My ex’s grubby secret is wrecking my family

There can be no minimising the shock that the revelations gave you and your daughters; their feelings of shame and anger must have been truly terrible to bear.

For you, cruelly betrayed when your husband of 32 ran off with a 19-year-old, it was probably a confirmation of everything bad you had ever thought about this man.

Nevertheless, we have to separate your old feelings from the other stories within this letter. To unpack the issues: the people involved are you, each daughter and your ex’s wider family.

Your irritation and frustration with your elder daughter is the principal motivation for writing, but (forgive me for saying this) I’m not sure you have the right to decide whether this adult woman should continue a relationship with her father, no matter what he has done.

Your last sentence implies that you want me to give her advice — for which she has not asked.

I must make it clear that, like most people, I feel thoroughly revolted at the thought of anyone wishing to look at indecent images of children.

I detest all pornography, and believe that what he did is loathsome and unforgivable. Yet my opinions don’t matter here, and nor (really) do yours or

your younger daughter’s. Both of you feel as I do, yet your elder daughter has chosen the path of mitigation.

Not wishing to cast off her father, she has chosen to listen to him and forgive him. She has clearly satisfied herself that he never tampered with her son (I can hardly bear to think of that — yet it happens all the time) and has chosen to go on seeing him.

Her decision will surely have been given strength by his terminal illness. Incidentally, you are concerned about the effect of your elder daughter’s actions on her younger sister’s job, but that feels like a red herring to me and I suggest it is a matter for her alone.

It may be entirely understandable for you both to feel hurt and betrayal, yet I still believe that you have to separate those feelings from your elder daughter’s right to forgive where she chooses.

You make the assumption that none of his family knows he is registered as a sex offender, but I’m wondering how you can be so sure. The sister he is so close to must know, surely? In any case, whether or not they know, it’s unjust for you to hold the responsibility over your elder daughter’s head.

If he dies, and then they discover the truth, why would they blame her? And if there were indeed ‘a bad backlash’, why should that hypothetical fear stop her from following a daughter’s conscience now?

What will be will be; trying to second-guess the future is not helpful.

I think I am reading a subtext that you’ve thought about telling them yourself. Is that true? You loathe the ‘grubby secret’ and imply that in keeping it (presumably from your former in-laws) you are protecting this man you hate.

I’m sure you are enraged that he is the father of your girls and therefore your desire to punish him further is entirely understandable.

But I think it would be better for you to summon up mental strength, withdraw from the wider family situation, let each of your daughters act as she chooses, focus on your grandchildren, and achieve calm by remembering that none of this is your fault.