To miss DS’s wedding? *trigger warning*, concerns rape

You do realise that this man raped her? There’s no reason on earth she should e er be in the same room as him ever again. She is the victim here and her son is an adult, so should be perfectly capable of understanding that this is not a reasonable expectation of her.

I'd meet with your son and his wife to be. Give them ALL the bare facts.
If it's not possible to meet I'd write to them both (separately?)

Say that you realise this will be shocking and unwelcome but they need to know.
They need to understand only something so awful would keep you away from such a happy day for your son who has been your whole 'life' since age 15.

If he then still chooses to minimise what happened to you that is his choice.
(he may well, in future years, realise what sort of man his 'Father' is)

Hold your head high. You deserve much better than this.

This makes me angry on your behalf and is a reflection on how male violence is minimised and accepted by many people. These men get away with it and it’s not acceptable. Your feelings are completely valid and many many women will have the same dilemma.

I'll take a guess the Father has money and is pushing the idea of a wedding and paying for it.

Weddings aren't cheap.
The girlfriend hasn't been on the scene long.
The sons only 26 whats the rush to get married?

I think this is the Father driving it to get back under Ops skin.

I'm sorry for what OP may be reading this morning on here. If she is still bothering.
This happened at the beginning of the 00s when the tide had turned on what was deemed acceptable in previous decades.
Not that it matters what the poster put in relation to the situation. It wasn't in the dim and distant past.

I don't feel she will get much joy out of ds listening to her or dil.
The thing is the father hasn't earned his place at the wedding table. DS knows enough about the situation to know this already. But he has called his mum bitter. He's enjoying the status he gets with his father.
To me it wouldn't be a great loss not being there in the end because I wouldn't want anything to do with my ds if he didn't want to see what's in front of him. Tell him any more details but he needs to be willing to hear.
I hope OP can get some help from counselling.

I am so sorry that you went through all of that. It is completely unfair and you have every right to feel angry, hurt, and every other human emotion. I am sending you lots and lots of love and strength. You didn’t cause this, you didn’t deserve this and it’s not up to you to put things right. Your only duty here is to your own wellbeing.

I think your decisions here are so tough. There is no right way forward. There is no manual for this.

Therapy or counselling might help you to figure it out. Make sure you get a trauma informed therapist. May be advice from domestic abuse specialists? May be talk to the police too to see what your options are.

As I see it your options are;

• go to the wedding and shove your own needs and feelings down. It may re-traumatise you further though.
• don’t go and process all of what that brings. which may include being vilified for it.

You could tell your son some more detail and teach him a bit about trauma. You won’t be able to predict his reaction, in the moment or after time to reflect. You’ll need to decide based on what you feel is the right thing for you. What honours you the most, without any hope for a particular outcome.

Avoidance of the triggers to trauma is completely normal and to be expected. Of course it will be hard. And, could re-traumatise you. You are right to slow down and make the wisest decision you can for your own sense of safety and wellbeing.

Therapy might help you to figure out what you want and work through the options.

if YOU decide that you want to go then one thing that you MIGHT be able to do, if you have enough time, is reduce your body’s physiological response to that hideous piece of shit.

EMDR is a trauma focused model that can do this, but you’ll need a therapist who can do that with you safely. And only if it’s what YOU want and not so that you can keep your son and everyone else happy.

You could also ask your GP to prescribe beta-blockers to reduce your body’s fight/flight/freeze on the day. But, if that piece of shit might do things to deliberately hurt you on the day then that is a risk. And your trauma might be too great.

The first step though is to get a therapist who understands trauma really well so you can start to figure out what you want.

What should happen is something heavy drops on that piece of shit from a great height and squishes the life out of him. But life isn’t fair and abusers walk free among us. Sadly, that’s the case. And they are often well regarded and charismatic. But since all
of this happened to you, we know much more about abusive cycles, coercion and control and trauma.

Good luck. We are here with you, sending you strength. Xx

I would confide in the in-laws. Make it clear that given the nature of the situation you can't be 100% honest with your son about his dad's history but you've made clear that you can't be around him & you wish them all the best.

I think you do have a right to ask him to choose between you and his father being at events. You did all of the looking after him from baby to adult with love; protected him from his father; and provided all of the financial provision. You deserve a lot of appreciation and respect, and even if your son doesn't see it right now, lots of us who don't know you in person feel it, so I hope that you feel really validated.

Also, even if you didn't have a right to ask your son to choose between you and your abuser, it is already starting to happen effectively anyway. I agree with other posters that you should tell your son about the abuse, but after having some therapy sounds like a really good idea. He needs to know about it. And I also agree with the poster who said that the fiancée needs to know also - if I was that young woman I'd not want that abusive man in my life or the life of any future children.

Others will be smarter on this than me, but I wonder if you might be best off telling your son and his fiancée at the same time. At least then your son might be listening with more awareness of a woman's perspective. If he's making snide comments with her there, he puts his own relationship at risk, but then from your initial description of the relationship in the OP, I'm a bit concerned for the fiancée anyway. Of course, if that relationship breaks up as a direct result of him responding in a misogynistic manner in front of his DP to what you reveal, then he may blame you. But you wouldn't be to blame, and you would've helped the young woman. And in that case I think having some distance from a misogynistic son who's sided with his father instead of you might be a good idea.

Did you ever go to the police and report him for the dreadful things he has done to you, if no, maybe go and report him now ?
it’s never too late
x

I understand your sentiment but surely so already worked out his mother was 14 when she got pregnant with him in which case knows she was raped as was below the age of consent.

