Telling DC the truth about abusive dad?

[nevertoldanyone]

Have namechanged. Please don't out me if ytou think you know who i am.

I've only spoken of this once, and that was on here a while ago, so please bear with me.

Years ago i was in a violent relationship with my DC's father. He was a very cruel and controlling man, and a heavy drinker. He beat me mercilessly and i hated him. He'd beat me in front of my youngest DC although at only a year old, i'm not sure how much of it he remembers. He raped me repeatedly - the last time being when DC2 was less than a week old. I'd had a 3rd degree tear having her and he raped me with a glass bottle. I put up with this because he made me believe that he would get custody of the children if i tried to leave. I know thats stupid now, but when you;re living it.. well.. you don't have the energy to fight anymore.

I plucked up the courage to leave when he insinuated that i might find DC2 dead in bed one day from cot death. We left in the clothes we stood up in. We were put in a hostel in a different part of the country and started to get our life back together. But he found me. He beat me so severely that i was in intensieve care for a week, in hospital for three weeks. There was a particular policewoman who helped me find the courage to press charges for what he'd done to me. He was found guilty and sent to prison, where he hung himself.

DC are now 11 and 9, and we're ok. I'm in a new relationship of a few years with a good man who has taken the children on as his own. We're happy.

Lately though DC1 has been asking questions about his biological father. I don't know what to say to him. I've been avoiding talking to him about it, and i can't put it off anymore, it's not fair on him.

But what do i say? Do i make up some lie? Is he old enough for the truth? I honestly don't know.

nevertoldanyone I am in awe of your courage and resilience in overcoming everything you've been through.

I'm going to go against the grain on this thread and say that I don't think using the term 'sick' is the way to go. My concern is that it could be seen to absolve your DC's father from any responsibility for his actions. In turn, this could have the unintended side effect of leading your DC to put up with bad behaviour from others on the basis that they are unwell and don't mean it.

My XP is still alive and I've already thought long and hard about this question, so although I wouldn't even pretend to understand what you've been through or how difficult your particular situation is, I think I do have some insight.

I have decided to say that daddy chose to hurt mummy - he might not always have understood why he did it and he probably regretted it, but he didn't stop it. Because violence is wrong and I and they deserved better, I decided to leave. My XP has lots of other good qualities and I see all those in my DC. I say they have inherited all his strengths and none of his weaknesses, and that behaviour is always a choice. I also talk about physical similarities and his family history so that they get a sense of their past. In short, I try to stick to the positives without avoiding the truth. I'm sure in your case it's very, very hard to think of the positives after everything that man has done, but maybe you can think about aptitudes rather than personality traits? (e.g. he was good at maths or something?).

I don't know if I'm doing the right thing and my advice could be totally off, but whatever you decide, I'm sure you will do the best you can for your DC. You are an amazing woman.

Op I think you have been so brave :)

DS does not see his father, who was very abusive towards me (not to the extent that your XP was), and have had to face a lot of questions from DS.

I took the stance that XP had not been mature enough to handle the relationship, or non-resident parenting, and that this had made him behave badly. I said that his immaturity had lead him to behave in ways that I expect he now regrets, and that the combination of his anger and immaturity lead him to be a bit unwell, which made his behaviour worse.

It was really importnat to me that DS does not believe he comes from 'bad stock', so I have also talked about how much XP loved DS, and that I would be willing to bet that he still loves him, and thinks about him all the time, but does not know how to undo what he has done.

What I hoped to achieve was for DS to understand and forgive, and maybe one day he will! He has been through so much anger and resentment, but I maintain my belief that he is still loved by XP and that XP was not thinking clearly and does not know how to undo it. I also said that he could not cope with only seeing DS some of the time, but that he was faced with that situation as a result of his actions.

DS has in the past gotten very angry, for himself and for me. I have pointed out that I too was immature and would have handled things better now (I was very young when I had DS), but DS is adamant that the fact that I stuck by him, stood up for him and endured for him means so much to him. I have told DS that I do not know if I could have coped with only seeing him some of the time, and that being in that situation myself would probably have made me very unwell.

But the fact is that sometimes us parents are compromised by the other parent - OP you really have been, and we do our best.