Hi everyone, I've been lurking here for a while now and although I don't have children, I do value your advice. I'm not sure how much of the advice I'm asking for to be honest, or how much you would even be able to give, but I think I just need to for once, to stop keeping this secret and tell the world in my own way. (This might be long I warn you, but I just really feel like I need to get all of this out).
My Mum married when she was young, only 20 to my Dad. He was abusive, although she didn't realise that for some time. He was jealous and controlling, would try to cut her off from her family, give her no control over money etc. I remember her telling me once that even after giving birth to me, he wouldn't allow her to have the heating on in the house in the winter.
Anyway, my Mum had 3 children with him, myself and my younger sister and brother before finally leaving him when I was about 7 years old. He always denied my brother being his as he had blonde hair and both my father and mother are dark haired. I remember seeing a picture of my Dad as a child, he had blonde hair then too - and anyway, it's obvious he's my Father's son.
Me however, he seemed to take a special liking too. To be honest, I can't remember a lot about when he lived with us, I remember him fighting with my mum sometimes, and him smacking me once, but not much more.
Around 10 years ago, I started having panic attacks, really bad nightmares and just generally felt very scared about my life. I don't really remember how I finally admitted it to myself, but I realised I was fairly sure my Dad had sexually abused me as a child. At that point it was almost like a thought in the back of my mind, I never really let myself explore it, I wasn't ready to deal with it. I would still see my Dad, and I hate to say it, but I loved him, even though he had always been a useless father.
A couple of years later my sister and I had a very strange chat one day. We both expressed how we were uncomfortable when Dad touched us, just to put an arm around our shoulders or something like that, it just didn't feel right. As the conversation went on we both confessed that we felt he had "done something" to us as kids, but we couldn't bring ourselves to say what it was.
Hearing that from my sister forced me to confront my fears a little more. Things started to come back to me a little more, my mum working nights so he would look after us, bath us and put us to bed. I remember him sharing my bath and little games he would come up with, but I can't remember enough of the details.
I remember how his mother told me off once for taking up too much of his time (when we would visit, he always seemed more focused on me that the other two. As I wasn't getting on with my mum, I enjoyed that, but certainly didn't ask for it or even seek it). My mum shouted at me in an argument once "we all know your Daddy's little favourite", I remember then, at only about 11 years old that made me feel sick. As I got older he gave me a book to read, a horror, but it was about a man who made a woman believe she was having sex with her father and made her believe she liked it but also felt ashamed. His passwords for his accounts all seemed to be my name - god I just started to notice all these things, but nothing that gave me any hard proof at all.
I remember when we stayed over when I was little, he would always help me and my sister get changed for bed (but take us into the bathroom separately) - my mum never did as really we were capable of doing this ourselves (I guess I must have been around 8), but I remember him once lifting my nighty to check I'd taken my knickers off. Thinking back, he was always so concerned that we removed our underwear at bedtime - is that normal? There are many other things, little incidents I've noticed since I've got older, but I would bore you to tears to put them all here!
Anyway, to sum up, I'm left in this limbo. I have an over whelming gut feeling that he abused me and probably my sister too but I have zero proof and no real hard memories to even rely on. My adult relationships up until now have been a huge mess, I thought all I ever had to offer men was my body, so slept around a fair bit when I was young. I had no self worth, it all came from these men who wanted to have sex with me. When I did start to settle down I found that as soon as a man started to love me, I suddenly felt sex was wrong and I would put up a wall to protect myself.
I'm starting to get past this now, at 33 I now have the most wonderful partner in the world. I have told him about my Dad and he's never put any pressure on me sexually like men in the past have. Taking that pressure away has given me the space to have a wake up call and realise I don't want to be this person anymore, always protecting myself and I've started to be able to enjoy a normal healthy sex life with him which I'm so proud of.
But I feel like I can never really have any closure on all this. I can never confront him, because I can't prove it (I've not spoken to him or had any contact with him in about 7 years though). I'm too scared to tell my mum - she would either refuse to believe me or be devastated and I just can't face either option. I have to instead carry this as my dirty little secret forever and it's not fair.