to not want bil to hold DD tightly and not let go?

[littlemisssarcastic]

I don't know how you would describe it, apart from to say every time he sees DD, he gets hold of her, puts his arms around her and holds onto her tightly, usually whilst saying something like 'You can't get out of this can you DD! Go on, try to get out of this then!'

I cannot leave them in the same room together, because it seems as soon as they are alone, it starts again. I'm sure DD can't be enjoying it??

I have asked him to put her down, said she doesn't like it, even physically taken DD from him, and tbh, there have been a few times when he has held on even as I am pulling DD out of his vice like grip.

Sometimes, he doesn't take any notice and just says 'She likes it.'

Perhaps it is the grimace on his face as he is holding her that makes me very uncomfortable about the whole thing.

I have tried speaking to my family about it, and don't go round bil's much anyway, but family's response is to say it doesn't happen when they are there, (oh yes it does) and then to be very sarcastic about it and say 'Well don't go to bil's house then?' meaning I would hardly ever see my sister.

I try to go when bil is at work, but since he works very irregular hours, and doesn't have regular days/hours he works, it is difficult to keep track.

I really think you should just not spend time with them.

The bad really outweighs the good.

Your children don't deserve the crap they're getting and neither do you.

If the price you are paying for a bit of financial help and some babysitting is for you and your children to be treated like crap and for your children to be manhandled and hurt - the price is too high

I would teach my dd that in these circumstances it is acceptable to fight back and bite down on him. Hard.

I vaguely remember something similar (had forgotten about it until now) and hated it. I'd also start saying very loudly along the 'Inappropriate touching is child abuse' line - my daughter, my rules and get the fuck off her.

Good luck

But you are in a trap arnt you? Bil knows you and your Dcs are in the trap too so he is able to dominate you.

If I were you I would write to your mother and sister detailing your feelings re bil and reiterating all the incidents that you have out down here. Tell them that you have considered going to the police about bils assault in your son but didn't. However if bil ever lays so much as one hand on ds or dd in ANY WAY then you will report his behaviour to the authorities.

Meanwhile distance yourself from them as much as poss, make new friends, join a church group, parents association etc,

Lots of people have anxiety but your posts do show you are essentially a strong woman who wants to protect her children.

Go for it.

Sorry - just read the middle page.

It sounds like they do the 'good' things because they can see the shit that BIL does, and it keeps you 'sweet' when things go wrong.

BIL is a massive bully and it sounds like you mum and sis are scared of him and you sticking up for your children scares them as you are the only one who effectively stands up to him (sorry, but your sister saying 'If you do that again' is an empty threat, just like if you say that to a child again and again, BIL obviously HAS done abusive stuff, even if it's not punching, and she hasn't left him).

Hence your mum saying it makes her ill - she's scared about your sister and what shit she'll face from him.

If your sister and mum won't back you up and make a stand against him unitedly, then all you can do is keep drawing the line in the sand which he mustn't cross yourself and insist your children, your rules - not his bullying ways

You may find your social anxiety is caused by your family.

This is terribly sad. It feels you feel you coud nt cope without them yet they bully and abuse you which means you feel you could to cope.

I think the bad outweighs the good.

I strongly urge getting away from them. They are not nice to you or your chidren.

Sorry, should read 'yet they bully and abuse you which means you feel you could not cope'

Surely you can see they are giving you a bit of help to keep you in your place as their whipping boy?

Do you think perhaps your social anxiety is caused through only socialising with people who make you anxious? I'm not surprised you feel anxious as you are so enmeshed in their toxic behaviour.

If my bil hit my ds I'd knock his block off! And now he is physical with your dd too. You cannot have people like this in a child's life and expect them to grow up with full self worth and self esteem. Imagine how scary it must be to be expected to be nicey nicey with people four times your size who hit and restrain and no one does anything about it.

You are repeating the patterns with your dc that you grew up with. You need to go to your gp, get something for the anxiety and get on the counselling waiting list. I'm sure you are a lovely person and I think if you can escape the clutches of your awful family you will have friends and people who love you without awful conditions. Even if you didn't your dc will love you and will hopefully grow up without some of the problems which now plague you. Best of luck :)

Think this is the best option

"I think its horrible, and i know how it feels, but i think a lot of people really dont have a clue how unpleasant it is. I would just be straight and say " i dont want DD to grow up thinking its okay for men to restrain her when she has told them to let go". Be poker faced and really cats bum mouth about it too, so he sees how disdainful it is from women's perspective. "

Good luck, hope you get it sorted. I feel quite disturbed just reading about it, I can totally understand how you feel.

