping away to stay at his parents house seemed minimal.

This Christmas, 2023, life is getting better. Life is much better. He’s been out over a year now. Our family is healing from the trauma of the last few years. The boys are growing up fast. This time next year our eldest will be an adult and our youngest a teenager. Santa no longer visits. Yesterday we had a lovely day…. presents, all sat down to a lovely home cooked Christmas dinner together. We played board games, watched Christmas specials and had nice food and drinks.

However, I felt a sad undercurrent from my husband and I. The kids seemed oblivious. We didn’t wake up together Christmas morning. We didn’t go to bed together Christmas night. That was tough. Him having to leave after such a lovely day together.

I try to forget. To live in the moment. We both do. However, it’s a slap in the face…just incase we feel we have the right to forget. To move forward after everything.

I am confident, all be it a little apprehensive to say that this will be the last Christmas like this.

Come April 2024, he will have finished his licence. He will have finished his course. He will be able to come home. Properly home…not one foot in and one foot out.

I hope this is the last Christmas that is overshadowed by my husbands offence. He has served his time. He deserves to move forward. We all do.

Maybe Christmas 2024, on Christmas eve and Christmas night, I will be able to go to sleep and wake up beside my husband.

Maybe I will be able to forget, for just one day what happened to our life, because he will be home with us where he belongs.

It’s just 4 days before Christmas. I wish I could say I was full of Christmas cheer but today I just feel incredibly sad.

I’ve just bought these beautiful flowers to go put on my Mum and Dad’s grave.

At 43, that feels unfair enough. I had lost my parents before I hit my 40s. Now that’s compiled with the grief and loss of the rest of my family. My sisters, my nieces and nephews. A whole family I no longer have. A family who may as well be in that grave with my parents.

My husband is doing all he can do redeem himself. I love him. I want to be with him, now and forever. . So why can’t I shake off these feelings?!

It was and will always be my choice to stand by him. If he isn’t eternally grateful and appreciative of that, I get angry. I get angrier than I can manage. My rage overwhelms me.

Why did my decision to stand by him have to come at such a cost?!

I want to forgive him. I want to move forward. I want to stop looking back…but the pain and trauma is very real.

I want to just forget all the incredible pain and just enjoy Christmas. However, I know that when he has to leave Christmas eve and isn’t there to wake up with on Christmas day, it will be a reminder of everything. I chose my marriage above everything and everyone else. It was a choice I never should have been forced to make. The alternative being losing my husband and my children growing up without their Dad at home. That would have hurt even more.

I am not the only one feeling pain this Christmas. I know I’m not. Christmas is hyped up for 2 months of the year now. There are many lonely people at Christmas. It’s not always the most wonderful time of the year

Christmas in my family was always the biggest of events. People pretending to give a shit about each other who didn’t the rest of the year. Artificial like the tree. What I have now is real I know it is. It doesn’t stop the pain at the loss though.

I know on Christmas day I will be ok. I will make sure the boys have an amazing day. I’m sure I will too. Right now I need to allow myself to hurt, to help me heal.

My youngest son and I, woke up in a hotel room, a few miles down the road from the prison where my husband was.

We barely ate our breakfast at the hotel as we were far too excited for what lay ahead.

We gave his name in at the gate and then they brought him down, with all of his stuff.

We were both overcome with emotion and burst into tears. Seeing him outside of the confines of prison for the first time in 16 months was completely overwhelming.

We hugged and cried all 3 of us.

As I am writing this I can feel those raw emotions again.

The hardest part of it all, was finally over.

Upon my counsellors’ advice I turned around and said goodbye to that prison as I left for the final time, this time not having to leave a piece of me behind those bars.

We’ve come such a long way in the year since his release.

We are still not where we want to be, he is still not home with us full time, but things are a million times better than they were.

Whilst they are away, be it for 3 months or 3 years, we feel like it will never end. Yet time passes. That is one of the few guarantees in life.

Whilst my emotions are still very up and down, I can still be triggered by small things, we have come so far. I try to remind myself of this when I have my wobbles.

Our family is healing, slowly from the trauma of the knock and the aftermath.

Having your family torn apart by the criminal justice system, makes you appreciate every minute together. Be it going out for a family breakfast together or just sitting watching TV or having a takeaway, the gratitude is amazing.

Our children are happy again. They have their Dad back.

I am no longer a single parent. I have my other half back again.

How do you heal from a trauma you are still going through?!

With great difficulty I would say.

We have a good relationship. We have a great deal of love and respect for each other. We have come through the toughest of times together. Yet we are still not there. Not where we want to be.

