I'm a name changer but can mention fruit shoots/Greggs sausage rolls/Moldies/SheWhoMustNotBeNamed if need be.
When I was 13 I was abused by a relation. My mother was aware of this and ostriched. When I became upset and angry over the following months I was sent to boarding school. I left home at 16 because my mother moved this relation into the house for a year (he had nowhere else to go, apparently), and started living in the local YMCA, had a relationship with a drug dealer who thumped me now and then, the usual. I realised at 19 that this was a one way route to nowhere so I went and got some A levels, sorted myself out, went to university and met someone lovely and now have a child/family/life. I've got past it and it is now mostly something that happened, not who I am. There are cracks and weaknesses still but I have a happy life and much to live for.
My relationship with the family has always been difficult. I never had Xmas with them as he was always invited and though they all knew, they said they wanted to make it clear they weren't taking sides by asking us both, which in effect meant I couldn't go. He is deaf and has some mental health issues so they felt a certain degree of sympathy over his problems. I was told what had happened was sadly very common in families and I needed to accept it was in the past and move on. I was told this from 16 onwards, despite the fact that he behaved in a predatory way to a deaf girl with a mental age of 12 and another girl who was suffering a psychotic episode (he was "kind to her" and took her out to the cinema etc; it transpired he was pressuring her into unwanted sexual contact). My family are enormously fucked up; nobody except one aunt is on speaking terms with every other member and my mother, very justifiably actually, has no contact with her own mother. Everyone is divorced in the older generation except for one couple, who seem to hate each other and really should be.
At university this relation managed to find my email (as he worked internally at another uni in their IT dep't) and send me a jolly one asking how I was and how much he'd like to see me. I was completely terrified and sickened by this. DH who was then my boyfriend emailed back saying my family were all gutless but he was not and if this individual ever contacted me again, the next contact with anyone at all would be at a police station explaining why he had abused a child. The relation was apoplectic with rage - fw the email to some of my family as evidence of persecution - but since then he has left me alone. DH was then and has remained extremely protective and assertive with them all on this area.
My mother has never respected my wishes and feelings on this one. It was therapy that meant I was able to draw a line in the sand over it - a shrink told me at 17 that nobody had ever protected me, and that my mother was plainly incapable of it (she also allowed a boyfriend to exile us kids to our room when I was 8, because he was jealous and wanted her to himself, she used to pretend to call social services to have us taken into care as a discipline measure, she hit us extremely hard, the usual I suppose when a single parent is really unable to cope at all). My mother is now someone who has worked really hard on herself and freely admits to all this and is apologetic and in many ways wonderfully supportive, but her blind spot is still this relation.
Due to work problems and then money ones, we had to sell the house and relocate. We rent a house now and couldn't find one that took a dog. This relation used to beat up my old dog, so when my mother offered to rehome ours DH sat her down and asked for her word that the dog would never, under any circumstances, be alone with this relation. The dog is a pedigree and a sought after one, and we pay for full Petplan insurance, so we could have rehomed her elsewhere, but my DS adores her and my mother has him overnight every week so it seemed a good compromise. (DH also told my mother when DS was born that if the relation so much as laid eyes on his son, she would never see me or the baby again.)
My mother adores DS and he her, and so I arranged Christmas around her needs. As she wants to spend Xmas day with the relation, I planned an Xmas meal on Christmas Eve so she could do stocking opening as well on Xmas morning before she left. This was for my son mostly as I don't want him to realise there is an issue - he loves his Granny and I foster that she also dotes on him. A cousin and her husband, both of whom I'm fond of and close to and who know the situation, were also invited.
While cooking I heard a report on the radio about anti-freeze and road salt killing pets, and asked Mum to call the friend who had the dog to ask her to bathe her paws after walks. Mum made an excuse. I said I really thought it mattered and then she said, dog was not with that friend. I asked where dog was. Dog was in her house, alone, with relation.
I didn't say anything. I just relayed that to DH, who said he was going to make other housing arrangements for the dog as soon as possible. When I carried the food into the living room I heard my mother say, aggressively to him, "you're just biased. Your opinion isn't worthwhile." I stopped dead and asked what was being discussed and she said, "nothing." I repeated, what, and she said, "the dog." At that point I started to shout at her - biased? I should bloody well hope so! She said it was years ago and I needed to get over it, and to my horror my cousin joined it and agreed and said the dog would be fine. I said he'd beaten up my other dog and enjoyed scaring her over water etc and she said that was years ago and she'd trust him with her own cat so what was my problem.
Things got out of hand and I started asking if she'd been backed against a fucking wall having someone grope her, and if she had phobias about people sitting on her duvet trapping her under it, and if she absolulutely had to shower every day, and a range of other things I won't bore you all with. I went to my room and cried and DH basically told them all exactly what he thought. My cousin's husband came to see me and was lovely - basically said that cousin just can't deal with conflict and meant to help, and added that my family are mad and always handle conflict by pressuring the victim to STFU. The thing I find hardest there is that I have driven to see that cousin for miles at 2 am when she had a crisis, leaving my tiny baby son behind with DH. Yet in this situation I got sod all support. Mum started demanding a taxi and DH turned to her and said she was not the victim here, to stop her usual efforts at playing it. He did try to get her a taxi as he wanted shot of her but it wasn't possible at 8 pm on Xmas Eve at short notice so I served dinner and we all did what my family always does; pretended everything was ticketyboo.
I talked to Mum very early on Xmas morning and she said at first that she didn't think I'd mind, then said she'd called loads of kennels and none could house the dog. When I asked why she hadn't just not come she had no answer. She said we'd not asked her never to leave the dog with him alone but DH explicitly did and so did I. When I pointed out that we leave DS in her sole care and how can we after this, she was appalled and said he was teh most precious thing in the world to her and the dog was just a dog, no comparison and she would never let this relation anywhere near DS. But the problem is she left ME with him when she knew, so how the hell can I believe her? We left it on better terms and she was supposed to be coming here on Tues to babysit as prearranged, but tbh I just don't want to see her. I feel sick at the idea. I know she and DS have their own relationship now and I must respect that but I feel sick at seeing her or him having any more contact because I just can't see how the hell I can trust her now? She has never shown an ounce of respect for my wishes over the years - my possessions given to this relation when he moved house and Mum thought he could do with them, nobody asking me a damn thing about it, etc - yet she has always disgusied my contact details in her phone book as well, so at some level she is aware he is unsafe to me and mine. But that being so, what the hell happened with the dog?!
DH doesn't want her allowed sole charge of DS again. Tbh I am thisclose to severing all contact with the lot of them. I am just so confused and don't know how reasonable I am being - they've all been so consistent in saying I have over reacted for so long, but DS thinks they are a child protection nightmare and getting rid of the lot of them would be a very good move indeed. But they're my family and I do love them. And I have no other family. My father is even worse (violent and a clinical narcissist - this is all my mother's side.)
I'm sorry this is so long and so jumbled. Believe it or not I am usually a sane and articulate and reasonable poster. My head is just in bits right now.