@GiftBaggage Firstly OP I just want to give you a huge hug. I echo what all the other posters have said you need to sit down with both your son and your future DIL. He may have blinkers on when it comes to his Father but the Fiancé most definitely won’t. Is he a well balanced young man, I only ask that because of how he may react to what you are going to tell him. His reaction could be to accuse you of lying about his Father in which case do you have evidence to show his crimes, he could get really angry and want to confront his Father which could turn ugly or he just breaks down after hearing about what you his mother went through. Do you think it is worth meeting up separately with your future DIL & talking to her first? Only because she may have some knowledge as to how your son really feels about his Father. At this stage no one knows if the Father has been slowly dripping poison into his son’s ear & he may not believe anything you say because his Father has said that you don’t want Father & son to have a relationship. I do think you need to prepare yourself for any one of these situations to play out and if by talking to your future DIL can help shed some light on their relationship currently it will help you when it comes to sitting your son down and telling him everything. I am concerned what effect this will have on his mental health and his reaction. So I think by taking your future DIL to one side and trusting her may go a long way in helping your son to process the information.

OP in a just world your son would believe your account of what went on with his father and see you as the victim in this situation. However what should happen isn't always what will actually happen and I think you need to be prepared for this.

From what you've said it sounds like your son has become close with his father and I don't know how well he will take the image of his father that he has being challenged, in general people aren't great at this. I understand why you don't want to be in the same place as him but there's a real possibility that your son will side with his dad over you if pushed to.

I'd look at some professional support to work through and maybe legal advice this if you can because I don't think that there are easy answers.

I’m sorry OP, this is awful. The bitter comment is horrible and shows your son doesn’t understand. It’d be bad enough if you’d just had a normal relationship with their father, but in these circumstances it’s terrible.

It does seem like he’s charmed your son. Hopefully your future daughter-in-law isn’t so susceptible

Maybe write him quite a factual letter, detailing the list of everything his father did to you. And just explaining, clearly but relatively unemotionally, that you love your son, you’re delighted he’s getting married but you cannot and will not be with that man under any circumstances and that’s never going to change.

In the late nineties the 15 year old sister of a friend started hanging around a friendship group I was in and then ‘going out’ with a guy in his twenties. Now I absolutely knew this was wrong at the time. It turned my stomach and I never went near this guy again after that. It’s not right to say it was acceptable back then, it wasn’t. The only difference is now I’d be on the phone to social services about it.

I think you should sit him down and tell him the truth and while you won’t make him choose you just cannot be in the same room as his father. Your ds is now an adult he doesn’t need protecting from the truth.

Awful, awful.
Do not go to his wedding, start therapy and then tell your son about the history.

Where were your parents @GiftBaggage when you were abused by this man? What did they do to protect you?

It is essential safe guarding, of course her son needs to know the truth. Op needs to be honest about the reasons she can’t go, or she really will look like the bitter disinterested party, and that isn’t true or fair.

Her son will have to decide whether he wishes to have contact with his mother’s rapist, or not.

Just to say a defendant is not put on the sex offenders register for burglary. It will be a sexual offence of some kind, and it will be a conviction. He may have more than one conviction. He will be on the sex offenders register for ten years.
He should have no unsupervised contact with children at all ( It is usually safer to say no contact at all with children, as grooming can happen in plain sight)

This man is a rapist, a stalker, an abuser and a peadophile. Op’s son as a man of 26 years of age has the right to know everything, then he can make an informed decision.

Op may be further disappointed by his informed decision - people do not always react the way we imagine - but it’s essential he knows the full details, and of course the young woman he is about to marry must be fully informed too.

This nails it really. You don’t need to go into great detail OP but I think you should spell it out a bit more. There is no guarantee that ds will listen but talking it over with someone professional first would be good.

OP, I’m so very sorry you had these awful things happen to you. You sound like you have been incredibly brave for a very long time.

I wonder if your son has gone through a period of worrying he may be like his father in certain aspects so has seen only “the good” and that’s what is blinding him?

I would suggest that when you tell your son the extent of this man’s horrifying actions, you do so with your future daughter in law around. She needs to know about this man too. She needs to hear the extent of the abuse so the truth is heard by them both, first hand. I don’t doubt for one moment that the meeting will be horrific for so many reasons, so I would suggest if you can, write down the events - there may be lots of emotion shown to you and you may get thrown off course and miss things out. I’d also say, if you have someone that you trust who knows, take them with you. Yous son will have his fiancé. You need someone.

Finally as an aside, and please take this in the kind spirit in which it is meant., your comment about their quick engagement should be one you don’t ever mention. Whilst you have real concerns and they may be valid, you don’t want the reason for your non attendance to be about anything other than the abuse you suffered. Sometimes people can divert their anger/betrayal etc onto other things and your son/his fiancée should not be given any opportunity to think their engagement/wedding are being soured because you think they are moving too quick as opposed to the truth of years of abuse.

I wish you all the very best and hope you have good people around you to support you.

im so sorry this happened to you. I can’t get my head head around why your son wants to invite him

I need to sit your son down and maybe his fiancee too and tell him that his dad raped you when you were a child and he was an adult. You need to be honest with your son.

he may not believe you if you tell him the scale of the abuse, and or he may feel you’re forcing to choose between him and you. Surely it’d be better to tell him you wish him well, but can’t attend.

DS: I’m not bitter. I am traumatised. He raped me when I was trying to feed you. He raped me repeatedly. I can’t sit with an abuser. I brought you up to be a good kind person, which you are but you need to know that he isn’t.