Last night I was triggered all over again. I felt the anger rising from the pit of my stomach like a ball of fire wanting to come out. A dragon breathing flames.

At times like this, I struggle not to blow at my husband all over again.

I know I am entitled to my anger, my pain. Yet I have processed so much of it, over and over again. Months upon months of counselling to talk about what’s happened.

What I need now is to heal those wounds. I need some normality. I need to be able to forget for just one day that my husband committed an online sexual offence.

I don’t want our life to have to centre around the worst thing he ever done.

I’ve fought so hard and made huge sacrifices to keep my family together. To maintain my marriage. Yet it’s still going on 3.5 years later.

He is stuck on this horizon course until next April. 2/3 hours a week dragged out. He cannot come home until that’s done.

I have never felt so powerless. There is literally no fight left in either of us. Our mental health and our marriage cannot survive another pointless battle with probation, who refuse to change their stance!

I just need, so desperately to be able to move on. I need to heal.

I feel I live my life by this. Or I try to. As much as I don’t consider myself religious, the words have always resonated with me.

Sometimes it’s difficult to know the difference between what we can change and what we can’t.

I do know that I never settle.

If I don’t like my job, I’m there on Indeed, looking for another.

If I start a book and it doesn’t grip me straight away, I put it down and find another.

If I watch a new Netflix series and it’s not gripping, I turn it over and find another.

I am not shallow, but I am aware that life is short. We get one life, why settle?!

We can complain, or we can change it. The choice is ours.

The thought of being stuck in a job I hate or a loveless marriage, terrifies me.

Every day we are faced with many choices and decisions. Most we have the power and capacity to choose.

These last 3.5 years, I’ve endured so much I did not choose. Life has thrown so much crap at me that I could not control. I have never felt so powerless.

Since my husband was released from prison in December 2022, we have had to live apart. He is able to spend time with the kids and I at our home but overnight he has to sleep at his parents house.

To say I hate this is an understatement.

Every night my heart breaks as I go to bed and he leaves the children and I to return to his childhood home and sleep in his parents box room.

Probation have dragged this out as much as they possibly can. He has 16 months on licence and they will not allow him home until he has done the Horizon course which is 32 weeks long. It will finish the week after his licence ends.

I am trying, with all my might, to be patient. I am trying, with all my might to be positive. To live in the moment, to enjoy each day, to appreciate where we are and how far we have come.

It’s there though, every single day. I cannot accept that we cannot live together, so far down the line. Our youngest child is 12 and a boy. It seems completely unfair.

I know this is my husbands doing. I also know that he is rehabilitating. He always will be. His offending was born from addiction so this is something he will always have to work on.

However, this situation for the boys and I, who haven’t done anything wrong, is an archaic form of punishment.

I have sacrificed so much to stand by my husband and keep my family together. Yet we are still not able to sleep in the same bed. We will not be able to wake up together Christmas morning.

How do I ever reach that level of acceptance?

I try every single day. But it’s always there. An itch I am desperately trying not to scratch.

As my blogs evidence, I’ve lost many, if not all my family and friends through my husbands offending. An offence I did not commit. An offence I do not condone.

The shining light in all of this has been the community I have become part of. Ostracised, judged and shamed women, coming together to support eachother.

A sense of pride, protection and comradery I never dreamt I could feel, having come from a judgemental and competitive family of 5 Sisters.

I’ve been part of a few WhatsApp groups for a few years now. I also speak to women one to one on a regular basis. We get together on zooms and meet up when we can. Dotted around the UK but United in our experience.

Over the past few months, I have spotted on the Twitter community where I share my blog, another judged and isolated community.

Working as a support worker in mental health for many years, I see isolation as the biggest contributing factor to poor mental health.

So I decided to do something about it. I wanted to unite people. I wanted to create a safe space for people to get together. Not to talk about their experience as such, as that is being done, in various ways by professionals.

What we could offer eachother, is friendship. A way of escaping our reality in a way.

Last week I held 2 induction sessions which went unbelievably well.

I tried to explain that although we are united by our mutual experiences, trauma and aftermath of a loved ones offending, it also, isn’t really about that.

It’s about us.

Many of us have been labelled as the wife of, the mother of, the sister of a sex offender.

We are much more than that.

We are whole people. We have a lot to offer the world. We have skills, hobbies, talents and interests way beyond a crime we did not commit.

The name of the group is;

I love Rainbows. They signify hope, the light at the end of a storm. They signify colour, diversity, inclusion. The name Rainbowgirl I adopted way back when I first joined one of the forums and have used in this world ever since.

