Last year, my husband of 15 years left me for a younger woman. She’s not a colleague, the wife of a friend or even someone he met online.
Horrifyingly, she is my daughter and his stepdaughter.
The man she called ‘Dad’ since he came into her life aged 12, who held her hand as she walked to school and gave her away on her wedding day, is now her ‘boyfriend’.
For almost a year, they have been living together in a rented apartment not far from our family home, where I still live with three of my other four children.
If your first reaction is to assume their relationship must surely be illegal, you’d be wrong. It’s what I, and others around me, instinctively thought too after discovering their illicit relationship.
I was certain the law would prohibit a man who’d stepped into a father role for a child from ever having a sexual relationship with her.
In fact – while I view their union as on a par with incest and it has provoked disgust among family members and friends – in the eyes of the law, there’s nothing wrong with them being together.
They cannot marry, that at least is prohibited by legislation, but there’s nothing to stop a step-parent and stepchild having an intimate relationship, provided they are over the age of 18. The same relationship would be illegal over the border in Scotland, where a separate criminal justice system operates.
Last year, my husband of 15 years left me for a younger woman. Horrifyingly, she is my daughter and his stepdaughter
It was last October that my world imploded when David, 42, and Jess, 28, left my home to openly and unapologetically start a new life together.
My other children, all but one of whom are younger than Jess, have been devastated too – watching their stepfather and sister set up home – and left confused and upset by their new dynamic as romantic partners.
The ripple effect of their decision has been catastrophic for all of us. Most days feel like a nightmare I can’t wake up from.
I first met David, a retail manager, in 2010, ironically on Jess’s 12th birthday. That evening I’d gone for a few drinks with a friend in a local bar. Charming and chatty, David and I hit it off.
At the time, I was a single, full-time mum with four children under the age of 15 from two previous relationships, including Jess’s dad whom I was divorced from. David, who is six years younger than me, didn’t have any children of his own.
Our relationship progressed quickly. We married – he was 26 to my 32 – just a year later in 2011 before my youngest child, his biological son, was born the same year.
From the get-go, he was eager to be a devoted stepfather to my other children as well.
I remember him saying early in our relationship: ‘Let me be their dad.’
It was a powerful moment because when you’re a woman with children, of course you hope you’ll meet someone who will not only love you, but your kids too.
My children adored him and, after we married, chose to legally change their surname to his, so we were a ‘proper’ family unit with a shared identity.
As time passed, he really was more the father of the family than a stepfather, doing school runs, family outings at the weekends and movie nights at home. The kids – including Jess – called him ‘Dad’, not David.
Now, I recoil in horror that I brought a man into my family’s life who could go on to do what David has done, constantly asking myself whether I missed some clue as to what lay ahead.
David’s father/daughter relationship with Jess was a happy, normal one until she hit the teen years and her behaviour became more challenging. He found it hard to cope with her moods. I don’t believe for a moment there was anything untoward going on at that time between them – it was just typical teenage/parent tensions.
When she was 15, she began to split her time equally between our home and her biological father’s, and that helped relieve some of the pressure we’d all been feeling.
She and I were always close – even when she was at her most difficult, nothing ever came between us.
Time passed and in her late teens she found a boyfriend and moved in with him. But she was still a regular visitor at home, joining David and me for family meals, and we spoke several times a day.
Behind closed doors, my marriage to David wasn’t always the happiest.
We would argue, I felt he was emotionally abusive and I know I wasn’t always the easiest to live with either. We had ups and downs and there were times I didn’t know if we’d make it but David was always adamant he wasn’t giving up on our marriage. We did have a physical relationship but he wasn’t a man who was very expressive about his feelings, and I felt I was in a loveless marriage.
But there were happy times too. At the start of last year, Jess married and David gave her away, along with her biological father.
Watching him give an emotional speech at the reception, I could hardly hold back my tears. It was such a special day and I loved seeing what a proud dad he was.
