Author Archives: Rainbowgirl1980

Back to work tomorrow. I am not looking forward to it.

Last week I cried in a staff meeting.

I work part time for a council funded Tenancy support service.

I started my job in 2020, 4 months after the knock that blown our wold apart.

I had to go off sick in the hostel I worked at due to working full time and shift work.

To be honest my mental health could not have coped with the stress and drama of that hostel. Not whilst going through the biggest stress and drama of my own life.

So I found another job. Part time, home based.

This role I have enjoyed. The organisation are great to work for and I had a great manager.

Then April this year everything changed. Management has to tender for a service they’ve ran for 17 years. They put a proposal together proposing how they would hit the new targets some time last year.

They won the contract. So now we are implementing it.

The caseloads have increased, the outcomes have increased, we are audited and scrutinised on our case files it feels on a daily basis.

The meeting last week felt like a telling off. Targets are not being hit, our audits are not 100%. 100% of data is not accurate. Shock horror. We are human beings. We are not robots.

We are ‘doing too much’ for our clients apparently. Refer on, refer on, refer on is all we keep hearing.

Don’t actually support people, just refer them on and tick that box. Record that outcome.

I cried because I feel overloaded. My manager knows I have a husband in prison and I am on my own bringing up the kids right now. He also knows that I am on anti depressants and am having counselling in order to manage my mental health.

I say to the other wives that one day we will look back on this time in our life and be amazed that we even managed to get out of bed in the morning. Let alone bring up children, keep the house going and work.

I have looked at other jobs over the last week. However, it’s so difficult to find a job that is flexible enough to fit around the boys. Especially as school summer holidays are about to begin.

I just cannot take any more stress. My resilience and strength is being used up in surviving this trauma.

The boys and I have had the most horrendous 2 years of our life since the knock and Husbands arrest in May 2020.

I understand your shock, disbelief and disgust at my Husbands online offending, of course I do.

I feel the same. His behaviour was inexcusable, aborhent and immoral. The shock I know I will take with me to my grave one day, for it will never fully leave me.

The shock comes from the fact that my Husbands behaviour was so completely out of character for him.

Despite public and media perception, he is NOT a monster.

You know him. You think you don’t now but you do. Yes he has committed a heinous crime and one he has to pay for and he is paying for. Yet he is still the same person you all knew and loved.

What I have learnt through 2 years of copious questioning, reading studies, reports, speaking to professionals and many other partners just like me, is that this is something that he has done. This is not something he is.

I have learnt that the words my husband used not long after the arrest, ‘desensitisation to porn, escape, didn’t feel real as it was behind a screen,’ all explain one thing, that he was mentally in a very bad place and addicted. Yes he made choices, yes he could have tried to stop, get help somewhere along the way but he lost control. He lost himself.

Let me explain what I’ve learnt about addiction through my work, experience and training over 19 years of supporting people with mental health issues and addiction.

Nobody wakes up one day and makes a rational decision to drink a litre of vodka, to gamble away their life’s savings, to inject heroin into their veins, to spend half their income on cocaine or cannabis or to download indecent images of children.

Poor coping mechanisms, unmet needs, trauma, anxiety and depression and other mental health issues lead us to a substance. We look for something to release endorphins and dopamine. Something to ‘hijack the brain’ and help us escape our daily life, manage our stress levels and numb emotional pain.

It starts off small, a glass of wine, a line of cocaine, a joint, watching ordinary porn, our brain responds. It temporarily numbs our pain and we feel better. Then we turn back to the same thing to help us. Over time our tolerance levels increase and we need more of the same thing to get the same feeling. We are also hit with the come down off the substance, the guilt the shame and self loathing. We then turn back to the thing that helped us feel better in the first place. The chemicals in the brain respond, we go round and round in the Cycle of Addiction.

At some point we lose control. We stop getting that ‘high’ from the substance and we start to need it just to feel ‘normal.’ Our consequential thinking goes out of the window.

So this is what I’ve learnt happened with my Husband. He started off watching porn. Just as he did when he was a teen, an escape, a way of unwinding after a stressful day. I had no idea he watched. Now I’ve learnt that most men do.

He withdrew and retreated into himself. He was unable to process or even begin to understand his own emotions when life hit us with so much stress, illness and bereavement.