Well I don´t think that your Mum & sister have done anything extraordinary-nothing that any Mum or sister wouldn´t do if they were able at the time tbh.

Certainly they haven´t/could never do anything that means you should put up with BIL bullying/abusing your children.

I agree with the other posters that it's your whole family that is a problem for you not just BIL.

It sounds like you have been trying to stand up to him/avoid him and as it's not working you probably will have to cut him out of your life completely. If that upsets your mother & sister then tough.

A more trivial suggestion would be to wear something with big pockets & keep a loaded water pistol in it. Give him a squirt in the face (or groin) if he comes near her, or blast in the ear drum if he grabs her. Then you too are only 'playing'.

I do seem to pick up friends who talk to me like shit, but I avoid them, because on some deeper level, I know it isn't right. Lately, I have begun to become friendly with a couple of lovely people, who treat me lovely, and I hope I can cultivate those friendships.

When faced with confrontation, I tend to freeze, like a rabbit caught in headlights, my mouth goes dry and my legs start shaking. I really am pathetic!! Strangely enough, I have no issue with standing up to xp.

It is not my bil who my mother and sister are afraid of btw. My mother always backs down to my sister, and my sister is the dominant partner in her marriage, hence why when sister tells Bil to let go of DD, he does, then acts all sheepishly.

Bil is an emotional mess around my sister, because she haas no respect for him, and he stutters and dithers, although every so often, he will speak up when sister is ranting at him which she does whenever she sees fit, regardless of how humiliating it is for him and when he speaks up, you can clearly see the pent up anger he is feeling. He appears to be struggling to control his anger at these times, but has learnt over time that my sister is like a dog with a bone, and never gives up.

It has been a while since my sister or mother have done anything awful to me, mainly because I don't see my sister very often, but I try to stand up for what I believe in to my mother.
My mother is intimidated by my sister and will go to extraordinary lengths not to upset my sister, which has the effect that my sister is not treated like crap by my mother, but means that I have grown up knowing, even more so since I became an adult, that my sister comes first.

Are you absolutely certain he isn't knocking your sister about as revenge for your defiance (or whatever pathetic excuse he uses to justify his despicable behaviour)? Its the only rational explanation I can think of for your mum to take her side over yours

You are not pathetic. You hae had a lifetime of living in a very messed-up family dynamic and you are responding to that.

I would suggest treatment for anxiety and counselling as someone else suggested.

Your mother is very responsible for the disparity between how She treatsyour sister and how she treats you.

Your BIL is abusive, there is no excuse for him punching your DS or restraining your DD, I wouldn't let him be in their presence again if I were you. He needs to grow a pair and stand up to your sister not take his anger out on children, he sounds like he has serious anger issues.

I am 100% certain that Bil is not violent to my sister. He is intimidated by her and is scared (for want of a better word) of upsetting her. He tiptoes around her and she makes him feel like shit if he disagrees with her.

I agree I would benefit from counselling.

It sounds like he's the type of man who likes to bully people he deems weaker than himself. Also am I right in thinking he's the only grown up bloke in the family? That your dad and DC's dad aren't around? As much as I hate to say it I think he may only start to back off properly if challenged by another bloke. Is there any way you could take a male friend with you to this birthday party? Or borrow a friend's husband for a few hours? I think he may actually listen if a bloke told him to back the fuck off.

Your family sound absolutely dreadful. I really think you should seek out some sort of counselling to deal with all the things they've done over the years and give you some tools to stand up to them in future. As it stands, you're trapped because you need their support and so are too intimidated to really put your foot down about what is unacceptable behaviour.

Think of it this way, if a friend had come to your and told you about incidents like this from a family member to their children, wouldn't you be telling them to cut this person/these people out of their children's lives immediately? At present it doesn't sound like you could do that because you rely on them for help, but if you can start the ball rolling to being more independent and more confident without them, it will put you in a better position to not tolerate any more of this vile behaviour.

Bacardi He is exactly that type of man, although his own DS is now an adult, as is my DS.
When I was with xp, we all went out one day. The DC began kicking a football around, and Bil joined in, kicking the ball to xp.
When xp tackled Bil, Bil 'hacked' xp and kicked xp hard in the shin to get the ball off of xp. Xp stood up and told Bil that wasn't how you played football and Bil laughed. He thought it was hilarious to see xp hobbling over to him.
Xp squared up to Bil and told him that if he ever did that again, xp would knock him out. Bil backed off, with the usual sheepish look.

Years later, Bil laughs about the time he 'hacked' xp and sister and mother laugh along, even though they fail to mention the rest of what happened.

