To those who were abused by father/member of family in childhood...

[Allboxedin]

How do you feel about your mum if she is still around and how do you deal with the fact that she never protected you from it if you think she knew?
Do you have any meaningful relationship with her?
I am findingthis really hard. Never really got on with my mum, she is quite annoying at the best of times and generally only talk about herself. If we ever end up having a conversation about the past it is always tunred into how she is suffering rather than listening even when she has asked us to talk about it.
Ok I know it must be hard for her (she is still with my dad) and it must have been but she just doesnt seem to honestly care about anyone else.

I know she wants me and my sisters help and to have a relationship with us but how can we when she is like this? Even when someone else is ill or has a problem somehow iot affects her more than the actual person.
I feel I am talking to a wall when she asks us about things or our opinions.
I just find it so irritating and annoying.
My sister who was abused by my father for many years feels exactly the same.
When she told my mum about it later in her teens she stayed with dad in the hope he would change but he continued. She is still with him but having problems now and seems to think she can rely on us to help her.
I am fine supporting her if she needs it but I don't want to be her crutch. I dont feel she was ever there when we needed her so why should we be?

She is still with your Dad? And she knows what he did?

She says she didn't know whilst we were growing up (which I dont really believe) until my sister told her about 18 years ago when she was about 18 and left home. Its a long story but I stopped speaking to my dad a few months ago and totally cut contact as it was always swept under the carpet but recently mum has said she is wanting to leave but he is ill and she says she will feel guilty of she does etc..........

I know this is only addressed to those unfortunate enough to suffer abuse, but will you let others give their input, too? Tell me to get lost (in a nice way) and I won't mind.
I'd cut them both out of your life. I know it is easier said than done, but, seriously, ANY woman who is STILL with a man after he has admitted the abuse (some abusers are convincing liars) is not worth bothering with. She is as sick in the head as he is.
You're best off away from them. This is harsh on you, but, believe me, just because it is not easy to do doesn't make it wrong.

I'm sorry to say this, but I'd bet that she knew all the time. Sick in the head and complicit in the abuse all this time.

I am just as disappointed and angry at my enabling parent as my abusive parent: both parents together are part of one abusive system. Mine was emotional abuse rather than physical or sexual. I'm so sorry for what you went through.

By ignoring his abuse of you and your sister then, and remaining with him now, your mother is demonstrating that keeping your father in her life is (and always was) more important to her than her own children's wellbeing.

Neither of them deserve to have you in their life.

I have no experience of this, so please disregard my comments if you wish. However, I feel neither of them deserve you in their life too. It's hard to cut contact but what can you achieve by having them in your life? Have you had any counselling, it might help you make some sense of it all. Hope that doesn't sound patronising, I know it must be very complicated but to an outsider it's quite clear cut. They don't deserve your attention or thoughts.

I have to say, in your position, I would cut all contact with both of them.

Any members of my family that still have to do with the abuser - I will never see or speak to them again, and I have kept this up all my adult life since I spoke about the abuse.

You need to heal and you can't while you're still interacting with these people.

Save yourself. Walk away.

clic of course not, thanks for replying. It is all really helpful. Thankyou :)

clic, I agree with you. I think she did and I think she is scared now we have cut contact with my dad because she knows she could also be held responsible. It was really hard not speaking to my dad for the first time over christmas but it feels like a bad part of me has been cut off - iykwim?
Thanks to the rest of you too with the same advice. I know some people are controlled and brain washed/liv in denial. But now I have my two little girls of my own. I do not understand how a mother can sit back and watch us the way we were. It was also emotional and physical. She claims that he told her it was 'normal' for teenage girls to have baths with their dads, for him to use the slipper for the tiniest thing and the other things so surely that would raise her suspicions? She goes on saying 'oh I must have been stupid etc' but she was a mature adult from a well educated family, so that baffles me!

