“My son-in-law has a Facebook account with female porn friends.” Published in The Guardian.
I use Facebook infrequently, mainly to look at photos of my grandchildren posted by my daughter and son-in-law. I recently put in the wrong initial and their family name and discovered that my son-in-law has another Facebook account. He has 61 friends on this account, all of whom are adult female porn characters. I am sure my daughter does not know and I have not told my husband.
We have given them considerable financial support and have been very involved with their children. My son-in-law has twice been made redundant in recent years. We have bailed him out of debt. My daughter is an only child and quite naive. She keeps a handle on the money now.
He is very immature in some respects. He rarely says thank you for anything we have done or returns an act of kindness. He is a doting father and I feel he needs my daughter to maintain his ego. I am so upset to find this Facebook account. I feel this is all so dishonest and it worries me greatly.
My son-in-law is one of six children and has contact with his family periodically, all of whom we have met and like. He does not appear to have friends outside work. He is an armchair sportsman. He is quite capable at DIY, although a reluctant starter.
I feel my daughter is being deceived, although she has known him nearly 10 years. It would be so demeaning if she finds out. We feel he has never been open and honest with us and that it has been difficult for him to accept our help over the years, especially as his family are not able to contribute.
Finding this on Facebook seems like a kick in the teeth after we have given him so much support and welcomed him into our home.
Anon, via post
I once read a report that said people who planted cameras to spy on their nannies already knew they were up to no good, but lacked the confidence that they felt hard evidence would bring. And this is what you have gone looking for.
If you are Facebook friends with your daughter and her husband, why would you need to put his name into FB? They would automatically be on your friends list. But look, that’s OK. You don’t like him and you have, however unconsciously, gone looking for evidence. You may even have a very strong instinct that he is not the best your daughter could have got, and that must be really hard for you.
However, what you don’t have is any hard evidence of anything. The other person with 61 porn star friends may or may not be him. There are few unique names on Facebook. There is even something called profile theft, where someone’s profile photo is copied and fake accounts are opened. In other words, you really don’t know that these other people are him. And even if they are, what does this really prove?
It is entirely to your credit that you are sticking up for your daughter, but remember he is her choice of husband. Whatever it is about him that you so loathe – and there seems to be plenty – she has chosen him.
She has known him for 10 years and they have children together; even you say he is a doting dad. You tell me she is also pregnant. You have nothing at all to tell her; so you mustn’t tell her anything. Even if he really does have multiple Facebook accounts, she may already know; after all if they are under his name and you found them, she can too. You can set your privacy settings so you hide your friends and he hasn’t so he is either very stupid, very open or it is not him.
From what you have told me, he does not sound like the catch of the century, but what are you afraid of? What is your biggest fear here?
Support your daughter. Stay close to her. Let her know that she can come to you for non-judgmental support. By all means keep an eye on him if you suspect something more sinister, but otherwise, and I mean this kindly, butt out of their lives and nourish your own. If you think bailing them out financially is a bad move, stop doing it.
There is another way. If you really want to find out if it is him and what he is up to, fake another profile as a porn character and friend him. But good luck explaining that over the dinner table.
This was first published in The Guardian on 29 March 2013.
Annalisa Barbieri 