I want to thank the ladies that trusted me enough to contact me via email and join us on zoom. I am humbled at the trust you have put in me.

I also want to thank you for your commitment and enthusiasm you have shown already. Together we come up with lots of fun ideas for future zoom sessions from bingo, to Zumba, to painting. The list goes on.

I look forward to getting to know you all and to having some fun together.

If you or someone you know would like to chat about joining our group please email me at rainbowgirl82blog@gmail.com

As the title suggests, I am so desperate to move forward.

My husband was arrested in 2020. He has been to prison, out not far off a year now. We have been to hell and back.

On Friday I read the letter in response to his complaint about his job being terminated. A customer complaint. A previous family friend who complained and shared the news article with his employer.

We cannot employ a ‘p word’ due to reputational damage it said.

My husband is 45. He offended for a short period of his life. Online, when he was depressed, addicted to porn. He has served his time. We both have.

Yesterday, due to being triggered by this, as well as hormones and forgetting to take my antidepressants, I found myself questioning everything.

I have been punished over and over again for my decision to stay with him. I have sacrificed so much. So many people.

Yesterday I questioned my decision all over again.

He has done absolutely and I mean absolutely everything he can to show remorse, face his punishment and move forward.

Reading those words 3.5 years down the line absolutely sickened me.

I love this man. He is a brilliant husband and father. Yet the thought that he will only ever be seen as the ‘p word’ makes my blood run cold.

I am beyond exhausted at trying to pick up the pieces of our life.

I cannot forget for one day, one minute, what he did.

Every day he has to leave our home to go and sleep in his mum’s. I sleep alone. I see our boys growing up, starting to look like cousins they will never know.

We just want to move forward. We desperately need to move forward.

I want to be happy. I don’t want to be depressed and anxious every day. I don’t want to give up on my marriage and our family, yet it feels like the odds are very much stacked against us

I prey that one day, society accepts that people can make mistakes and those mistakes don’t have to define them forever. I will prey that partners like me are not treated like secondary perpetrators.

We are almost 3.5 years post knock, 10 months post prison release and we are all just so desperate to move forward.

Things are better, much better. Of course they are. Our children have their Dad back in their lives. I have my husband back. We are together again.

I am extremely grateful for where we are, compared to where we were.

However, the latest blow has been tough. 2 jobs ending within the space of a month.

To know that we are unsupported by our old friends and my side of the family is tough. Tough but I was beginning to accept this. We were getting on with our lives and no doubt they were theirs.

However, almost 2 weeks ago, the third day in his new job, my husband delivered to someone he knew.

I will try to explain the relationship. He grew up best friends with 2 guys. They ended up getting with 2 sisters. One lot, who became our very good friends as couples, are still together and got married. The others, they split around 5/10 years ago. It didn’t end well. He was drinking heavily and allegedly abusive towards her. His relationship with my husband had already fizzled out.

We continued to see her. At our friends wedding, at family parties and events.

She knew my husband just before I did. They came to Scotland with us for our wedding way back when.

‘I don’t think she recognised me,’ he said. He has changed a fair bit.

However, he got back to the store and it quickly became apparent that she did.

He was collared by a HR Manager. He was told they had a customer complaint. He asked if this was him and slung the newspaper article in his face. The article from the arrest almost 3.5 years ago. Shared by our lovely police force no doubt.

My husband was sickened. He knows what was said, of course he does. He knows his charges, he’s taken full responsibility . He has served his time. Do you want to read it the idiot manager asked. ‘No thanks’ he said.

At which point he was suspended on the spot. Told an Internal investigation will be carried out. Later receiving a letter telling him the grounds were ‘Gross misconduct.’

Fast forward 2 weeks and the disciplinary hearing took place on Friday. He did not attend. They wouldn’t respond to his request for it to be outside of the store he worked at. So he is fully expecting a letter terminating his employment any time now.

This is the second job he has lost since he came out. Third in total if you count the ending of his 20 year civil service career.

This last job felt personal. It felt like a massive kick in the guts for me and the kids too. If he has no income, it affects us too. Of course it does. He was delivering shopping. He is an online offender. The complaint was spiteful.

I have felt sad ever since. I had started to accept our loss. Our friends and family, who cannot consider associating with a sex offender. Fueled by media sensationalising.

However, this felt more than that. This was a reminder of the hatred towards my husband. Indirectly towards the children and I. The ones who have done nothing wrong. The ones who have been punished and abandoned by those who should have helped us through these last 3.5 years.

So, as positive as we are trying to be, we are both feeling deflated right now.

I hope and prey that one day, society sees the importance of rehabilitation for all ex offenders and families like us are allowed to move forward and leave in peace.

