Am I Over Reacting To This?
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| Fri, 04-09-2004 - 9:00am |
I'm in a bit of a dilemma here and I am a bit confused as to how I should proceed or if this is even something I need to worry about. Because these boards have given me such insight into some of my / our problems, I want to get your opinions for this topic. I hope that this confusion and concern can be helped by your views.
I have a brother-in-law that is 10 years older than my wife. When he started dating my wife's sister (he was about 18 years old), he would play with my wife in a normal manner...you know, the teasing and tickling and all that type of stuff. This was just kind of normal. Over the years, this tickling continued, and when my wife developed into a young teen (13-14 years old), he started to tickle her at the extreme upper thigh area. As a matter of fact it was directly below her private area. This type of behavior continued on for many, many years; up until she was into her late teens (18-19 years old).
When I started dating my wife, she was 17 years old, and the first time I witnessed this, I was totally in shock. This happened at a family gathering in front of his wife and my wife's parents and they all kind of looked at this as a "no problem" type of thing. Me, on the otherhand, could not believe that this was taking place. This just continued on for many years to follow and my wife did not like it, but didn't know how to stop it either. She comes from a very Catholic family, and you just didn't rock the boat when it came to family matters such as this.
Unfortunately, this basically enraged me everytime this would happen because to me, no one should be touching my wife in that area. My wife tried to push this off as it was just his way of having fun. I always thought this to be somewhat of a sexual thing for him. Of course, this brought on many fights between my wife and I. At one point, I started questioning her about this and when it all started. To my alarm, this started as I stated above, at a very early age. I then also found out that when my wife would stay with her sister and my brother-in-law when she was 14-15 years old, he would wait for his wife to go to bed and then he would put XXX porno on and my wife and him would watch it together. This just about pushed me right over the edge. This just did not seem right to me and it just kind of reinforced my feelings of the sexual thing. I expressed this to my wife and I think she started to look at it a totally different light.
The icing on the cake to all of this was when my wife's brother had gotten married and at the reception, the brother-in-law started kissing and slobbering all over my wife's neck and telling her how good she looked and blah, blah, blah. Well, my wife finally built up enough anger inside and turned to her sister that was sitting a couple of seats away and yelled for her to get "her monster" off of her. Needless to say, this caused her sister and her husband to have a huge fight and guess what, the sister was mad at my wife! Go figure. Her husband was doing this to her for almost ten years and it was my wife's fault.
My wife had said to me about six months after this happened, that she now believed this was sexually motivated and that this was his way of getting a cheap thrill. She said this because she felt if it was not sexually motivated, he would have come forth and apologized to her for his inappropriate behavior...and he never did...to this day. He now just basically ignores her and has very little conversation with her at all. Although her sister and her have a relationship, it is not what it had been, but they do talk and do the family gathering things and show together.
Now that I have given you the history, here is the problem I am now facing. My wife and I now have a beautiful 12 year old daughter and these two want her to come out and stay at their house for a couple of days at a time. I've got to tell you that I am definetly not comfortable with this...at all. My wife says she doesn't want to deny her sister the connection that she is seeking with our daughter and she doesn't want to hurt her sister's feelings. You know, I thought about this and I don't want to really deny her of that either, but I certainly don't want my brother-in-law to repeat history. I would not do well with this, and he would be in some serious trouble from my end.
My wife says she doesn't think he do anything, because she thinks maybe he has learned his lesson, but I'm not quite so sure. I guess my questions are these: Do you think this was just a brother-in-law having fun? Do you think that maybe he is on the border of being a pedofile? Do you think I'm wrong in not letting my daughter go out there to connect with her aunt?
You know, up to this point, my wife has always made excuses for our daughter not to go out there. How sad this is that she has to lie in order to keep her daughter from being exposed to this situation. But then again, maybe it wouldn't happen again. I'm just not 100% sure that it wouldn't happen again.
Please send me your thoughts and maybe my wife and I can see it from a different angle.
Thanks....Randy2003

This is CLEARLY sexual abuse that was accepted within the family---and the boundaries were eliminated. In a "healthy" family, the parents would have put an IMMEDIATE stop to this behavior...ESP TEENAGERS. I could write novels about this but the more pressing issue is this---YOUR DAUGHTER!
Whenever you have a strong "gut" reaction to anything, listen to this. Just ONE instance of 'touching' or any weird vibes can traumatically effect a 12 year old girl for the rest of her life. Unless your brother in law has received some sort of counseling, which I highly doubt that he has, I would not even consider it.
IF the sister so badly wants a relationship with your daughter...fine, just let it be at YOUR house, under supervised conditions. Do not leave your daughter alone with this man for a minute.
Is this man a pedophile? I would most likely say "yes" but I don't have enough information....it could just be an incestual thing...but in any case, he's a threat and a danger to your daughter.
There is no guarantee that he would ever do this again...but ask yourself, do you really want to find out the hard way? I mean, has he EVER said anything to your wife about his inappropriate behavior? or has he brushed it off like no big deal?
