At this point, age doesn’t matter. Rick’s serious bad news, and Shelley must figure that one out on her own (with the OP’s help, hopefully) and seek greener pastures.
I’m seriously questioning Shelley’s intelligence at this point. Leaving aside her job situation, if she’s serious about this guy, does she really propose to have kids with him? This would put those kids in VERY easy reach of someone dangerous to them, especially since a large percentage of sexual abuse of children is by family members (since they’re the ones with the most access).
If she’s not even thinking about how this guy might be with her own hypothetical future kids, why in the world would anyone in their right mind want her taking care of anyone else’s? She’s demonstrating a significant lack of judgement and/or willingness to protect kids under her care.
Re: the firing
It is not at all uncommon to be escorted from the premises immediately, whether laid-off, fired for cause, or having quit. Of course, it is common to pay some level of severance.
Is he contagious? By associating with him has she caught teh molestitis? Does the fact that she has fallen in love with this person mean that she is a sex offender herself, just not caught yet, or surely will become one?
He is not allowed to come near the school, under any circumstance. Not to pick her up. Not at all. That is the law, the law designed to protect children which is part of the same system that already punished him.
How is she endangering the kids?
And child molesters ALWAYS obey laws, hmmmm? They ALWAYS keep away from those they find sexually attractive?
Even if he didn’t pick this girl specifically to gain access to children in her care, he’s very likely going to convince her that it wouldn’t hurt anything for him to pick her up at work or otherwise get near children, especially since she’s apparently quite gullible enough to blindly accept his “I wuz FRAMED” version of events and be oh-so-sure that a confessed pedophile couldn’t possibly ACT on his disorder.
And again, she may well even be willing to have children with him, which puts those children directly in harm’s way with an open pedophile for a father. That would convince me right there her judgement isn’t good enough that she could be trusted to not allow him access to other children.
I understand that, of course, but it’s just… I don’t want to be more than a shoulder to cry on. I know that’s awful. But it’s not the level of friendship and intimacy that I have with her. I don’t want that level of friendship/intimacy with her, to be the person who tells her whether she should stay in a relationship or what new career path she should take.
This can’t be that unique, can it? Aren’t there always people in one’s life who have different… how shall I put it… labels? This one is good for a laugh at work, but I wouldn’t want to spend more than a couple of hours with him; That one is extremely trustworthy and can be relied on for anything I’d ever tell her; This one is strictly business discussion; That one is someone I’d choose as my maid of honor/best man, etc. etc. etc.?
Well, Shelley is someone who pays me money for doing editorial work. I consider her a friend in the sense of ‘more than an acquaintance, less than a buddy.’ I know some stuff about her life because she vents to me in emails if I ask a simple “How are you?” (and she’s one of those people who never reciprocates, by the way; never asks a single question about me), and when some months back she dropped the bizarre nugget that “Rick has… legal problems. Well, he’s on the Sex Offenders list, but anyway…” I couldn’t help playing Pandora and looked him up. That was my mistake, but geeze, there is curiosity I can resist and curiosity I can’t, and that situation was squarely in column B.
Point being, she’s a friend in the sense that I generally like her, she frustrates me because of some of her prejudices and insulated mindset not to mention her choice in men, but OTOH she’s someone who likes the same music and general literature/films I do and she’s funny and we can chat about some things and so on before we get to the work talk; but in the end, she’s also a client / sometimes writing partner with whom I don’t want to cross a certain intimacy line. And I admit part of it is that I’m a sucky horrible person because I don’t want to lose any future possible income (not that she’ll have the money for editorial work for a while unless she has savings I don’t know about).
There are definitely people to whom I would say “change your career dreams” or “sever this fucked-up relationship,” but someone who straddles the line between friend/client is not one of them. (OTOH if she were in danger–if she actually had a kid, or if a boyfriend were abusive to her, of course I would get more involved and tell her whatever I could regardless of our business relationship. I’m not that mercenary.)
Since she has brought up the issue of not working in child care in her last email to me (I mentioned this somewhere up above), I emailed and gave a general “Yeah, if you’re with Rick, I’m afraid this is always going to be a problem, which is a shame for you since I know how much you enjoy that field…” So I feel comfortable taking a passive aggressive sort of approach, restating the obvious just to cement how much this relationship is screwing with her own aspirations and her very future. But that’s as far as I want to go.
If Shelley ever asks me point-blank about her relationship with Rick, whether I think it should continue, if she’s beginning to have doubts… I’ll ask her questions that will hopefully get her thinking, but I won’t tell her what she should do. (I’ve been in therapy long enough to know how to do that!)
But all I wanted in my OP was advice on what my immediate response should be, how to phrase a supportive word or two, what I shouldn’t say, what practical advice should I give her (I hadn’t even thought of unemployment until someone brought it up here, for example–I’ve been freelancing so long I forgot all about unemployment benefits! As it turns out, not an option for her, but that’s the sort of thing I could bring up safely to her).
