Was this abusive?

[ConfusedStepDaughter]

Hi all,

Name changed for this as its potentially outing when linked with my other posts. I posted in relationships this morning but it's on the second page with no replies already so thought I'd post here for traffic.

I've been having therapy for a few years now to work through my quite complicated childhood. I was abandoned by my a biological dad before I was born and he was in and out of my life from 7. Mostly out, saw him maybe 10 times.

My mum married my stepdad when I was 7 and he was the best dad I could have wished for through out my childhood, very traditional and typical family life during those years.

They split when I was 15 and it was as if they decided my compensation for the split was that I could pretty much do what I wanted. Mum and step dad both seemed to relive their carefree single youths. My step dad had a job roll which meant he was always surrounded by the cool young music crowd in our city. He would go out to clubs and invite me along. He went off the rails and exposed me to all of it.

He would tell me graphic details about his sex life
He would be really careless and leave sex paraphernalia about that I would find.
He took me along to nights out when I was 16 and surrounded by drunk older lads, some of whom would try it on with me, he wouldn't be around to protect me, he'd play it down.
He once played some beastiality porn to me and a friend because he thought it was funny.
He constantly talked about sex and sexualized women in the way he spoke about them in front of me.
I had a house party and got really drunk, he came over and brought his friend who had a history of being pervy and a "ladies man" at one point this man cornered me and put his hand down my pants and snogged me. He was 40 I was 17 and hammered. My dad played it off as boys will be boys when I told him. A few times adult men were inappropriate with me in front of him and he laughed it off.

All this seemed totally normal until I started to talk to my therapist. I have been very overweight my adult life and frankly the worst thing I can ever think of is being thought of as a sex object. It makes me very uncomfortable and anxious. I think this is connected to my dads behaviour when I was at such a crucial stage of my development.

I feel like this behaviour looks almost like grooming behaviour, although I'm 100% certain my dad never had any inappropriate intentions towards me personally.

Its messed me up a bit realising how warped it all is. I don't know what to think really.

It's certainly not the nurturing parenting that 15 year old you deserved and needed.
Your step dad was irresponsible and put you in danger. He may not have meant you any harm, we dont know what he was thinking or feeling. All you can do is think about your thoughts and feelings, then and now.

Not sure if its abuse or not.. It certainly is messed up behavior from grown man, who was in a parental role, towards a teenage girl.

He definitely didn't mean me any harm. But i think I just feel quite messed up from it. I had massive self esteem and rejection issues from my birth dad and then probably some quite warped ideas about men and sex from my step dad that contributed to some bad decisions and situations I found my self in in my late teens. I always felt like i was a fuck up. But now I'm wondering if step dad fucked me up.

Isn’t this what people do to groom a child/young person.

My FIL took his son (my hubby) to a strip club in Belgium when he was young, too young. It really messed with his head at the time.
Young people don’t need to be thrust into an adult world.

Yes OP, it is abusive. You were a child and he exposed you to all that, put you in danger and laughed it off when men trampled all over your boundaries. Whether he meant you any harm or not is way beside the point.

YANBU - it’s weird. You could’ve been drugged or raped

Showing illegal images of sexual images of animals to a child is definitely abuse.
I would say some of the other stuff was neglect or endangerment.
Minimising when you were assaulted was emotionally abusive. It all adds up to a pattern of pretty abusive behaviour.
Does he feel any regret?

Yes, sexualised talk in front of someone underage is abuse.

Neglectful, possibly abusive - you don't say when it was, attitudes change. From what you have said he didn't rape or physically abuse you.
You say you have been in therapy for several years - has that helped? Have you discussed this with your therapist?

It was abusive, as said, there were numerous abusive behaviours and neglect. Your downplaying it by saying that je didn't mean you any harm. He should have kept you safe from harm, instead he put you in harms way.

All of your parents have a lot to answer for. Your SD most definitely fucked you up.

@ShouldWeChangeTheBulb he does. One of the reasons it came up in therapy for me was because a few months ago he apologised for the thing with his friend at the party. I was always very aware that my birth dad had abandoned me and I was scared to rock the boat with step dad incase he did too. I think that's why I hadn't really thought about it being "bad" until he apologised. He has a lovely partner now and she has encouraged him to have therapy of his own so I think the apology is part of that. I think that one event was scrapping the surface though. I was just way in over my head.

@EveryDayIsADuvetDay its come up in therapy because my therapist noticed I was putting him on a pedestal and would always shut down if we got close to looking at his behaviours in a negative light. Then the apology from him sort of gave me permission to explore it, that sounds a bit mad. I always thought I had to be so so grateful that he was there for me because my own dad hadn't been. When he and my mum split up some of his friends couldn't understand why he stuck around for me and my sibling. Hearing that made me feel grateful but also insecure that one day he'd see it that way too and leave altogether.

I’m pretty sure that showing children any kind of porn is sexual abuse. It’s definitely hugely damaging. He might never laid a finger on you himself but he was complicit in the sexual assault in my opinion. He wasn’t treating you like a daughter, he wasn’t even treating you like a friend. You told him you had been sexually assaulted and he laughed and basically said tough shit.

A bit of me thought you'd tell me it wasn't great parenting but I would be unreasonable to say it was anything like abuse. These replies will certainly give me a lot to think about. It feels a bit like it rewrites a portion of my life and in such a heavy and upsetting way. I'm so grateful to already be having counselling.