Dad hanging round outside bathroom *MNHQ Content warning for abuse*

[Househunter2025]

I was reading a thread that just got deleted and it's really made me think.

When I was a teenager my dad used to hang around outside the bathroom and my bedroom - I always found it really creepy but nothing else ever happened so I didn't really think it was abusive behaviour - but I always found it really creepy and couldn't stand being near him or alone with him. Never mentioned it to anyone before.

In my 40s now and it still bothers me. I'm hyper aware of my kids dad or other males on the family doing anything to them and it feels beyond all proportion. I don't think other parents have this fear.

A couple of posters on the other thread said they had experienced similar and I was about to reply but then it was deleted.

Don't know what I want from this thread really. I wouldn't mention anything to family - parents are elderly. I don't have sisters. Just want to come to terms with it and put it in perspective I guess.

The giveaway is that the children do not like it.

It's not about what is normal.

Children can be persuaded easily by a motivated adult that something is normal. But really when it comes to privacy and your body, post puberty, it is a warning.

Unfortunately exhibitionists, child abusers and those with personality disorders like to do exactly this. Boundary breaking is a strong warning.

Being a hippie does not exclude you from any of the above, though it may be useful cover

Why wash hands in the bath water went a child or a 20 year old is sat in it ? Why were they washing their hands in bath water? Unusual? What was wrong with the kitchen sink. Your younger brother and partner are correct.

Why did they stop? Would you be happy if they came in and washed their hands in the bathwater where you teenage daughter was naked? Would she be happy?

All we can do is keep talking about it. Abuse thrives in the dark. It thrives on shame and silence - you know, “daddy’s little secret,” that kind of (filthy) thing.

It’s also vital to expose and shame men who do these things. We must do all we can to turn things on their head. Instead of the victims feeling dirty and ashamed, it should be the rapists and abusers who are shamed. But that won’t happen unless they are exposed. We have to encourage every woman who was abused to expose her abuser, and then to support her when she does.

Also, and I think this is crucial, we should expose men even when there is little chance of conviction. I bet there are countless men out there who did terrible things but are now happily married with kids of their own. They live with what they did by trivialising it - telling themselves she led them on, or seduced them, or secretly enjoyed it. Humans are very good at denial. We can convince ourselves of all kinds of stuff. These men probably think “well, if it had upset her she’d have confronted me in later life, or gone to the police. The fact she hasn’t proves she liked it, or that she’s forgotten the whole thing.” No doubt some convince themselves it never happened at all. Even if the case is dropped (which it almost certainly will be, since you can’t prove a man stuck his finger inside his little stepdaughter twenty years ago), getting a knock on the door from the police will throw a hand grenade into his life.

It is not normal and your parents were at best weirdos. Do you allow your kids, if you have any, near them?

why the hell would they need to wash hands in the bath water you were sat in? Don’t they have a kitchen sink?

No I wouldn't, I wouldn't even go in to my partner unless invited. I think privacy is very important. We were also encouraged to keep our bedroom doors open, but I did object to this as a teenager and started sleeping with the door closed. I wouldn't wish to have the same rules for my children.

I guess their reason would have been that they were upstairs, but even then, there's a wash hand basin in the same room 🤷‍♀️ my dad definitely didn't do it as long as my mum. Think it must have stopped when my youngest brother objected to it.
No, I wouldn't. I will need to make it clear that if my children are bathing, that's their private time.
My mum had a very odd upbringing, her mum was an alcoholic and could be very unpleasant/abusive. Her dad ignored what was going on. My dad's dad didn't have any time for him or his siblings. I honestly feel they just got it a bit wrong with us, neither had a loving family environment growing up. We also had an open door policy, which I objected to as a teenager. I think they just wanted us all to feel comfortable in our own home, but didn't realise we also needed space.

I also grew up with hippy naked parents so can relate to some of these stories. I found it weird at the time and still do. They think I'm a prude but I think women like this live in a disney fantasy land of what men are like. No I don't want a male masseuse, I don't want a male gynaecologist and I don't want to sit naked with other men. I know from horrible personal experience that no it's not all men but it is a LOT of men.

This thread is heartbreaking.
I was so lucky, in that my dad openly said he would kill any man who 'fiddled' with us.
The is was back in the 80/90s, when people were aware of paedos and pervy men. No one ever did come near us so it worked.

I know a fair few people, men and women, who were abused as children and teenagers, so it definitely is not uncommon.

I would absolutely love to see a campaign aimed at men directly, telling then to stop abusing women and children. There would probably be a NAMALT outcry though.

It gets to me that religious leaders never speak up when it happens under their watch and in their communities (I am talking about ALL religions here).

It gets to me that religious leaders never speak up when it happens under their watch and in their communities

When religious leaders have taken part in the abuse, protecting your own comes to mind. Horrific how much they seem to get away with.

I am horrified at the sibling SA by older brothers who themselves are very young (8yrs???). As a mother of sons and yournger daughters this had never occurred to me that we need to be keeping our daughters safe from their brothers. Do we know if these young boys become paedophiles in adulthood?

I have had personal experience/exposure to 'exploration' by an older male cousin (I was 6 - he was 8) - at the time I was not troubled by this one off incident (Drs & Nurses?). Is this SA?