I had been through many years of my mum’s dementia following her stroke, my dads sudden illness and passing. My mental health was rock bottom at times. My Husband was my rock.

When I first discovered his offending I was beyond angry. I thought we were over. Society tells us that we write off sex offenders.

This wasn’t just a ‘sex offender’ this was my husband. The father of my children. The man I had known and loved for over 20 years. The man who had gave me a great life.

I kept waiting for the button to switch and me to stop loving him, stop respecting him. It didn’t happen.

He was full of guilt, shame, remorse. He was suicidal. I had to understand how this had happened.

I decided very quickly I couldn’t walk away. He was still my Husband and Father to my boys.

These 2 years have been horrendous for the boys and I.

We haven’t lived together as a family since the arrest in May 2020. We have had the intrusion of social care questioning the boys, questioning my parenting.

The boys have been separated from the Dad they adore. The Dad who’s been there for them every day of their lives until that arrest. They couldn’t see him for the first 5 weeks. It was horrendous for them. Knowing their Dad has never harmed them and never would.

During the investigation, we spent whatever time together as a family that we could. Days out, nights in, their Dad unable to stay overnight in our family home. Never being able to be with their Dad on their own anymore. Me and their Dad telling them we loved them and still loved eachother but we couldn’t live together as a family right now. How confusing must that have been for their little brains?

Then in August 2021, A few days before sentencing, social care came back with avengence. They stopped him from coming into the family home whilst they carried out their assessment. Despite us managing for 14 months with no concerns raised.

A few days later, he was sentenced, 16 months in prison, 16 months on license. The shock was horrendous. Especially the next day when it hit the media. Thankfully his flat address and not ours was printed. However, the boys and I had no idea who knew and who didn’t. My anxiety when they returned to school in the September was horrendous. I had fears of them being bullied and targeted for their Dads crime. I didn’t know if we would end up having to flee our home.

They also had a period of 7 weeks separation from their Dad with not so much as a phonecall until risk assessed and approved.

My mental health has been a rollercoaster these past 2 years. I’ve ended up on the highest dose of my anti depressants. My kids have been through hell. Their stable and loving family have been blown apart.

My husband has had the harshest of punishments for his crime. His mental health has been rock bottom as he has spent 22/23 hours per day in lock up due to ongoing Covid regimes.

So how have you, our family and closest friends responded? You’ve stepped away from us during the most traumatic and difficult time of our life.

Aside from my amazing in-laws and brother in law, we have lost everyone.

Last Christmas was the toughest day for us. Mere phone calls from my Husband/ their Dad. Nice gifts from their Nan and Grandad and their Uncle but not so much as a card off their Aunties or grown up cousins. The other gift they received was from a charity supporting us. This made me realise just how vulnerable we were.

It’s 6 months now until his release. We have no idea if he will be allowed home. We have the scrutiny of social care to face. My anxiety shoots through the roof at the mere thought of my children and I being questioned again.

I don’t think I will ever heal from the trauma of my husbands arrest and aftermath. Or from the complete abandonment of a family I have loved and supported all of my life.

Without the support from my inlaws, brother in law and my fellow Non Offending partner community, I don’t think I could get through each day.

We need a chance to be a family again. The knock in May 2020 was a bomb dropped on our lives. My husband is paying his price.

I’ve always been fairly extroverted. Coming from a large family of opinionated women, you had to shout the loudest to be heard.

Today I’ve realised just how introverted I have become.

The last 2 years I know the world has changed. People work from home having meetings on Zoom and Teams. Social media has become the modern way of communicating with friends and family.

Additional to this; we have been going through the horrendous trauma of the knock and the aftermath.

Last August when my husband was sent to prison and it hit the media, there was the added uncertainty of who knows and who doesn’t.

After the knock I left my job due to the hours, the practicalities of single parenting whilst doing shifts in an extremely demanding role. I gained employment part time, home based which suited me perfectly.

Now Covid restriction have eased and the world is opening back up again, this of course means more social interaction.

Yesterday was a busy day. With an online heavy course in the morning, safeguarding and protective parenting all to help with our family reuniting, I then had a counselling session which helped but was again fairly heavy.

In the evening I had a face to face meeting / presentation with the summer camp my son is going to. The event didn’t start for at least 20 minutes after I arrived.