I think my sister and me are ready to forgive them but we never see any true remorse which is why we have taken this action with my dad. If mum showed she was really sorry and took responsibility we would be more ready to help.

I personally think you are being too kind towards them, but whatever works for you. I hope I would cut them out but it probably isn't clear cut

Sadly I am qualified to answer your OP.

I now have no contact with my dad. I do have contact with my mum.
I know she had 'suspicions' .
I also know she too was a victim of abuse, both in the marriage to my dad and in her own childhood.
I know she has ongoing mental health issues (mainly depression and self harm).
She never condoned his abuse when it all came out, and me and my siblings cut him off as did all my maternal side of the family.
She is also very me, me, me, like your's OP, quite childlike (not childish, childlike - not sure how to put it eloquently so I'll leave it at that for now). Very naiive, not a lot of social/ relationship skills.

I struggled the most after having my own child and fully understanding maternal love. I'd be lying if I said I've forgiven her, I don't think I ever will.

April it is hard, especially when they are manipulative over you. :(
bored, that is what she is like, very simple minded, almost dependant. She has always been dependant on my dad you see. She asks questions like a child would because she just can't stop talking. I know she isnt stupid, its almost like she pretends to be though sometimes which I find so confusing too. I am wary of what she says and we both take what she says with a pinch of salt.
bored, did you have any councelling?

AllboxedIn,

My stepfather abused me and my sister when we were children and I tried to tell my mum but she wouldn't listen. When my younger sister told me about her abuse when she was a teenager and I was 19, I confronted my mum and she eventually left him. Eventually. He is now dead and she went to nurse him when he was dying of cancer.

When I had my daughter, I was utterly overwhelmed by the pain of what she had done to us. Her betrayal hit home because I now knew what a mother's love felt like. I knew that if anyone hurt my daughter I would be capable of killing them. That sounds extreme but a mother's love knows no bounds. I cut my mother out of my life for several months after my daughter was born. I could not bear to see her. I only relented because of my daughter and I didn't want to deprive everyone of that family relationship. My mother was sexually abused herself by her father and she was very vulnerable when she met my stepfather because my father had died suddenly and she had three children to raise. I believe he prayed on her and controlled her as he was a very manipulative man.

We now have a relationship but only because my stepfather is dead and my mum did eventually leave him because of what he had done. I did not want to go to the police while he was alive because of mum's distress but now, 10 years after he died, I really wish we had so that he was forced to face up to what he had done.

I would not hesitate to cut them both out of your life, they have no place in it. I would personally report him to the police and I hope your children have nothing to do with him. Do not be manipulated into a relationship any longer. I used to look at the angelic face of my sleeping daughter and ask myself how any mother could knowingly let their child come to harm without seeking revenge on the person who caused it. Your mother has not even left your father. Find your inner anger and kick them out of your life. Believe me, you won't miss them.

red, it sounds so familiar. My dad only has been given a couple of years to live at the most due to a lung condition. That is why my mum says she feels guilty leaving him.
I feel the same, I had my second lovely daughter just 4 months ago and another who is 2. I will and would do anything to protect them. I dont really ever remember my mum showing us any love and I know that is where I don't want to go wrong with mine. I want them to know they can come to me with anything.
My dad has never seen my 2nd dd and has only seen dd1 twice and luckily they live quite a long way away. He probably wont ever see dd2.
Sister also wants him to have to face up and take punishment for what he has done before he dies to give her some kind of closure.

My sister wanted to go to the police when it all came out but as the older sister I convinced her not to as my mum was so ripped apart by the revelation of the abuse that I thought she would kill herself or something. Now I feel guilty as he died with his "good name" intact and I feel that I robbed my sister of some sort of closure. I would urge you to report him. I wish that even if there wasn't enough evidence or whatever for it to get to court, that he had had that moment of fear when the police knocked on his door to arrest him. That would have been nothing compared to the fear instilled in us as we were growing up.