Xp doesn't engage at all with xp now, and has openly said he hopes he doesn't bump into xp.

Sister and mother did some pretty awful stuff when I met xp to break up my relationship. Xp did turn out to be an abusive tosser, but even before they had met him, they did some despicable stuff, so sister, mother and Bil now think xp is fair game to sneer at and criticise.

Every time I discover something new about xp, (usually something bad) sister or mother will say 'I knew that all along.'

How they knew some of this stuff all along is nothing short of ESP. Apparently they always knew xp never had a full driving licence, even though xp had been driving with no problems in various family members vehicles as well as my car, and had never been refused insurance. They hated xp driving my car, with my permission, because he was just using me, yet even knowing what they claim to have known all along, they never reported him.
That's just one example.

Sorry, meant to say Bil doesn't engage at all with xp now.

Oh, it's all so fucked up isn't it?

The other thing is that mother and sister will do whatever it takes, irrelevant of the consequences, to get what they want or to punish me for not toeing the line.

Haven't read the whole thread, but my BiL once held into my dd in a way that she coyldnt escape, and the more distressed she got, the harder he held until she cried. He will never do it again. I made it very clear (and loud) that if he touches her again, he will be picking his teeth up off the floor. My sister left in tears. I think they still maintain that I over reacted. I don't give a fuck. I will never have hum with either dc unattended, and my family know this is not to happen under any cicumstances. Follow your instincts and find some rage; unleaded it on him

OP your family is VERY toxic and though you say they help you when you're struggling with anxiety the truth is THEY are causing your anxiety - its a vicious, nasty circle.

About your social anxiety - i suffered with that for years, hardly left the house, used to hid when there was a knock on the door, etc. The only friend i had was from childhood. Im 2 years free from it now, went to college - made some amazing friends. It CAN be beaten. Im only adding this because when i had it i thought it was a lifetime sentence, it really isnt.

Protect your daughter from this man - and your family, its the only way to prevent her from having the same future problems.

Lots of people have anxiety but your posts do show you are essentially a strong woman who wants to protect her children.

This ^^

Blackmail, humiliation, making a scene, ringing schools with various unfounded silly accusations, allegations to SS, screaming 'paedophile' across public places, slagging me off to anyone who will listen, and there's plenty who will.

I have always been the daughter with no common sense, the one who is vulnerable and needs help, the one who can't cope on my own, the inadequate one who gives nothing but worries, the one who thinks she knows best with a massive chip on her shoulder. That's me!! That's how my mother in particular describes me to her few friends and they believe her!!

Mother cannot be trusted, I cannot tell my mother anything without it getting back to my sister, or relayed to her friends. In fact, the minute I hang up after a conversation with my mother, she picks her phone straight back up and rings someone, usually my sister, or if not, her friends and regales them with my latest tale of woe.
To this end, I don't tell my mother anything anymore unless necessary. The result of this is that mother assumes what is going on in my life and relays that as fact instead.

Mother assumes everything, she knows nothing but assumes everything.

Conversations go like this:

Me: I will be over when I have picked up DD from xp's.
When I arrive at mother's...Mother: How did pick up go?
Me: Fine.
Mother: Oh no, what happened?
Me: Nothing, it was fine.
Mother: Only fine?
Me: It was ok, nothing to tell.
Mother: Oh it's just the way you say 'fine' I assume something went wrong.
Me: Nothing went wrong.

Mother then phones sister and tells her that there were problems at pick up, but of course LMS wont talk to me, I don't know why, but can you ask her what happened, I think she is upset.

Sister phones me: What happened at pick up? Mother thinks you are upset.
Me: Nothing happened, everything was fine.
Sister: Well you need to tell mother that because she is worried.

That is how virtually every conversation goes, and mother always always seems to think the worst. If you don't give her verse and chapter, she makes her own version up.
Mother is an extremely negative person, yet if I say anything negative, I am not helping myself getting upset about things, I need to relax. Ha fucking ha. The joke's on me I think.

They sound awful. I read a pamphlet in the doctors' waiting room the other day 40 min wait was über bored . It was advice about how old kids had to be before going out and about themselves eg walking to school or going to the shops. There was an interesting bit about not forcing kids into letting adults tickle/kiss/hug them when they don't like it. Kids who aren't allowed to have their own mind in these normal family situations ( who can forget screwing up their face and wiping kisses off after a smacker from an elderly relative?) can be more vulnerable to predatory adults when not with parents. It was something I'd never thought of and will not be saying "aw give Granda/uncle/gran/auntie a hug" again when they don't want to.