I sat there on my own, right in the middle of the room, or so it felt, surrounded by strangers, some just one parent, some two, blatantly aware that my husband wasn’t able to be there.

There was the added anxiety of whether I knew anyone there. Any of my son’s friends parents or other local people and whether of course they knew about my husband. I felt like I just wanted to be invisible.

Today, I feel completely and utterly drained. This morning I done training around trauma and anxiety. Symptoms: fuzzy head, aching muscles, headache, shortness of breath and extreme fatigue. Today, I have them all.

I am part of a WhatsApp group for prisoners wives, specifically NOPs. These women are my closest network of support and friendship right now. We speak every day. Without their support and interaction I would probably not have a grown up conversation some days aside from those quick calls from my Husband.

In this world, with these women who are going through their own trauma, I feel accepted and valued. I have been made to feel so much shame and stigma through standing by my husband, by those who are supposed to love me unconditionally. The pain and trauma and affects upon my mental health are indescribable.

So, sadly I have withdrawn. I no longer make small talk with strangers or say Hello to people I recognise in the community. If and when I do. Afterwards I feel overwhelmed and drained.

I just want to be in my own little comfortable bubble.

Today, my youngest and I visited Hubby / his Dad for the first time since he moved to Cat D open prison.

Wow, what a difference.

We had to set off early this morning to make the journey of over 100 miles.

I was dreading it to be honest, there and back in a day. The journey was much more enjoyable than I anticipated.

Once we got the boring motorway bit out of the way, it was actually lovely and scenic. The sun was shining too which made all the difference.

Once we arrived, in plenty of time, we  went to the visitors centre to check in. It was quick and painless. No scanner, no sniffer dog and no search. If you have ever visited a prison yourself, you will know that you’re made to feel like a criminal yourself… Even asked the question, has anyone asked you to bring anything in? Thankfully none of that today.

We were taken over to the visitors hall. Saw hubby coming back from the dinner hall as we got there. We were early and they didn’t questions it. When I booked they told me visiting is between 10.30am and 4.30pm and I just tell them how long we want to go for.

It was much more relaxed for my Son and I. The friendliness of the staff was very refreshing and put us both at esse immediately.

When Hubby came in, wow he looked different to when we last saw him in Cat C, 3 weeks ago. He had colour in his cheeks again. After spending just 20/30 minutes outside each day for the past 9 months, he had looked so pale.

His mental health has improved ten fold. I know he had committed a crime and this is his punishment. However, the impact of 22/23 hours of lock up per day is conjusive to mental ill health. Absolutely disgrace that Covid is still being used as an excuse for this. I write this blog as I watch a Football match final in a packed stadium that holds over 81,000. Yet prisoners are caged like animals all day long.

We were told to sit in the family area which is set back from the main visiting area. we could sit together as a family. No table in between, hubby didn’t have to wear a silly bib thing and nobody was watching us.

There was a seperate room full to the brim of toys, books, jigsaws, boardgames and even a small TV with a WiFi and playstation.

Table service for the home cooked food, drinks, crisps, cakes etc available too.

The staff were very welcoming and chatty. The whole vibe was very chilled and relaxing.

My Husband had many stories to tell about what’s been happening there.

He has been going to groups and has just started working on the farm. He is able to mingle and socialise with others again, eating meals with others as opposed to alone in his cell.

Today I just tried to take it in, us together as a family again. I watched my Son, with his Dad and it reminded me of why I am going through this heartache, to get my little family back together again.

So, the first visit was a real success. The next we are going to stay over and visit half days both days as many do. Next step will be my husband being able to meet us half way and eventually visit us.

The distance is difficult but it’s worth it for far more relaxed visits, also to see my husband start to rebuild his dignity again and find his purpose again.

It’s 2 years today since the knock that blew our world apart. Our life has not been the same since.

My husband is in prison and today I haven’t had so much as a phone call from him.

It’s the lack of control that’s the hardest thing.

I’ve never been a person who just sits back and moans.

If I am not happy in a job, I will find a new one, if something is unfair or unjust I will make a formal complaint. If I get a bad meal in s restaurant I will send it back. My working life is advocating on behalf of other people and challenging social injustice.

When your husband goes to prison, all control is took away from you.