If someone had told me, as we toasted the newlyweds, that by the following year Jess’s marriage would be over, and so would mine, with David the common denominator, I simply wouldn’t have believed them. He was her 41-year-old father.
He was her father. Never in my worst nightmares could I have imagined he’d become her boyfriend.
By the summer, Jess had confided in me she wasn’t happy in her marriage, and she was drinking to cope with the stress. I was terribly worried for her.
As her mum, I simply wanted her to be happy and having gone through a divorce myself, plus the ups and downs of my relationship with David, I hoped they could work through their problems.
David and Jess remained close too. If I was busy with her younger siblings and she phoned upset, or she needed a hand with DIY, David would pop over to her house. I never thought anything of it – why would I? It was perfectly natural her dad would want to be there for her.
Looking back, there was one clue something was going on between them by then.
One evening last October, Jess came to our home having had too much to drink.
‘If I did something terrible, would you still love me?’ she said.
I thought it was such a strange thing to say but I had no idea what she was alluding to, and she didn’t elaborate.
I held her and told her there was very little she could do that would stop me loving her. I could never have imagined how much that would soon be put to the test.
A few days later that question finally made sense to me.
Still experiencing marital problems, Jess had come to stay at home for the evening.
The three of us had a few drinks before I tucked her into my bed. She asked me to brush her hair, like when she was a little girl, and it was clear to me she was feeling vulnerable and needed to be mothered, even at 27.
David came in and sat on the bed, and we all chatted until she fell asleep, tucked into the crook of my arm.
It would have simply been a very touching scene had I not then glanced up and caught him looking at her in a way that made my stomach turn. It wasn’t a look a father gave his daughter – it was loving, but not in that way.
Instinctively, I felt something was wrong, especially when I remembered her question a few days before. I tried to dismiss this feeling immediately. Surely nothing could be going on between them? It was a horrendous thought.
I didn’t sleep that night. I lay awake, my mind racing trying to convince myself I was reading too much into that look.
Margot caught David giving his stepdaughter a loving look that made her stomach turn, and she knew something was wrong
The next morning they both got up at 6am and David announced he was driving Jess home before he went to work.
His working day didn’t start until 9am though. What were they planning to do for the next three hours?
I said nothing but as they got into his car together, even before they’d reversed out of the driveway, a feeling hit me with such force and I just knew there was something going on between them.
It’s hard to explain, but I felt it in my soul.
Picking up my phone, I texted David.
‘I think something is going on,’ I typed, my hands shaking.
When he replied ‘I don’t want to hurt you’ I fell apart, breaking down into tears, my whole body in shock. It was the confirmation I desperately didn’t want.
Deeply shocked and not in my right mind, I did something I will always regret: I woke my other children, crying hysterically that their dad was having a relationship with their sister.
Spiralling out of control, I wasn’t thinking clearly and I wish I’d told them in a different, calmer way.
Friends and family rallied around me, all of us deeply upset.
Over the following days, I sent both David and Jess a series of rage-fuelled texts, my emotions lurching from disgust and despair, to anger and disbelief.
It wasn’t that I wanted him back, but this was a car crash for all of us they’d set in motion and I felt compelled to try to make them understand how wrong this was, and that they must stop.
David insisted that although they had talked about their feelings for each other, nothing physical had happened until the morning they’d left together, so he had never technically ‘cheated’ on me but I no longer knew what to believe. And it didn’t make any difference to me when it had started – it was still wrong.
One of his justifications was that because she partially moved out at 15, and they’re not related, it’s OK, but that is nonsense. Nothing will ever make this acceptable.
They were both adamant they had done nothing wrong, Jess now referring to him in texts as ‘David’ instead of ‘Dad’.
I felt physically ill when David admitted that final night in our home had been contrived by them to give me a final opportunity to be Jess’s mum and care for her, as they knew what was going to happen would change everything irrevocably.
