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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To stop contact with kids grandparents. Very long

70 replies

NacMacFeeglie · 10/08/2014 14:37

I have not done this yet. But I won't lie. I want to.

So background. Was brought up with my dad and a step mum who had three children of her own. I do refer to them as my brothers and sister. I also have one blood brother.

When I was seven I was abused. It continued for three years. I finally wrote it all down and left the letter for my step mum to find. The abuser was spoken to then it was all brushed under the carpet. However my step mum never believed me and as it would turn out most of my immediate family didn't either.

At the age of eighteen I woke up at my mums new year party to find a man in the process of having sex with me. I froze and pretended to be asleep until he finished and left. I never told anyone about it. I had told of my abuse and hadn't been believed so why would I say about a rape.

Start of this year I had a breakdown. Extreme crisis. There were a lot of triggers including working a full time stressful sales job and raising four children. My partner and I went through a very bad patch and I found some boy had been trying to have sex with my dd. it was also the anniversary of one of my brothers deaths. I'd also had a cancer scare the previous year and two bouts of pneumonia. Eventually it all accumulated and after one bad argument with my DP I cut my wrist badly. The hospital believed I was struggling as my daughter came close to being abused and I felt I had let her down the way I had been as a child.

I couldn't handle the guilt of cutting my wrist and two weeks later at a house party whilst very drunk I decided it would be a great idea to take a pill. I don't take drugs ever and have strong feelings about them but that night for whatever reason I gave them a go. I had a terrible reaction and a subsequent breakdown.

Anyways. If you are still with me. I went through extreme anxiety and severe depression. Saw my crisis team daily and began to recover with the help of meds. One stabilised enough I began having counselling.

This is where a lot of anger and hurt I'd pushed down over the years came out. My counsellor helped me see my family had badly let me down. I was abused but no one stood up for me. No one made sure I was coping okay afterward. And they actually asked me if I was telling the truth several years later.

My brother and sister in law I was very close to. For four years. My SIL was my best friend and I thought the world of her. Until I found out her and my brother were planning a nice holiday away. With my abuser. That actually broke my heart.

Eventually I snapped one night. I outed my abuser very publically to all my friends and family via a social networking site. Made sure everyone knew exactly what he was.

Naturally my family were not
Impressed. My stepmother sent my abuser a message asking if he was okay Hmm my sister in law gave my private phone number to my abusers wife. My abuser tried to deny it all so I told him to contact my father who spoke to him about it at the time. My father told him it was just kids being kids and they'd all forgotten about it. Hmm

Things became worse. I phoned my SIL in a rage that she had given my private number to my abusers wife. She denied it and sent the police round to warn me to not contact her Hmm

My step mother sister and sister in law all began posting things on fb about me. Calling me liar etc. they all removed me and blocked me.

I was still in counselling at that point which got me through. My counsellor was absolutely amazing.

I didn't want anything to do with my step mother who had removed me but added my abuser and I refused to have her in my house. My father basically chose her over seeing me and the grandchildren because he wouldn't come and see us unless she could too.

Recently things got even worse where I discovered my father had got with my mother when she was fourteen and he was twenty two. From speaking to my mum I realised he was an abuser too. Which explained why he'd never really done anything about mine and also my brothers abuse.

He also used to beat my blood brother. I used to jump in and try to stop him. My brother and I are super close.

I have actually changed my surname since and I really don't want my children to have anything to do with that side of my family. When I finally discovered my step mother wasn't my real mother they told me so many lies about her.

They also rarely bother to see the kids anyways and think chucking presents at them twice a year and bags of sweets makes them good grandparents. My SIL has four and my sister has two. All of which see them a lot lot more than mine do.

I want to keep my children away from a family that is a bunch of abusers or abused. I want to keep them away from people that basically advocate child abuse.

So AIBU.

OP posts:
ohfourfoxache · 10/08/2014 14:47

Yanbu at all Sad

I can't see how anyone could say yabu.

You have been so brave and so strong, have you thought about reporting this to he police?

Iiwy I'd be cutting contact completely, including sending presents etc back to them

So sorry you are going through this Sad

ApocalypseThen · 10/08/2014 14:51

Definitely cut them all out. Look after yourself and your family.

NacMacFeeglie · 10/08/2014 14:54

It was reported to the police by my natural mother. I made a statement but refused to take anything further because I was so scared of what would happen. I was twelve at that point and was already reeling from that fact my mother existed. The police women that interviewed me were so convinced I was telling the truth they said they would keep the file open should I ever change my mind. My father I found out also made a statement when I was fourteen and began inhaling aerosols. The first sign I was going off the rails I think.

I have since spoken to the family protection unit and they are locating the paperwork for my case. I have been told it's now a historical case. Obviously there is no evidence and the one person that could have testified commited suicide. It would purely be my word against his.

OP posts:
longjane · 10/08/2014 14:57

They are not famliy .
Cut all contact .
Walk away .
If you are able I would go to police and have your abuse logged. As you won't be the only one he has abused.

ICanSeeTheSun · 10/08/2014 15:04

Yanbu, I wouldn't allow them within in a million miles of the DC.