My husband has been in Cat D Prison for 9 days and we have had just 2 phone calls. The kids haven’t spoken to their dad for one 9 days and the other 10 days.

There’s been trouble with his phone pin. I have complained, he has complained.

There is so little we can do.

I just want control back of our lives.

You marry for love.

You marry to share your life with someone.

I am happy that my husband has moved to Cat D yesterday. It will be much better for him.

However, the realisation that my husband is now over 100 miles away from me and the boys, is very tough.

I’ve been fortunate for the past 9 months that he has been 15, then 30 minutes drive away.

Now he is around 2.5 hours drive each way.

I haven’t heard from him since a brief call yesterday. He had called earlier but I was out on work visits so I missed it. Now I have no idea why he hasn’t called.

We have been together for over 22 years, married for 20. We have 2 children together and yet we haven’t lived together for almost 2 years.

That day of the arrest has forced me apart from my husband and forced our little family apart.

Despite all of these years together, I feel like in some ways our relationship has gone backwards. I am sitting here waiting to see when he will call again.

I understand he must be punished for his crime.

However, me and the kids are being punished every day too.

Being separated by imprisonment is extremely tough.

I’ve worked with complex needs including offenders for many years. All offenders, including sex offenders.

Now I am married to one.

Other support workers have said to me, ‘ Oh I couldn’t work with sex offenders.’

Don’t get me wrong, I obviously have the same disgust at the offence as the rest of society, yet I have never written anybody off due to their conviction.

We are people first and foremost.
Humans are complex and humans make mistakes.

Do any of us deserve to be defined by the worst thing we have done?
I definitely think not.

Our publicly funded criminal justice system is there to punish people. Those on the register have been sentenced and are closely monitored in the community.

Why do society feel the need to continue to punish that person for the rest of their lives?!

We don’t have the death penalty in this country, yet the Sex Offender Register feels as close as we will ever get to it. A virtual death penalty as society write that person off.

I had a conversation with a client today which has made me feel both sad and angry.

He has served 4.5 years and he is still on the register and probation. He has license conditions and is monitored closely.

He used to be an active member of society. He had a job, friends, family.
Now he is sitting on the fringes of society, desperate to be given a chance.

Every Job he is able to do, within his license conditions, approved by his Probation officer, is then taken off the table as the employer becomes aware of his conviction.

So he is forced to live in poverty, claiming public funds just to keep a roof over his head.
He wants to contribute to society.

Who is this helping?

Certainly not him.

Certainly not the public.

There are many organisations out there who are really proactive when it comes to prison reform.

Do they accept sex offenders?

Sorry no.

Drug dealer, armed robbers, murderers welcome, as long as no sexual offence has been committed.

My husband went to university, he was employed as a civil servant for 20 years, and his job, completely unrelated to his online offending, was taken away from him due to gross misconduct.

A job that largely contributed to his stress levels and his poor mental health.

So when he is out of prison later this year, what can he do?
How is he supposed to contribute to society?

How is he supposed to provide for our family and feel worthy again?
Writing off anyone on the SOR is certainly not reducing re-offending.
I understand Risk management, of course I do.

Risk can be managed and more importantly risk is reduced over time. It does not and should not stay the same forever.

My husband will be on a lifetime registration for his online offending for a short proportion of his life.

A prison reform worker told me today that sex offenders now make up 20% of all offenders. That’s a hell of a lot of people for society to ‘write off.’

Those who sit on their moral high horse and refuse to give anyone with a sexual offence a second chance are not saving victims. They are not reducing re-offending. Quite the opposite.

The only way to reduce re-offending is to rehabilitate and reintegrate people back into society.

There is no other species in the animal kingdom that writes off its own species as the human race does.
We can do better.

Tomorrow is 20 years since I married my soulmate in the romantic village of Gretna Green.

Our family, both of our parents and our friends and family came with us to celebrate our special day.

We were just 21 and 23. Our whole life ahead of us. We had just moved in together and were saving to buy our first house.

Life was so simple then.

Fast forward 20 years and life is far from simple.

Tomorrow we won’t be going back to that pretty little romantic village as we have a few times since. The last time when our youngest was just a baby and we had dinner in the same restaurant we had our wedding reception, which was so special.