Arrrgh this is so frustrating–not your explanation, but that I can’t make y’all understand why I don’t feel comfortable giving this kind of life-changing advice to her.
The best analogy I can come up with is a work colleague who’s your supervisor but also someone with whom you go out to lunch sometimes. This is someone you have to work with and see every day and s/he has some power over you, and in the end you don’t want to offend him or her to the point where your work relationship becomes untenable.
Does this make sense?
Oh FFS. Yeah. After 4000 posts and 10 years I’m a troll. I played the super-long con and you guys totally fell for it! WELL SPOTTED MATE.
Look back at my posting history. I am UNBELIEVABLY boring. I am a nonentity and very content to be so. I don’t post shocking things out of narcissism or pranksterism. (Is that on the DSM-V?) My game-playing is limited to The Game Room and a few Mafia threads.
Is that really worth a record-scratch moment? He was somewhere in his mid-teens, he knew something was wrong and he felt he needed to talk to someone so he told his family. Who else would he talk to, his pastor? In this town?!!
Damn, why are you in such dire need of smelling salts? Don’t you remember, in your narrative I’m playing you and neither of them exist. :rolleyes:
Look, I have no idea how these two even met, or at what point in the relationship he told her about his past/current issues, or at what point she knew she wanted to be in childcare. I don’t know what her own psychological issues are, or why she’s with him. As I’ve said, I really do suspect she may actually see Rick as Erik the Phantom in this relationship, the wounded misunderstood version that only exists for some overinvested Phantom of the Opera fans (or Twilight, that’s another favorite of hers) whom the heroine can transform and save. Maybe that’s also why she likes the childcare profession; she wants to help them and be that teacher/caretaker who someone thinks, “wow, they helped me find a new direction in life!”
This armchair psychology is all just a wild-ass guess because I just don’t know that much about her except for the fact that she’s dating someone who is generally considered undateable and a pariah, so she’s either a paragon or she’s fulfilling some fantasy or, incredibly, she just likes the guy and really truly believes him. This is me guessing because I do not know her that well, or the dynamics of their relationship, or what the truth is regarding his conviction, or really anything.
Sigh. All I wanted was to know what to say to the girl when I first spoke with her because I had just received the email and I was kind of at a loss. It was utterly stupid of me not to realize I was apparently throwing a bucket of chum in the water to some hungry sharks, as well as a couple of would-be board vigilantes who are dying to be the one who catches the next umkay. Yep, I’m a charter member who is so unmemorable and uncontroversial that despite my 10 years here, I bet maybe five people even recognize my screenname (and they’re probably the ones I’ve played Mafia with), and overnight I turn into the world’s most boring troll. No, sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not looking to be the conductor of a trainwreck.
And finally for the record to those who keep harping on the fact that I blame the friend (“Yolanda” for those keeping track), I’ve already explained why I think she sucks. Because I don’t think she did it to Save The Children. I could understand that. Yolanda didn’t do it because she thought Rick or Shelley were dangerous to the kids, because if she really thought that, she’d’ve said something a year ago. This was spite, and that is what makes me angry at this woman. I know this friend is someone Shelley totally trusted and idealized, and the end of their friendship really hurt her. To have her turn around and do this out of nowhere? That’s low.
Even more finally: now I’m getting PMs saying “if you don’t reveal it in the public thread, can you at least PM me the blog info?” Guys, I really understand having some curiosity about this. I had curiosity about this, obviously, or I wouldn’t have looked the guy up in the first place.
But I just feel super super uncomfortable giving away anything that could identify Rick. It feels wrong to me, it violates privacy that I already violated just by starting this friggin’ thread. I wish I hadn’t even given the damn state. Blast me as a tease if you want, but while God knows I owe Rick nothing, I have my self-esteem to consider. I’d feel like a shitheel, handing out this link to strangers, even privately. I don’t know any of you from Adam’s off ox. I know there are SDMB readers (both posters and lurkers) who are either self-elected Justice Crusaders or just assholes willing to screw with people on a real-life level. With the greatest respect to everyone who’s asked, I have no idea if you fit into one of these two categories.
I’m sorry, okay?
PMs like that are creepy as hell, yikes.
But call her already!
LOL, LibrarySpy, I already called her that night! We’re past that point in the drama. 
Re: my last post, ugh, editing time window got me. Please mentally change:
to:
Call myself an editor, huh? First version was embarrassingly unclear.
If he breaks the law he should be arrested. He knows the law. And of course he could re-offend with or without an adult relationship.
I am very confused by some of the posters here. How does his relationship with her help him break the law (if such is his intent) any easier than without a relationship with her? Is she going to sneak him in? Secret a child away for him to meet in a closet? Collaborate to abduct someone? What?
Assuming he is guilty of the crime he was found guilty of, and I do assume that, he molested a family member in a family setting. A horrible thing that he was punished for. That is the nature of most sexual abuse of children, family members abusing them in family settings. 90% of sexual abuse is by someone well known and trusted by the victim. They deserve the full weight of the law thrown at them. He did not lose control around an unknown child. He did not abduct anyone.