Since then, I have only met Jess once face to face. I told her I didn’t want to talk about their relationship – I couldn’t bear to – I just wanted to know she was OK. It was emotional when we used to be so close and talk several times a day, to now have to ‘arrange’ a meeting.
With David, I saw him once not long after he left me, when I took the two younger children to meet him for a meal. I tried very hard to remain calm and civil. It was a difficult experience and it hasn’t been repeated – they now see him without me present.
I destroyed some of his clothes and belongings in anger; others he got back via the younger children. He has also been back to our home once and collected things, but I made sure I was out.
Margot has only seen David once since he left her – it was a difficult experience and hasn’t been repeated
Neither of us have started divorce proceedings yet. For my part, I simply can’t afford it.
I later learned they had moved into an apartment not far from our family home after temporarily staying with a relative of his.
Even the thought of them doing mundane things like preparing a meal together, or going for a walk, is agony, let alone the knowledge my child is going to bed with my husband.
I blame him much more than her as he is older and in a position of authority and responsibility. People in our local community have even compared him to a paedophile because he has been attracted to a young woman who was a child he raised.
In those early days after their betrayal, I was wired with shock and anxiety and completely lost my appetite, losing three stone in just two months. I spent a night in hospital after a mental health crisis, and at my lowest moments, I have had to remind myself that my other children need me to survive this.
I’ve been told I’m suffering from CPTSD (Complex PTSD) from the shock of what I’ve been through and therapy and medication have not been successful because, I believe, I am still living the trauma every single day.
Jess is my daughter so we are forever tied to each other. She’s not some faceless woman my husband ran off with who, one day, I could try to forget about.
Alongside my own pain, I have had to support my children too.
My eldest child lives in another part of the country and doesn’t wish to see David, nor does my third child.
The two youngest, still in their teens, have stayed in contact with David but when they return from his and Jess’s home they have conflicted feelings, telling me it’s ‘weird’ to see their dad and sister as a couple.
I’m so worried about the long-term impact of all this on them and all I can do is love them and support them as best I can.
When I learned that while they cannot marry, David and Jess’s relationship is perfectly legal, I became determined to change that.
It won’t spare my family from the anguish we continue to suffer, but I feel so strongly that other families should be protected from the catastrophic effects a relationship like this can have.
I’ve been in contact with my MP and have also launched a petition to have the issue debated in Parliament.
My hope is that the law in England can be brought into line with Scotland whose legislators recognise these relationships should not be legal at all, married or unmarried.
I know they are adults who believe they are in love and should be allowed to choose to be together, but I feel strongly a step-parent and stepchild should be out of bounds to each other in the eyes of the law.
Imagine if they were to have a child together – their son or daughter’s father would also be its stepgrandfather, affecting another generation.
David has told me children are not in their plans, but it doesn’t stop me thinking about how distressing that would be, including for Jess’s siblings.
My pain is still so raw – it’s not even been a year. People tell me I need to move on but it’s so hard, and I really can’t fathom how I could ever trust a man again, especially around my children.
I am still affected every day, from poor sleep to feeling incredibly anxious and tearful. Medication hasn’t helped, which I’m not surprised by – I’m not depressed, I’m stuck in a nightmare.
What David and Jess have done has changed me forever, and will forever be part of the fabric of our family.
I will always be the wife whose husband ran off with her daughter, and my children will always have to bear the shame of this too. I’m so proud of the strength and resilience they have shown this past year, and despite everything we are still a happy family unit, supporting one another.
I’ve been asked ‘Do you still love Jess?’ and the answer is yes.
There have been moments over the past year when I have also hated her, but I have never stopped loving her and my door will always be open for her.
In many ways, it is my maternal instinct and love for her which is fuelling my desire to change the law, to protect other young women with a ‘David’ in their life.
As told to Eimear O’Hagan
Margot Elowen is a pseudonym. Names and identifying details have been changed.
Support Margot’s petition at bit.ly/4hEQiSk