With you outing him on Facebook, the seed has been planted and many people will believe you.

Aeroflotgirl · 10/08/2014 15:13

Yanbu at all, I would wash my hand of your dad and that side of the family. Totally NC with the lot of them. So sorry Flowers you have been through so much and sound amazing!

Aeroflotgirl · 10/08/2014 15:14

You sound amazing I meant

NacMacFeeglie · 10/08/2014 15:14

I just couldn't take it. The thought of him sat with my SIL and my brother having a nice time an having got away with it so to speak. I was infuriated. I will say I messaged him via facebook first and gave him an opportunity to speak privately. He ignored me and I outed him. I would do it again too. My counsellor told me being able to have the voice as an adult that you didn't have as a child can be healing.

Interestingly enough his own sister and step sister were very supportive and still on my fb.

My SIL tried to justify her friendship with him. when a friend of their screwed them over and she expected everyone in the family to never talk to them again. However the person that hurt me and left me a very confused messed up teen she befriended. And my brother. Yet she tried to justify it.

I just don't want any of then around my children.

OP posts:
ohfourfoxache · 10/08/2014 15:17

They sound awful, and hugely hypocritical Sad

There is no justification for what hey have done x

angelohsodelight · 10/08/2014 15:18

Cut contact, they've treated you so badly. Focus on your family and your future.

VeganCow · 10/08/2014 15:20

I would cut all contact, today in every way. No texts, calls, fb etc etc and keep it that way.

NacMacFeeglie · 10/08/2014 15:28

I have to say I was expecting a lot of yabu.

OP posts:
flippinada · 10/08/2014 15:43

God you poor thing you have really been through it. How amazing that you have overcome your unhappy childhood to become thesuccessful person you are today.

They sound like a horrible, horrible bunch and YWNBU at all to stop your DC having contact with them.

flippinada · 10/08/2014 15:44

Sorry that sounds a bit trite and patronising. I think you sound pretty amazing tbh.

ohfourfoxache · 10/08/2014 15:45

Oh sweetheart why on earth would anyone say yabu? Sad

Please please remember that they are the ones in the wrong, not you Sad

angelohsodelight · 10/08/2014 15:50

I want to make this very clear. You are not being unreasonable in any way. They are dreadful people. I couldn't forgive anyone having contact with the abuser.

HauntedNoddyCar · 10/08/2014 16:02

They've created a screwed up world where abuse is normalised and minimised. That is what you grew up in :(

Yanbu at all in wanting to protect your dc from that.
Yanbu to never see them again.

They sound vile.

Purpleroxy · 10/08/2014 16:03

Cut them off permanently.

bronya · 10/08/2014 16:03

If your feelings around them are too tangled to completely make sense of, can you think of it this way... Your children need you, in one piece physically and mentally. They need you whole far far more than they'd ever need contact with a family as clearly screwed up as yours are. If you cut contact, would it make you feel safer and more able to cope as a person? Would you feel that your children were safer? You could put this all behind you and move on at last.

cailindana · 10/08/2014 16:24

Yanbu at all. My mother minimised my abuse and while I didn't cut her off completely I am very low contact with her and she will never be alone with my children. Someone who doesn't take the abuse of children seriously should not be in charge of children IMO.

I'm so sorry you went through all that. FWIW I think outing your abuser was absolutely the right thing to do and it was very very brave.

NacMacFeeglie · 10/08/2014 16:36

Thank you all. I really agree with children not being left alone with someone that doesn't take abuse very seriously.

I also don't want them to grow up in the atmosphere that I did. My family are very fake.

And thank you yes standing up for myself and outing my abuser was terrifying but also a huge sense of relief.

With my own children I know that if they were ever hurt like I was I would respond very very differently than my father and stepmum did with me. I don't think I am being unreasonable but it's hard to make others see that sometimes.

OP posts:
Thenapoleonofcrime · 10/08/2014 16:44

YANBU and I think removing yourself from them and the whole sorry mess is the right thing to do. They did not protect you or believe you, and you may find as the years wear on that others were also abused, as it seems very unlikely that you were the only one. Leave them to it, you cannot excuse people who abuse or people who excuse them- going on holiday with a child abuser, fgs!

I am not surprised with all these terrible things that happened to you you had a breakdown, but I hope the you that emerges from all this is stronger and that you enjoy your own family, keeping them well away from an extremely dysfunctional one.

greenfolder · 10/08/2014 16:48

yanbu at all. why would you want to have contact with them? you have your own kids to look out for and them just denying/minimising/rallying round the abuser just highlights that you should have nothing more to do with any of them.

i would stop trying to make them see and leave it to their conscience, unless you want to report the abuse to the police. cant see how having nothing to do with them will be harder than having contact.

FunLovinBunster · 10/08/2014 16:53

I believe you, OP.
Please go to the police. This "person" probably will abuse again.
YANBU in wanting to cut contact.
I hope that you get the real love and support you need.

TestingTestingWonTooFree · 10/08/2014 17:04

Cut them all out. Focus on the family you have created.