Father admits sexual abuse in past. new thread

[sickaboutdad]

I had the other thread removed due to there being to many identifying details so I am starting this to replace that.
BT are not in my goodbooks right now and could potentialy have no phone or internet until thursday. I am on my phone right now. I got an email from the cp lady this morning with her number and asking me to call her, it wasn't possible for me to do that today itmam be possible tomorrow if not wednesday afternoon. I feel in control. this is good. will useneighbors internet to send do not visit email from dh tonight. thanks to all.

Welcome to your new thread, sickabout, and I'm happy to hear the CP lady responded so promptly. Sorry to hear about your connectivity problems, though!

It's great that you're now feeling that your moves are your choice - which, of course, they are but it can be hard to grasp when you've been gaslighted. I hope your confidence inspires your mother & brother! You sound wonderful, and so does DH :)

Hi sickaboutdad. I was so sorry to read your thread.

I remember driving home and listening to Radio 4's Today programme. They were interviewing a man who'd been abused by a priest. It was such a powerful conversation - what the man said about forgiveness was so interesting.

I remember thinking about the repercussions of it all - the ripples in the water. The relationships that went wrong as a result, the people who didn't marry, the parents who wouldn't forgive themselves.

I wasn't really thinking of the children of the abusers as of course the abusers were Catholic priests and although many do have children, that again is a dirty secret.

I'm so sorry you're in this situation. With your husband behind you and your mum at your side, you will get through this awful time.

The man I heard was Colm O'Gorman. If you can, try to read up about him. He really is a huge inspiration.

hank you for your messages. I have paid for yet another hour on FON network in order to do things that need doing and internet on my mobile phone is not the best (just look at the first post on this thread!), BT will be refunding but that is an entirely different thread!

My good friend has made an appointment for me with my (very good GP) on Wednesday morning and she will have my 3yr old ds while I am there so I can talk openly (not that ds understands any of this but that is hardly the point).
As I said before I am going to call the CP lady, lets call her Judy (not her name but easier then CP lady) either tomorrow or Wednesday afternoon, it is more likely to be Wednesday as I am out shopping to get my dd her birthday gifts tomorrow for her 6th birthday on Thursday. Talking to Judy on Wednesday afternoon seems a sensible Idea to me as I will be very busy that morning after the doctors doing something I love and again after school pick up and then I will have the joy of my dd's birthday on Thursday which is going to be a very busy day as lots going on up at the school that day and also dh will be at home. By talking to Judy on Wednesday I can book end what is going to be a very hard conversation (even if it ends up simply arranging for a face to face, which I would prefer anyway as I could have my friend with me to hold my hand), the thought of dialling her number is making me feel sick and is sparking fight or flight response, I believe this is fuelled in equal measure from fear of what the conversation may be like and going directly against what my Father wants me to do.
Then there is the waiting for the response from the email dh is sending, I am bloody terrified of that and wouldn't put it past him to turn up anyway, he knows when dh will be at work, it is just his style to turn up on my doorstep however I am going to be ready for that eventuality, my friend lives over the road and knows everything now and I know every single one of the people on my close and even though they doing know any of this I would only have to say I don't want my Father there and they will be behind me, faced with a bunch of burly men who work from their homes I know my Dad would be off, he only controls and frighten people he knows he can which is why I am saying no more. I will not let him continue to do this to me. far far easier said then done and I am not sure how I am going to retrain myself of a lifetimes learned behaviour and responses but I am determined to do it and that determination alone seems to already be having a small effect, when I saw the email from Judy today I felt a sense of calm assertive control wash over me, I hold the cards.
I haven't heard from my brother yet (but with the internet unavailable and my home phone not getting incoming calls it is not surprising), I am thinking about sending him a message asking him but I don't want him to feel like I am putting any pressure on him, what do people think?
I will let Judy know I will be calling her in the next couple of days and just hand in there. You are all to kind in your opinions of me, I don't feel all that together, have dried today again but I am feeling loved by my Mum, dh and my friend (who is also finding all this hard to take in, the ripples never end)
atswimtwolengths I will look up that link, I find the catholic churches statements that they preach forgiveness in all this quite difficult and I am surprised at how difficult I am finding it, especially as a Christian myself (but not really practising and when I do I attend CofE these days), I have always thought of myself as a forgiving person and I have always practised what I preach about forgiveness in my life until this, I just can't see myself ever forgiving him all this, the thing is is lack of empathy for anyone else, is lack of remorse and his flippant, dismissive and disrespectful comments make that idea unfathomable, if he had said he was sorry if happened, that he deeply regretted it, that he was sorry for all the pain and suffering he has coursed to all involved, if he was just the tiniest bit humble about any of it then I think I would see it differently, that in time I may have been able to make peace with him but as it stands, it is unthinkable :(

I have also decided to think about talking to my parish vicar, I get on well with her, she is a lovely woman, she is close enough for me to talk to her over her garden fence from directly outside my front door, I think that she may be a good option as although she is part of the CofE church she has a good understanding.
Without the people of MN I don't think I would be doing even half as well as I am, you have helped me so much and have shown me that I will not be judged for my Fathers acts, this is making it much easier for me to seek help face to face. there should be a badge 'I am a MN peer supporter' that you could wear out and about so if I ever saw one of you in the street I could thank you and cry on your shoulder in equal measure!