What we see going on here is hysteria about the boogeyman behind the bushes. What do people think would happen? Her talking about her students would make him develop an uncontrollable urge to stalk one that she had talked about and abduct him or her?
Look I understand that the hysteria exists and that talking down the parents once it got out would not happen. A preschool has very little choice but to let her go in recognition of that. Her employment in her field of choice is limited by this relationship, simple fact. But acknowledging the reality of the hysteria is not the same as stating that the hysteria is justified.
A nugget of practicality here: being an RSO might make it impossible for Rick to relocate. Like the person who brought up the Miami bridge residents, finding a home in Chicago or St. Louis far enough away from a school/playground/kid magnet to satisfy the law might not work. For objective reasons, Shelley needs to step back.
Choie, if you recall you sent me your address an eon ago; I can attest no part of it was ‘under a bridge’. 
You’ve done all you realistically can for this lady and in what I think are your shoes, I’d want to be as non-committal toward her as you do. Any emotional investment you make in her, from verbal to written advice will serve only to caused one or both of you annoyance sooner or later. It’s self-preservation and those weirdos PMing you are best left exercising their own internet sleuthing skills.
Wow, how repulsive.
The guy has had several rights violated, even if you don’t think he has any. And you’re wrong about the grammar question.
What makes me ill, though, is how you imply (just short of outright saying) that I and Buddha_david and anyone else who stands up for the rights of this guy MUST BE PEDOPHILES OURSELVES. That’s as odious as when during the Holocaust, anyone who sympathized with the Jews as they were being slaughtered “must have (had) Jew blood” themselves.
I can sympathize with a despised person without being the same as him. Maybe you can’t imagine how that might be possible.
In any event, I’m going to flag your post for the mods. You don’t get to call me a pedophile, even in the backhanded weasel way you just did. Thank your lucky stars this is an internet and not a face-to-face interaction; if that happened, you wouldn’t be able to speak the word “pedophile” after I got through with you.
Mods: Please apply the appropriate sanctions to Nawth Chucka for calling me and another poster pedophiles.
To be fair, he didn’t exactly call you a pedophile, he said you attend NAMBLA meetings. Maybe you’re just there for moral support.
I’m delighted to inform you there is a red triangle in the upper right hand corner of all posts where one/he/they can report the post or poster to administration. It will almost certainly get you faster results than merely posting as usual in the thread.
I hear NAMBLA coffee klatches have the best Dutch baby breakfasts!
It really isn’t.
I get it - and I suspect I’m not the only one reading this thread who does. Honestly, even if you were closer to her, telling someone to end a relationship is more likely to back fire than work.
I read Chimera’s post as thinking that *Shelley *was the one playing you, and that she was the one lying/omitting/changing information, not that *you *were a troll.
Don’t make posts like this, because it’s not far off from being insulting.
If you have a problem with another poster, take it to the Pit as per the rules.
If you find a post needing mod attention report it using the red exclamation point in the corner of the post.
General note:
I’m going to start coming down hard on posters in this topic if insults or harsh posts start flying. Take it to the Pit if you want to truly express how you feel.
My take so far:
a) That employers, especially in education/child care and those associated with a religious entity will take a very jaundiced look at the SO of an RSO, be it fair or unfair, is a reality of modern life. Shelley has to be aware of this and must consider if it’s worth it.
b) Can’t really blame the employers in this case for the reason mentioned by others before: once they knew, what was going through their heads was probably “Word leaking to Parents, who then show up irate to take the kids away, and call the news station to loudly complain we’re doing nothing, in 10…9…8…”. Again, Shelley should be entirely unsurprised, fair or unfair.
c) Be it to get back at whoever or just out of self righteousness, it ***does ***seem somebody has decided to go Registry Vigilante, and that does come across as distasteful.
d) Seems the OP has been handling it well on their part so far. I would say however, be on the lookout for any communication that may seem to be seeking validation or justification and avoid giving a response that may look like that.
e) “Wanting to know is not the same as needing to know or having the right to know” - Miller, in another thread. Why upbraid someone for not satisfying our desire to know exact details?
f) The question as to whether people who have completed their sentences and (as far as we know) comply with their terms of release, never mind their associates and family that are entirely uninvolved with their crimes, should be themselves subjected to continued “People’s Justice” is a legitimate one that can be fairly argued and has been in many threads. Similarly, even the lowliest convict does, yes, have some rights, and their scope can be fairly debated without it being assumed that’s zero-sum relative to the rights of the victim or the society. There is no need to insinuate that people who bring these subjects up may be themselves sympathizers/enablers.
choie, yes, people do have different levels of intimacy, but it sounds as if your client does not have a lot of options for venting in such a cozy little town. Still, it sounds as if she is crossing the line of what is acceptable in the relationship you describe. I think you should prepare yourself for it ending.