We won’t even be going out for an anniversary meal or toasting our milestone anniversary with our Bride and Groom champagne flutes.

We’ve sent eachother cards and he has sent me homemade gifts. We will have a phonecall tomorrow but nothing more.

Prison is the wall that divides us.

Being a non offending partner or a prisoners wife in general is heartbreaking.

Choosing to stand by your partner and process the anger, shock and disbelief at what’s happened to your life, feeling cheated out of that life that you had is soul destroying.

Our wedding anniversary tomorrow will not be the same. Nothing is the same right now.

I hold on to the belief and hope, that one day, one day it will all be worth it and we will be a happy family again.

Sometimes I worry that there is something wrong with my brain.

It’s been almost 2 years since my husband was arrested for Indecent images. It’s been over 8 months since he was sentenced and went to prison.

I have done the Inform course, I have read study after study, article after article of how and why men are led down this horrid path through porn desensitisation. I have spent hours upon hours quizzing my husband inside out and upside down. I have also and do also speak to many other wives just like me, every day.

I do understand it. As sickening as it is, I do understand how poor mental health and addiction / desensitisation can lead people down this horrendous path. I do understand how accessible these sickening images have become on the unregulated internet.

Yet, the shock and disbelief that my husband, ended up there, is too much to comprehend.

I’m away at a caravan park with the boys and the dog. We’ve made the most of it. We’ve had good weather for April, we’ve been on days out, swimming, to the club to play bingo and watch shows.

Tonight we played Bingo and the theme was rock songs you had to mark off. One of our songs, we’ve sang together on karaoke so many times, Dakota by Stereophonics came on. Also Oasis. How they remind me of him. How so much reminds me of him.

I looked around at the Dads, with their little ones, just like we used to be, a family of 4.

Our eldest is 15, almost 16. Our youngest is 10, 11 later this year. We’ve been together for over 22 years and next week we will have been married 20.

We have so many memories of being a happy family together. Family day trips and breaks away. Almost a lifetime of memories, until that BOMB dropped on our lives.

I’ve done my best to make these last few days nice for the boys. My eldest has been super stressed with his exam revision. He seems to have really relaxed during our trip.

The shock that he is not here with us as he should be, just doesn’t feel real. He calls us daily, from his cell. Yesterday whilst we were on the beach.

It feels so surreal. My life feels like a film. I feel like I am improvising, with no script.

My brain can’t seem to process it.

I have had hours upon hours of talking therapy, yet I still don’t feel like I’ve accepted what has happened to our life.

I hope one day I can process things properly. I hope one day our little family will be a family of 4 again.

It’s Easter bank holiday weekend. I have planned a trip away with the boy’s next week which I’m looking forward to.

Today we have a visit with hubby / their dad.

My eldest doesn’t want to go. He says he has a headache but in reality. I know he absolutely hates going to the prison..as much as I know he wants to see his Dad. I don’t think the juice is worth the squeeze for him.

My youngest also said he doesn’t want to go to the prison when he’s usually ok just takes it in his stride. He has agreed to come.

Yesterday me and my youngest went out with my brother in law and niece for the day. I know I’ve mentioned in other blogs about how they are the only relatives on my side that we see / speak to now.

Last night I felt incredible sadness. I feel so incredibly let down by my family and don’t want a relationship with them based on their terms anyway, yet seeing my brother in law and niece felt like opening the door again on my previous life.

Things feel like they have changed so much since my husband was arrested sentenced. My fellow non offending partner community feel more like my circle of family and friends now.

Yet that trigger yesterday, the reminder of all that we’ve lost has left me feeling very low and emotionally drained.

I love my husband dearly. This month marks 20 years since we were married, we have been together over 22. Yet the pain and destruction of his offending completely overwhelms me at times.

I feel I’ve lost so much, too much and it’s very unfair.

I am a good person. I don’t deserve the loss and destruction. Yet I cannot and will not turn my back on my husband either.

Sometimes it feels like I am fighting so hard, against all odds to keep my little family together.

The next battle with me social care no doubt. Which absolutely sickens me to think of. Having a social worker judge my parenting of almost 16 years.

I try to focus on the positives. I try to live each day. Yet sometimes it’s just exhausting.

I hope one day my little family is living together again as a family and it’s all worth it.