Didn;t want to read and run but you are doing brillaintly.

You have doen nothing wrong here, you are a victim as well ....

Sounds as if you are doing very well-especially the taking control & that you decide when something will be done.

Does your husband have an email account of his own that he could use?

Then perhaps you wouldn´t have to deal with a response from your father?

(Unless you want to)

Or block your father after sending him the email.

You´re telling him that you don´t want to see him now-but when you choose & you will let him know when that is.

That doesn´t really require a response, does it (well, maybe other than" got email & will wait to hear from you")

More than that & he is not listening/respecting & making it about him.

I read the other thread and although I don't have any constructive advice right now, I just wanted to say that I think you've handled this whole situation amazingly well. Far better than I would I think.

Well done OP. I read the other thread too.

Sounds like you really know what you're doing / where you're going, well done OP.

I didn't see your other thread, so don't know your history. But I stumbled across this thread this morning and it seemed a coincidence that I found it when I'm struggling (again) with my own circumstances.

I was abused by my father. Don't know how old/when it started/how many times, but can remember a handful of incidents. I am unable to place them at an 'age' iyswim but would guess they stopped at around 12.

Nobody knows about this except my husband. I am petrified of the consequences of opening the can of worms, yet it is killing me that my DCs are growing up with him in their lives, thinking he is this wonderful man that he is not. I feel trapped though - I either keep the status quo and 'put up' with it all, or I say something and turn my life, and my mother's life upside down. I constantly think of the 'what if's.

I usually have it ll in check, in a little locked box at the back of my mind, but he repeated an inappropriate joke over the weekend I have been spiralling since. So much so that I confided in someone yesterday who is a support worker and she is going to help me by arranging a time to talk (when I want to) to a helpline and have the children looked after.

Sorry for the ramble. I just feel a bit...lost for want of a better word.

sickabout, your opening post on this thread sounds so much more positive than your OP in your first thread, so see how far you've come. This is because you're taking control, so well done you. I think you're handling this very well.

That sounds really hard, passthemerlotplease. I hope that this thread will be helpful for you, and that you are able to talk to a professional to get the support you need. Good luck. And good luck to you too sickabout -- so glad you have been able to make such a strong start.

passthemerlot-that sounds awful.

I hope you get some help & support.

I don´t know how you can be in the same room as him tbh.

Do you really have to see him?

Sorry, ignore, not my business-and off topic

It's ok diddl :) I have to spend time with him for my mother's sake. If I say I don't want him in my house or I won't visit while he's there, I have to tell her why. That's the bit I can't do.

He's a real charmer. Everyone (except dh of course) thinks he's great/funny/a good egg. Oh how little they know.

But when you've kept a secret for 20+ years it's a hard 'habit' to break.

This morning DH sent this message by email to my Father:

Hello [fathers name]

Following discussion between sickaboutdad and myself, we do not feel it would be appropriate for a visit at this time.

many thanks
DH, sickaboutdad and co.

a couple of hours later he got this reply:

Dear [DH},

I accept your decision, of course. I am very sorry to have landed this on you so soon before I was due to visit. It has obviously been a severe blow to you, though I did establish that sickaboutdad knew there was this skeleton in my cupboard. I shall not explain the occurrence, still less try to justify it. It was in fact a very stupid bit of behaviour on my part forty-two years ago which has most certainly never been repeated. It was dealt with at the time by the Department of Education and Science, and has only arisen again for the reasons that I explained in my email to sickaboutdad. I hope this is not to become a lasting rift between us, as a correspondence by email is not at all satisfactory. I shall hope to be able to see you all at my next trip to England next winter.

With my very best wishes,

[Fathers name]

So, there are lots of things here, the most important is that I do believe that he now wont visit. I was worried about response and such as even though DH was sending from his own email address it was (and still is) quite possible that my Father will attempt communication with myself via my email, I will be able to ignore and not reply to any messages but you can't un-read what you have read and I know from experience if there is an email you don't want to read I get a sick feeling until I have read it.