I’m completely fed up with my amazing friends I’ve met through this, telling me stories about being ignored by others. Others openly saying they can’t have anything to do with them.

Why?!!

Guilt by association?!

IF, dear god, they dare speak to the partner of someone who has committed a sexual offence, they are guilty too.

Of what?

The crime itself?!

Do they then condone the crime?!

I can’t get my head around it..personally.

I’ve just started training as a counsellor. The most important trait which is something you can’t just learn, is empathy. I have a very empathic nature. I never see life as black and white. I never see human behaviour as black and white.

I don’t believe anyone wakes up one day and decides to become addicted to heroin, alcohol, gambling or porn.

I don’t believe anyone wakes up one day and decides to commit an offence.

Everything has a cause and effect. Human behaviour is complex.

This makes me incredibly upset and angry, that I do all I can to understand others. That I have so much empathy with others.

Empathy enables us to see the world through someone else’s eyes, to walk in their shoes. It opens us up to understand people who are different from ourselves.

This week on my course we talked about our sense of self. What makes us who we are? Our core values, ethics and frame of reference.

I feel like others look at me, a partner who stays, with disdain. The person they used to know and love, now different. Tainted by their loyalty to the ‘offender.’ A bad apple. Rotten to the core?

I believe my core values have not changed due to my husband’s offence. I do NOT now condone CSA. Nor will I ever. I don’t know how many times I must say this. Do I need to get a tattoo?!

My core values are; respect for others. The belief that people can change. The belief that wrongful behaviour does not define a persons character.. behaviour is something they do. Not something they are.

The amazing ladies I’ve met through this experience are the kindest most compassionate human beings with core values very similar to my own.

So how dare people treat us as Guilty by Association. We are NOT our partners crimes. Neither are they for that matter.

One day I hope that others afford partners like us with the respect that we deserve. Maybe one day they can begin to imagine the pain and trauma we have already ensured and do not feel the need to continue to punish us.

I am sat here in floods of tears…again. Will they ever stop?

Yesterday I spoke to NHS talking therapies about some EMDR therapy. I have looked into this and I know it’s successful at helping heal from trauma.

‘It depends if it was a single incident or multiple’ she said when I asked about how many sessions I would get, once I’ve successfully climbed the NHS waiting list ladder.

I wasn’t sure how to answer that. Was it one incident or many?

There’s the knock, police search and his arrest itself.

Having to tell our children why it was happening.

There’s having to tell his parents, like putting a knife through their hearts.

There’s having to tell my own family.

The phone call from social care telling me he couldn’t see our children. Followed by 5 weeks consoling broken children, previously happy and well adjusted. Suddenly confused and distressed at why their Dad was removed from their lives.

Home schooling them on my son as this all happened during a global pandemic.

The separation from the man I love, feeling like I had no choice but to end our marriage.

There’s the disclosure of convictions following device scrutiny.

The heart wrenching choice I was forced into making between my husband and my siblings, nieces, nephews and even friends.

Then there’s the day that he went to plead guilty and has to sign on the SOR. The realisation that I was now married to a sex offender.

Then there’s the painful day that he was sentenced. I sat with our children and his mum awaiting news we dreaded. Only to be told he has received a 16 month custodial sentence.

Those mornings trying to get my son into school at him clinging to me crying telling me he didn’t want to leave me. As he was already grieving for his Dad.

Those months upon months of juggling single parenting, working, prison visits, seeing my husband in such a surreal environment. Seeing him just about more broken than I was.

Then there’s the other things such as, having to leave a job I loved due to the hours, my husband. Juggling part time working with having to claim Universal credit to top up our income.

Every week or so, there’s a family birthday on my side, that I am no longer part of. New babies being born and possible even weddings? Who knows.

Not being able to sleep under the same roof for 3.5 years. Unlikely to change in the next 6 months or so!

Watching my husband doing all he can to redeem himself, rehabilitate…yet him being hated and judged by those who used to love him.

I have to accept that the man I love is not categorised with the worst of the worst…the Fred west’s of the world?!

The therapist also asked if I have flashbacks or nightmares. I told her I often have flashbacks and there are many triggers that remind me of everything as if it was yesterday. The dreams I have usually include at least one member of my family. I wake up feeling that abandonment and grief all over again.

This week, a former family friend reported him for working. Made a complaint and shared the article with his Manager. Another kick in the teeth not just for him but for the kids and I too.

I try to be positive. I try to be brave. I am passionate and committed to moving forward and living our life.

Then, there are days, like today, when I feel I am drowning in a river of tears and pain.

Will I ever heal from this trauma?