Ask Amy: Treat sex abuser as a danger to family
Dear Amy: My brother-in-law is incarcerated for child molestation involving his daughter. He is trying to stay in contact with my mother (he is married to my sister) through mail and phone.
Dear Amy:
My brother-in-law is incarcerated for child molestation involving his daughter.
He is trying to stay in contact with my mother (he is married to my sister) through mail and phone.
She has written to him saying that she would rather not be a go-between between him and my sister, but he has ignored her request and has even asked for other family members' addresses so he can send correspondence.
My other sisters and I would rather not speak with him and would like for him to stop contacting our mother.
You should get caller ID for your mother's phone and tell her to check all incoming calls. She should not take any calls from numbers she doesn't recognize and should not accept any collect calls. She should not open mail from him but should give it to his wife.
She has already asked your brother-in-law to stop contacting her and he does not respect her wishes. No doubt he has identified her as a soft touch.
The safest course is to consider this person a danger to your family. Your mother should not respond to any contact from him and should never help him in contacting other people.
If this is a continuing problem, contact the prosecutor who worked on his case or ask for guidance from the office of the warden at the facility where he is incarcerated.
Dear Amy: Please address the dangers of emotional affairs in your column, especially between those who work together.
I have been living through that hell with my husband, who has a female "friend" at work.
Yesterday, I talked to her husband. We both agree that our spouses' relationship is inappropriate. People we all know consider this relationship unhealthy.
It is like they are addicted to each other and neither is choosing to stop.
It started out innocently two years ago. They started hiking together outside of the office.
It seemed OK at the time. But by last spring, my husband was deleting phone records and text messages from his phone before I could see them.
He started hiding his phone, sometimes sleeping with his phone so I couldn't see it.
When I finally looked up the phone records, there were hundreds of phone calls and text messages between them.
We are in counseling; his phone and phone records are available to me at any time.
I told him he could only see her at work. So now, they get coffee together every day. They visit in each other's offices every day. People at work are talking. They could lose their jobs.
They both say they're "just friends," and the husband and I are at our wits' end.
Judging from the content of my mailbag, emotional affairs are an increasing problem.
The prevailing response for couples trying to recover from an emotional affair is what your therapist is suggesting - total transparency. But transparency doesn't achieve its intended goal if the relationship continues, exclusive of the marriage.
Your husband and his "friend" should not have any personal contact. Continuing to spend time together at work has simply changed the location of their focus.