As to the content, well. He claims to have established that I knew before he 'landed it on me', I guess that is true as his first email did say 'I don't know if you know' before it said 'I was involved in a sexual act with a boy of 16 at the school'. I however don't class that as fair warning, the fact I did know a very small something of it in the far repressed depths of my brain is really irrelevant.
I found it interesting that he thinks this is not something I would have shared with my husband, says a great deal about him, I can't imagine not sharing it with dh, as I said on the other thread, even though I knew very little and had convinced myself that it must have been next to nothing I still told my dh what I knew as the children are his children as well as mine and he has a right to know everything about somebody who has contact with them.

The next step is for me to call Judy, I have just emailed her to say I will be calling her tomorrow afternoon, I did this for two reasons, one, it is only polite to let her know since she emailed me her number Monday morning and two, as I have told her I am going to call it will make it very hard for me to make an excuse not to call. Feeling very stressed about talking to her, I don't know what to expect for one and then there is having to talk about things I have always avoided, I have been a real coward before this in a great deal of ways.

passthemerlotplease I am so very sorry to hear of your experiences, mine are slightly different as in my Father has admitted one count of abusing a boy and due to other allegations in the institution he was in then is now being investigated by the police and also, as he is a Monk by the church's child protection and safeguarding team (the lady I am calling Judy is the leader of that team).
There was abuse in the home growing up but most of it was violent and mental. like you my memories are disjointed but there are a few things that point towards the possibility of inappropriate sexual behaviour. It is this kind of thing that I am facing having to tell Judy about.

I have my internet and phone back now thank goodness and BT are refunding my out of pocket expenses so there is good about today, I have also got my dd's birthday gifts, had a lovely shopping morning with my friend very sweetly her Mum rang while we were out to check I was okay, my friend has offered to be with me when having the main interview with Judy, she agrees with me it would be better face to face, I think Judy would travel to see me (she is baced a couple of hours away) but my friend has also offered to drive me to her if required. I have good friends, I am very lucky.

I said to my friend yesterday that this has brought about one good thing, I have always struggled telling people about my Dad (step Dad who died when I was nearly 17) and my Father but now it is clear to me, it is simple, my Dad died, end of.

Me again, I am using this area as a release and work through tool as well as advice and support so I apologise for the long and frequent postings, just thought I would say that before I launch into the next one!

I have just had a long conversation on the phone with my Mum as I had forwarded her today's emails. We were mainly going over the same things again and I was thinking about what Judy is likely to ask me/want to talk to me about, we talked a little about the violent and mental abuse in the house hold as a child before they divorced when I was 10/11. Most of the violence was at mu mother but on at least one occasion he physically attacked me (I was 7 years old, it was the first night at home for me after spending weeks in hospital and I had undergone major abdominal surgery a week or so before). I decided to take the plunge and talk to my Mum about some of the things I remember that made me uncomfortable (in a sexual way know now as an adult) as a young girl and I mentioned how I had told some of this stuff to my boyfriend who I was with for 7 years from the age of 19 and that spark a memory of hers and then mine involving that boyfriend. When I was 21 and my bf 20 we just moved into a new flat our first with two bedrooms and my Father was due for a visit and was going to stay with us, bf was uncomfortable with this but we went ahead with planning for my Father to stay in the spare room, it became clear that I was going to be in hospital while my Father was visiting and bf really didn't want to be alone in the flat with my Father but I talked my bf round as it was just a 1 night stay. The next day my Mum and my bf met up in order to go to the hospital to see me. Mum tells me that my bf was very quiet, he and my Father had been drinking (my Father gets most inappropriate with drink in him) and something had happened that night, my bf was known to be a real joker, he would make jokes out of serious things but this time Mum tells me he was deadly serious, he told her that he was never willing to be alone with my Father ever again and in fact, he never wanted to see him ever again. He refused to tell my Mum who, she tells me that it was like he knew she would understand why, something inappropriate and sexual had happened, not something my bf consented to. Mum and my bf had a good relationship and she tells me she told him a little about the stuff that has blown up now. My bf to me said it was the night from hell and he was never going to stay under the same roof as my Father again even if I was there although he was his usual joke style self when he said this to me. My bf gradually removed himself from contact with my Father, he was not normally the type of guy to turn down a free meal but he stopped coming out to dinner when my Father and in the end my sister and I ended up going out to dinner with my Father together because neither of us was comfortable going alone. My other good friend is now back in contact with my ex-bf, I haven't told her about all of this yet as she lives 100 miles away and I am wimping out about trying to tell her about all of this over the phone (it is also difficult to find time for a long phone conversation as I have my children about and she has a teen and 1 year old twins) I was thinking about waiting as I will see my friend next week as she is coming down for dd's party (although not a good time to break all this to her... when the hell is a good time?) however I think I need to talk to her a soon as possible and ask her to contact my ex-bf as I think he should talk to Judy as well, nearly 8 years have passed since we broke up but unless he has changed drastically (and from what my friend has said he hasn't, just matured allot) it is something he would be willing to do.
I am so glad I got the guts up to tell my Mum about things I really didn't want to ever say to her (because I know, all to well as a Mother myself, how much it will hurt her) because not only is it now out there and we are able to talk about it, reassure each other that we all did the best we could but also because it jogged this memory.
We also talked about what this is all likely to lead to, going by what my Father says the police investigation is unlikely to lead to anything much but the investigation by the church's child protection and safeguarding may lead to his current position and location being reviewed. I don't know how being placed on the sex offenders register works but I would like to see him be placed on it, had the '69 events happened more recently he would have been put on it but the register didn't exist back then. I don't know if that is possible though as I am not sure what kind of a risk he is now, although he is on the same site as a residential boys school he has no real access to the boys, he won't be coming near my children again, ever but my sister I can almost guarantee will continue as normal and as far as I am aware she has never taken the precautions I did - never alone with the children, got the children ready for bed in a different room, changed nappies in a different room (although I admit that one was probably ott), made sure dd wore knickers under her nightie, never let him read the bedtime story with them on his knee (this is one of the things linked to events when I was a child). My sister has 3 children, 16 years old, 11 and 6. My sister is known for failing to put her children first so I feel like it is up to me to do my best to ensure hers, and other people who have no ideas children are kept as safe as possible.
sorry for another very long one, I could win essay writing contests.