Ditto with the showing love, I would never just go and sit and have a cuddle with my mum now or when I was growing up and my sister was actually "employed" to tell tales on me. That is how she earnt extra pocket money! Which meant we were always at loggerheads and thus less likely to discuss the abuse I think.

I also want my children to know they can come to me about anything and I am probably too soft with DD sometimes as I never want her to be unhappy. I used to feel sick at the thought of going home from school each day. What he did still affects me now, even though I am very good at blocking it out day to day.

Seriously think about reporting him. Do it for your daughters and for the child that you were. I owed the child that I was that much but I didn't do it because of fear about how it would affect my mum. It is probably the biggest regret of my life.

BTW, we didn't think he had cancer, we thought he had made it up to get my mum to go and be with him.

And the only thing we could do now to sully his name is to tell his biological daughter what he did (She is 20 years older than us). But we don't know where she is or what it would achieve apart from ruining her memory of her dad.

Families are such hard work and sometimes for nothing. I don't even have any feelings for my mum. Its a horrid thing to say but I don't and certainly not as a mum.
I know its times now that my sister gets what is owed to her. She lost a whole childhood as did we in a way although she was his main target of sexual abuse. I know we don't owe them anything. I used to think I was being strong by pretending I had forgiven them both but in fact it's the other way around. I think I was supressing a lot of anger ect... It's much harder to break free completely.

Sorry for all the typos, I am getting sleepy and will be off to bed soon :)

You don't owe either of them anything. They were meant to parent you well. They both failed.

Don't burden yourself with their guilt and don't feel a shred of guilt yourself.

Their lives. Their fuck up. Their deaths. You owe them nowt.

The only and singular duty of care you have, is towards your own dc and partner. Sounds like you loving your dc well. Keep it up.

HTH x

I was abused by my step father who also physically abused my mother and siblings, I didn't live with her but had to visit which is when he sexually assaulted and raped me, I was 9 years old.

I actually have a reasonable relationship with my mother, mainly because we do not discuss it and I have moved past the pain and anger and have after a lot of years come to terms with what happened.

My mother did not protect me, I have never spoken to her about it, but someone else has within my family and she thinks it is a pack of lies, I think it is a form of fear that I have never confronted this, our relationship is fragile and held together by a dying old lady (my gran) and her great relationship with my daughter.

For me it has been my decision to move on and my refusal to allow the disgusting man the right to have power over me that has allowed me to come to this point, but for 18 years I was bordering on alcoholism, self harmed, suffered and still suffer from long term disconnections and PTSD from the abuse.

I will never, ever understand or forgive her reactions, and it may not be healthy but the older she get the more I feel sympathy towards her, or maybe it is me getting older.

Either way I am rambling... You need to do whatever keeps you healthy OP

Antsy, you are bloody saint.
I would cut her right out.
Again, you owe her nothing.

We indulge these men and women when they become old and frail.

It's a nonsense.

War criminals are still brought to book in the Hague when they are elderly and frail. Quite right too.

These abusers become old. But they still abused and that shouldn't be airbrushed away.

They are abusers whether they are 50 or 100.

Old age is the opt out clause for many criminals.

'hate the sin but not the sinner' is what I was often quoted growing up as a catholic.

Well sod that for a game of conkers.

I am sure you get my drift.

My mum didn't know so my relationship with her wasn't affected. My grandma knew, though, and did nothing about it. In fact, my abuser was so confident of his position in my grandma's affections that he used to dare me to tell her, and even though I was very young I knew she wouldn't believe me and I knew the fallout it would cause, so I said nothing and learned to switch myself off when it was all happening.

I hated my grandma till the day she died, and beyond.

I told my parents about it during a massive family row a couple of years back. It's never been spoken of again since but my dad still chooses to visit my abuser, so I guess he doesn't believe me. I'm certain my mum does believe me but I don't think she dares say anything to me for fear that I'll rock the boat again, but even if she did there's nothing now that can be done about it.

Harriet, your mother knew alright.