Hey everyone… stumbled across this subreddit and it’s been eye opening in a lot of ways. Some backstory: I’m a 33 year old bisexual male. I was married to the mother of my daughter (10 years old now) from 18-25 and now I am married to my husband (2018-now). My husband is kind, hard working, and the type of person that would drive 500 miles round trip to save you no questions asked and wouldn’t make you feel guilty about it. This, along with the fact that he LOVES my kid and she loves him — are the main reasons I fell in love with him and married. I’m in the military and he raised my daughter (I have primary custody) for over a year while I was in the Middle East. I can recall over 500 instances where he has loved me, supported me and showed his outstanding character throughout the course of our marriage.

On 9/11 we were eating dinner when 8 police cars showed up, parked outside our house and knocked on our door with a search warrant. They had gotten a tip that someone in our house had downloaded a video possibly containing child child pornography. To make a long story short, they seized all of our electronics, questioned us both which ultimately led to my husband confessing to downloaded the video. He is in jail with a $350,000 bond. We are both registered nurses. He has lost his job, his nursing license, DCF is involved and made me sign a care plan that I wouldn’t let him near my child. Throughout the course of the investigation, they have found nothing other than this one video. I’m so confused and this has forced me to reevaluate EVERYTHING I thought I knew about sex offenders. Why did he do it? Why one time? Apparently he stumbled upon the video on a gay Chatroom, downloaded it and sent it to someone on Snapchat. (Possession, distribution, uploading)

I don’t understand why he did it. Maybe I never will. I haven’t been able to have that conversation. He isn’t a criminal, he immediately told the police what he did. He didn’t even try to use a VPN or hide it. If he was a criminal, honestly, he wouldn’t be facing all of these consequences. I’m not excusing what he did. It’s awful. I’m just confused and I know that he is an amazing person and would never hurt our daughter or ANY child for that matter. He’s worked pediatric oncology. He has the biggest heart. We have cameras in our house. I’ve used his phones. His computers. I’ve NEVER seen even a small red flag. It’s just all so shocking. We live in a small town. They’re out for blood. Because he’s well known and/or also because we’re gay and this is the perfect opportunity to proclaim “all gay people are pedophiles”. There was a post on social media with his police report, pictures of him, his nursing license with our address— proclaiming how sad it is that we were allowed to “adopt” (we didn’t) and talking about stoning him to death, putting bullets in his head, chaining him to a motorcycle and dragging him behind it.

I don’t know if we will make it through all of this. He has hit rock bottom. But I know I love this person and my daughter does too. She cries everyday and asks why he is in jail and when he’ll be home (she’s too young for details)

I guess my question is.. what does the future look like for us? Where could a felon/sex offender work? His lawyer thinks probation is likely and if they find nothing more than this one video (they haven’t found anything else) that he will likely get probation/house arrest/felony/sex offender registration plea of some sort.

Can Sex offenders live with / help raise step children? Can he live with me if I have internet — if I had parent locks on it and didn’t give him the information? Can you travel / move while on probation? Honestly ANY stories or information is helpful because I’m trying to figure this out but my head is still spinning. 😔