There was a big article about this in the Sunday papers last year - how sibling abuse is far more common than we realise. Naturally the journalist blamed porn for sexualising young boys, making them want to practice or imitate what they’d seen, etc. But I remember my grandmother saying that when she moved to the countryside just after WW2, incest was shockingly common. Ronald Blythe also writes about this in Akenfield (a book consisting of interviews with people in a Suffolk village in the 1960s). He recalls an interview with the district nurse who said “it was sort of understood within some families that if the mother was ill or pregnant, the eldest daughter would take her place in bed with the father.” I don’t mean it was normal, of course. And I think she was referring more to old country people pre-WW2.

It was not something I initiated and I did not 'explore' him. I dont think he was aroused? More nosey? Curious? I didnt think anything bad about him after.

Tbh very young children who do this have sometimes been abused by adults.

As for abuse in the family it is very popular genre in pornography. It is not something that hidden. This is of course extremely dubious and normalises it to a degree.

@namechangeforsecrets Awful. I hope you don't have to have contact with him now.

@DolliDimplesI have often wondered if it was ‘just’ experimentation on my brothers part (as mentioned I think he was 10/11 at the time), but he used to look for opportunities when he could do what he wanted and start by saying ‘give me a cuddle’ and tell me he was giving me sex education.
When I told him to stop otherwise I’ll tell mum, he stopped so he must have known what he was doing was wrong. Also he threatened me by saying I’ll tell mum it was your fault. This to me was a use of power and premeditated.
I’ve thought about this alot because I told my mum about this only recently and feel like I’ve caused problems in the family by not just keeping quiet and going no contact with my brother.

my brother started abusing me when I was around 13 which means he was around 16, he used to sneak into my bedroom late at night and I won't go into details about what he did. It happened two or three times and I told him to get out and leave me alone. Then he turned his attentions to my sister who would have been around 11 and I only found out about this when we were much older, I feel a great deal of guilt for not protecting her. My brother used to steal my knickers too and go in for the lurking that also characterised my dad. I feel so sad for the young girls we once were, when I look back we were both pretty fucked up but it was the late 60's and these things were never spoken of, in fact there was hardly any sex education and definitely no discussions about consent, abuse and bodily autonomy

This thread has brought up such conflicting emotions for me, sadness and anger that so many of us have experienced the same but also relief and validation that I'm far from alone, it's an odd mix of feelings. I buried what happened to me for decades but it came back to bite me 18 months ago when he made a comment about my teenage DD's body and dragged it all back to the surface for me.

Since then I've gone NC with my entire family (because they defended him), had months of therapy and am still trying to come to terms with how completely my DM failed me so this thread feels very close to home for me. Reading so many similar experiences to mine has been difficult but also weirdly cathartic (if that's not totally crass of me to say?) because it's the first time I've heard other people talk about stuff like the 'watched' feeling and the horror of your own mother turning a blind eye when he did or said stuff right in front of her and the lurking outside the bathroom and the way all of it makes you feel.

I hate that there are so many of us but I'm also grateful to everyone who's shared their story because I feel like I might now finally be able to accept that I didn't imagine or exaggerate what he did (something I've been struggling with) and that it was every bit as bad as it felt at the time. I felt like prey in my own home, like he was hunting me and I had to constantly have my guard up so seeing that feeling echoed in so many posts here has made me feel properly heard and understood for the first time ever.

I suspect your mother’s reaction is common. It’s such a vile, shameful thing that most people can’t face it. They go into denial. I remember someone saying that families often react this way when the father (or son) is arrested for viewing indecent images of children, or trying to groom an underage girl. Once the shock of having the police knock on your door has gone, the family try and process it, then go into a kind of denial, convincing themselves that their husband/father/son/brother was tricked or seduced or that someone hacked his computer or whatever. It’s just too horrible and shameful. Theft, fraud, debt people can deal with, but sexual abuse is such a loathsome crime that the shame is unbearable. I could forgive my brother for most things, but not that. Certain crimes really are unforgivable.

@highstoolfling, I'm happy to hear you prioritized your daughter and that you guys are safe. I'm also really glad you believed your daughter.

Peace and safety going forward to you.

Yes, I believe my DM can't admit the truth about what happened because she's deeply ashamed she did nothing to stop it. I would never have believed she would put herself before her DC but she's chosen to lose me rather than face that shame.

No, zero contact, thank goodness. It is so much better not seeing him any more.

I feel exactly the same.

Same. My step dad was amazing, never had any issues, but as a single parent I don't dare take the risk of bringing a man into my dc's life

the feeling like prey comment is so spot on

it's horrible to grow up in a home where you feel like prey

and I think that is a feeling that so very few men ever have in their lives, and certainly not a constant feature

but that a majority of women have felt and continue to feel

I still feel it in public spaces when I am on my own and there are men I don't know about, the way some of them look at me makes me feel like prey

But how are we to protect our daughters potentially from their older brothers - do we all need to be at the starting point that all males - brothers andbrothers friends, cousins, fathers, uncles, neighbours at any age (from 6 years old?) are a risk - should our daughers never be out of our sight 24/7?