sickabout another lurker from your previous thread here, just wanted to say I think you're amazing and very courageous.

That's very interesting - and stomach-churning! - about your ex-boyfriend. It's great that your mum and you are now speaking more freely, and that is all down to you. Well done. Something a little bit magical happens when a 'skeleton cupboard' is opened; pieces of the past seem to drop into place, almost unbidden. I hope this magic continues to work for all four of you.

If your friend and the ex manage to get it together to share his story with Judy, so much the better, though I'm sure there's no need to push it.

You're not lucky to have great friends, sickabout, you've got great friends because you're a great person! Although it must be painful for you to think about what's happening, it's brilliant to read your increasing sense of rightness and perspective wrt your father. Wishing you whatever strength, 'magic' and loving support you need to see it through for the very best.

Right here goes, about to make the call. Having a wrestling match with myself, I will think of an excuse not to do it and then tell myself I just have to get it done and so on and so forth.
Saw my GP this morning, didn't go into any detail as had other medical things I needed to talk to him about and couldn't get a double appointment but just gave a very brief outline, he has given me a little advice about separating out feeling into things I can do something about and things I can't, I before all this started was already feeling like I was slipping back into depression so it gets complicated, he doesn't want to just give me medication. I am going back in 2 weeks.
okay. doing it.

Hope the call goes ok sickabout. You'll feel better once it is done.

Hope the call goes well.

Hope it goes OK.

Thank you. I called, Judy not available, She should call me before I have to go on the school run at 3 as I won't be back at home until gone 5 after that, the man I spoke to said he would find her and pass on my number straight away.
I kind of feel a bit better that she is now going to call me back, I won't have time to get myself in a mess before I hit dial, the phone will ring and I will just have to answer.
I came home just before to a card in the post with my Fathers very distinctive hand writing, it is for my dd, a birthday card for tomorrow, he hardly ever remembers the children's birthdays. Interesting the post mark is from Monday so before the don't visit email but it is from where he now lives not where I thought he was (in this country with my uncle) I find it very interesting that his plans have changed so much from when I last spoke to him about 6 weeks ago. I have found out by way of my brother that my uncle did know about the '69 event and has done for many years, that's how my brother found out, being in the same room as my Father and Uncle discussed it while drunk. (there are many questions there but that is for my brother to choose if he wants to share). If my uncle had any sense he would be wanting to distance himself right now so him putting off the planed month long stay makes sense. Having the card sitting there is unsettling. I know I have to let my dd have it, it is just a card but I have to say I don't like it and I will be finding a way not to display it tomorrow with her other cards.
Everything happens at once it seems and things have been thrown up in tha air again as yesterday my fil went into hospital for a fairly routine appointment and was not allowed to go home and is likely to be having heart bypass surgery later today so poor dh is now having to deal with that. It is a very un Christian uncharitable thought but the first thing that went through my head last night when dh got the call was that although I do not get on with my fil (I find him controlling, nasty and a man who will pick at every less then perfect thing you do but ignore his own faults) he is an okay man and I wished it was my Father in hospital facing this .

Bin the card if it upsets you, it doesn't sound like she would be expecting one anyway.

Sorry to hear about your FIL, on top of everything (and I think your uncharitable thought is only natural)

Hope the call with Judy goes ok when it happens