Sorry this is so long, but there's a lot of detail to get the whole story...
Last November, my fiance's 18 year old cousin (“Jane”) brought a 55 year old man to Thanksgiving dinner. She insisted he was a "family friend". Everyone thought it was weird and the guy gave off a major creep-vibe.
This weekend, we found out that Jane is 6 months pregnant and plans to marry this guy. We also discovered some news articles about him because it is a big scandal in their town. He began a “friendship” with Jane when he was her 48-year-old principal and she was in 6th grade. Apparently, he considered himself to be a mentor to her because her father was not around and she had a troubling past (her uncle molested her). Teachers have told the media that he treated her differently than other students.
Last June, when she turned 18 and graduated high school, they started being openly affectionate to each other in public. A few months ago, the school district paid for him to attend a conference. He left 30 minutes after it started to spend time with Jane, but returned later to attend the cocktail hour with Jane as his “date”. They also arrived hand-in-hand at a school-related event and that he was “grabbing” at her and showing a lot of physical affection.
After these incidents, the school district began looking into the allegations that he was having an inappropriate relationship with Jane. The sheriff’s office found no illegal activity, although some say one of the deputies is a friend of Mr. Creep and that’s why no charges were filed. One article did state that they found pornography and video clips of a scantily clad 12-year-old Brooke Shields on his school computer. The school district decided to terminate him as superintendent (but allowed him to “resign” instead).
The guy used to be a Baptist minister and recently left his wife of 30 years to be with Jane. He is old enough to be her grandfather. Jane and the creep insist that their relationship did not become romantic until she turned 18, and thus he has not done anything wrong. However, he did admit that he had romantic feelings when she was a minor, but did not have sex with her until she was 18 (which I don’t believe, by the way). I think he preyed on Jane when she was only 13 years old and took advantage of her. It is true that she is an adult now and can date whomever she wishes, but it’s not like she met him when she was 18 and began dating him (although that would still be weird).
The family is split over this. Although we all agree he is a creep, some family members believe in supporting Jane no matter what and welcoming this guy into the family. They are afraid that if we don’t accept Mr. Creep, that Jane will drift away from us. Others (including my fiancé and myself) want to show Jane that we support her and the baby, but that this guy will never be allowed to attend family functions. We do not feel that we can treat this man like a member of the family and allow this pedophile to be around our children.
What would you do in this situation? Welcome him into the family and treat him like a normal husband of Jane’s, or tell Jane that he is not welcome and risk “losing” her? I am curious to hear opinions from people who would accept him into the family to get a different perspective.