I know its uncomfortable to lie to family members...esp. something that is not acknowledged like this....but do whatever you can. Don't risk it.
Imagine IF he DID do something to your daughter...and then later in life your daughter turns to you and says "But, Daddy, you KNEW how he was! How could you let me go there?"
Think about it.
just my random thoughts
dharma
I know what my instincts are telling me and that they are the same reaction you are sharing with me...NO!
This is just a very touchy subject. One that you certainly can't talk to the family about because of the blatant ignoring of what was actually occurring in front of their own eyes. The anxiety I feel every time they ask is just somewhat overwhelming and I guess I needed some sort or acknowledgement that my gut feelings were correct. That is truly the beauty of these message boards and the people that share their thoughts.
I had told my wife that this was a form of sexual abuse but I don't think she really looked at it that way; but, with all of the new literature on the "good touch - bad touch" and the documentation regarding sexual abuse, it is pretty hard not to see it for what it was.
And yes, I know the damage it could cause to my daughter. Lord knows, with things like this that happened to my wife, this caused other things to happen to her later on. This conglomeration of things seriously effected our relationship, ourselves, our marriage, and our lives pretty dramatically. Actually, almost to the point of our marriage not surviving. Fortunately, with a little outside help, and the willingness for her to finally open up about many of these devastating experiences from the past, we were able to sort through them, put meaning to them, and rebuild our marriage and ourselves to a point of strenghth that is incredible.
And no, he never came forth and talked to my wife or me about it or apoligized or even acknowledged that anything was wrong. As I said, this was basically the foundation of my wife's belief that it was sexually motivated and not just misbehavior. I think this may be in him and ready to spring out at anytime again, if an opportunity should arise...but this is just my thought.
I guess the fact that when my wife, her sister, and their mother were talking about their sex lives, and my sister-in-law told them that this only happens 3-4 times a year with them, it kind of concerned me. And I say this because this form of intimacy is the mortar in a strong and healthy relationship. The fact that instead of spending time and intimate time with his wife, he would rather coach and all-girls team sport - teenage year girls by the way. This coaching had been going on for many years until my sister-in-law made him stop. Kind of scary....don't you think.
Anyway..thanks for your post and the reinforcement of my reactions.
Randy2003
Oh my goodness Randy, I am speechless.
You know, it's kind of funny how you mentioned the fact of your friend and how she kept her abuse secret for so long. I guess I say this because with this last invitation of my daugter to their house and my wife's contemplation of letting her go, I asked her if I truly had something to worry about. I guess I wasn't being direct enough or maybe she was just avoiding my question. But I then told her that I'm asking a direct question and I asked her if he actually did anything more to her than the grabbing of the upper inner thigh, buttocks, and the kissing. She told me no, that he did not, but from that point on in the conversation, she had a very troubled look on her face that just kind of stuck with me. This kind of makes me think that maybe there was more to this situation and she just is not ready to tell me about it yet. I don't like to have a feeling of not being able to help my wife, but in time, if there was more, she will talk to me about it. This is just the honest and open relationship we have been able to establish now that we have been able to isolate the core of many of our problems.
I will definitely not be allowing my daughter to go out there for any overnight stays and I know already (just recently found this out), that my wife keeps a very close eye on the brother-in-law when we get together for family functions.
I guess the problem with all of this is the fact that my daughter really wants to go out there and spend some time with them too. How are we going to continue to say no not only to them, but to our daughter; and, at the same time, save the humiliation of the family? Sometimes I think a direct approach to the problem with my sister-in-law and brother-in-law would be best, but this would truly cause a huge amount or turmoil in the family. This is the way my family would have handled things, but the secrecy, shunning of feelings and thoughts, and the ignoring of problem areas is the way my wife's family has tended to do things...of course, nothing ever gets resolved and there is just more anger and resentment.
On the other hand, maybe we should wait until my daughter is a little older and just explain to her about her uncle and his inappropriate sexual behavior. But, I don't think my wife would be able to handle her own daughter asking her questions about the bad experiences she had encountered with him.
This is going to prove to be a real tough situation in the very near future.
Thanks Wishful...Randy2003
I was hoping that maybe by updating this message, that maybe one of the CL's will see it and be able to respond with their thoughts on this. I really need to know how to proceed with this situation in the future. Please read the prior messages.
Thanks..Randy2003
When someone shows you who they are, believe them.
- Maya Angelou
When someone shows you who they are, believe them.
- Maya Angelou
Thanks for your sharing your insight with my wife and I. We both read your response this morning and we're just kind of letting everything digest right now. As far as me bringing this up again with my wife; it will not happen. As I said in one of my prior posts, if she feels she needs to expand on what we have already talked about, she will and if not, that's okay too. We will definitely be keeping a very close eye on things and I'm sure at this point in time, we won't be sending our daughter out there for any overnight stays.
Thanks again....Randy2003