To wonder if I was actually groomed?

[Tulipsfromfrance]

So I’m a fully grown adult now, but trying to process some trauma from my younger years, and I always come back to this question.

When I was 14 I started seeing a 18 year old. He bought me alcohol, drugs (nothing too heavy!), cigarettes. We obviously started sleeping together - I ended up pregnant at 14 and have a lovely son now. He did stick around and I do feel he loved me which is why I can’t decide if it was actual grooming or what.

My family said that because I wasn’t a virgin and he was (I was a very troubled child!) then it was my fault and I led him astray.

We split when I was 18 as I just didn’t feel anything for him anymore, he always stayed in contact with son, although when my son hit 14 my son pulled away from visiting his dad a bit, he admitted he found it weird his dad got me pregnant at that age.

grooming or me just being a stupid teenager?

Of course you were taken advantage of. An 18 year old giving drugs and drink to a 14 year old? No question. You were a child and he should have known much better. The responsibility was on him.

Your family sounds incredibly toxic.

Please don't put the issues of your childhood on you. Troubled children aren't typically troubled for no reason.

That your son is a lovely boy is a tribute to you giving him a stable and loving childhood and breaking generational cycles.

Be proud of yourself and of him.

Looking back clearly your relationship with his father was not healthy and appropriate. That's an awful thing to happen to a child. Will dwelling on it help? I don't think so. Are you planning on raising it with the police (the fact that your son exists is proof of statutory rape as a minimum, as an 18 clearly had sex with someone under 16).

If you aren't going to pursue then can you let it go and focus on the future?

You have done brilliantly raising your son, a triumph over your childhood ❤️

@Frasers an 18 year old giving a 14 year old alcohol and drugs is grooming. He had a choice, and chose to do that to a child who could not consent.

@Tulipsfromfrance The buying you alcohol and fags seems like grooming.

And I personally think the age of consent should be taken seriously. He was an adult and chose to have sex with a significately underage child.

Hugs OP. I agree with those suggesting you get therapy because people can be dismissive about this sort of thing and that doesn't help. x

ahhh that makes sense! Sorry.

You definitely didn't 'lead him astray' but I don't think he groomed you either, based purely on what you've said in your post.

An 18-year-old is still sixth-form age, and I just don't think there's enough of a power imbalance for that to be considered grooming. Typically, in a grooming situation one person has a lot more experience (sexual or otherwise) than the other, or is in a position of power somehow, or has a lot more emotional maturity, but it doesn't sound like that was the case here. You were two teenagers of the same generation and you were together in a relationship for four years.

You don't mention when this happened, but I know 100% that a relationship between a 14-year-old and an 18-year-old would barely have raised an eyebrow when I was 14. I definitely had friends who were dating sixth-formers when we were 14 and nobody's parents (or teachers) thought that was a problem. Today, I think people are a lot more clued up and wary about these things, but I don't think you can judge the past by the standards of the present. I can absolutely see why this seems weird to your son, who has had a very different education to you, and perhaps also felt less mature at 14 than you did.

I was groomed as a kid. A bunch of older lads say mid to late 20s would drive us round in their van, we'd have to stop and get out and perform sex acts on them, they selected which guy it would be etc. They gave us sweets, cigs, weed. My friend got me into it - she was a lost soul 'teen off the rails' and I was going that way and she encouraged me to join them.

it made me so uncomfortable I ran away on the fourth outing when we were going to have to go back to someone's house. My friend was really upset with me, think she came in for a bit of stick from the guys.

It wasn't until years and years later when i saw an interview with a victim of a grooming gang that I realised it was the exact sale MO that happened to me but for whatever lucky reason I wans't quite vulnerable enough to be sucked in all the way. This was in a very deprived part of UK.

my friend ended up addicted to drugs and in prison for a bit. Me, I had a few lost years relating to other issues but I'm fine now and don't think I was especially affected by it. Like I say I didn't think of it as grooming until much later.

My point being that YES you were groomed but it's very difficult to see it at the time and a lot of people tend to blame the victim. Eg in my experience, I just thought me and my friend were off the rails and bad girls for hanging out with these older guys. I didn't blame the older guys as such, which in hindsight is strange - why was I so willing to give them a pass?

So - yes, you were groomed, and if it's affecting your wellbeing now you should get help.

Grooming, like so many other crimes against women, is weird in that the victim is often the one that society blames for the crime.

Yeah seems a bit noncey to me sorry..