Parents Whose children have been sexually abused Community Group
This group is for parents whose children have been sexually abused. We welcome both Mothers and Fathers. Here, we can offer support to one another. We can vent, cry and lift each other up. No condemning or criticizing allowed. We are here for support. We LOVE (((HUGS))) !
I am struggling because my expartner groomed my daughter into having a relationship. He has known her since she was 12. When I left to go overseas to deal with the death of my father, my ex partner stayed behind and instead of supporting me, he courted my 19 year old daughter. He spent thousands of dollars taking her to movies, dinner, shows, out for drinks, out on boat rides etc. I was oblivious to most of it, being in greif, and also most of the information about their outings was not disclosed to me. When I returned back, my ex-partner and I broke up due to poor choices he was making. After I left him, my daughter told me that she was going out to dinner and movies with him. I started to put some pieces together and realised that he was/had been grooming her. My gut told me that she was in danger and I called him on it. My daughter said she would never do that to me, that I got it wrong. That he was her friend. During the separation, my expartner and I were exchanging bank statements to settle our finances as we had been together for 7 years and engaged for 2. Whilst going over his bank details, it became clear that had been dating my daughter while I was away.
I don't blame my daughter. I blame him. He was the adult. I believe she was groomed and swept off her feet and because of her innocence and youth, made a poor choice. Neither of them considered me in the process, but I do believe that he is the one at fault. My daughter claims that he has done nothing to her - but has cut me off and out of her life and told me that my behaviour is disgusting, in trying to get to the truth about the nature of their relationship. In retrospect, I can see that there were many times my ex-partner showed me his lack of integrity and I turned a blind eye to it. However, I cannot turn a blind eye to this.
My daughter refuses to have contact with me - I believe it's because she feels guilt and cannot face me because she knows I know the truth. How do I get my daugther back?
Also, I'm wondering why you are posting, three months later, essentially the same post as the one you wrote here in February. Have you not sought therapy for yourself in all that time? How willing are you to learn and to change your approach?
I am posting three months later because I did seek therapy and was told there was nothing I could do until she reaches out to me and until that time to take care of myself so that when she does reach out she gets the best version of me possible. I am willing to change my approach, that is why I have reached out to this group again. Teach me how to reach out to her. We are all, including her brother, hurting over this.
1.) "courted"
When I was in high school, I remember hearing that one of the teachers was having and "affair" with a student. The real term is "statutory rape." Please consider how it sounds to your daughter -- and to your son -- to hear you apply a term of chivalry to your ex's manipulations and total invasion of her boundaries.
2.) "swept off her feet"
You are assuming this: that she was somehow thrilled by all this inappropriate attention! Your connotation is that she "fell" for him, but it is much more likely that because of his manipulations, she had no choice but to go along. She may have trusted him, but he violated her boundaries, and put her in a terrible situation: whom to please -- him, or you? You were away and she had to survive. What choice did she have?
3.) "Neither of them considered me in the process"
What a startling claim. When my adult neighbor threatened to kill our whole family if my young daughter told about how he raped her regularly, my daughter did nothing BUT consider me in the process -- and kept returning to his house out of what she saw as a duty to protect the lives of her mother, father and sister. Your hurt feelings are an indication that you think your daughter betrayed you. When I read that, I felt sad for your daughter.
4.) "most of the information about their outings was not disclosed to me"
Of course not!! He wanted to get away with it! And your daughter was trying to protect your feelings.
5.) And finally, this is where you have simply denied your daughter's heroism:
"My daughter said she would never do that to me, that I got it wrong. That he was her friend."
You seem unwilling to accept that she spoke the truth -- SHE would never do that to you. You were already rolled into a ball with grief. How could she lay this on you upon your return? She kept herself alive for you, she played along with your ex's manipulations so she wouldn't break your heart with the truth. Your heart seems to have broken anyway, but not for the reason she'd have expected: instead, your heart has broken from what you frame as a betrayal, a wounding of YOU, not of her.
This is why I believe that you have a lot more work to do in therapy before you can consider reconciling with your daughter. You must get clear that your daughter is innocent and did the very best she could when confronted with confusing invitations and coercions -- perhaps even threats -- from a man you entrusted with her care for six months. You speak of others' poor choices, but not of your own. Listen, HIS actions were not your fault. You are right to feel betrayed BY HIM. But you have chosen to frame what happened in terms that implicate your daughter as a willing accomplice to your personal devastation.
I'm sure your son is sad. I'm sure he wishes he could see his sister. Perhaps he is more clear-eyed than you are in understanding that your ex was a creep all along, and in his awareness that his sister was victimized, not a willing participant. Is he too young to visit her by himself? If your daughter is amenable to a visit, he should go. But you are not ready -- I agree with your therapist there. The invitation must come from your daughter.
Where I disagree with your therapist is that you should just move on with life. The time is now for learning more about why you have focused more on your hurt feelings than on your daughter's, to apply words appropriate to a whirlwind romance to a situation in which you also say she was "groomed." It can't be both ways.
The best teacher of how to reach out to your daughter will be you, but only with serious help to make the changes necessary to be fully present for your daughter's needs. Find a therapist who specializes in family conflict, so you can work hard at removing yourself, your needs and feelings, from any consideration of what has happened. Learn to see this through your daughter's eyes, learn to feel ONLY her discomfort and anxiety. Let your therapist know that, while your goal in therapy is to learn how to reconnect with your daughter, you understand that this means developing and meeting incremental, intermediate goals in therapy, before you can be ready to accept your daughter's invitation. I suspect your daughter will someday be willing to extend one to you when she knows that you have been working your hardest to learn new ways of understanding and being.
I am really glad to hear that you've decided to pursue therapy. You deserve a trained confidante who can hear you out and help you work through your painful experience. Your grief for your dad, compounded by your grief for the home you thought you knew, is surely intolerable. I certainly understand how, being worn down as you were after your trip, coming home expecting to find support, and discovering this situation, you could feel betrayed. Still, it's important to ascribe the source of that betrayal accurately: to your ex. Often, therapists help clients unpack and replace unhelpful language because the old words perpetuate the hurt.
Your daughter is likely very confused, still hearing the voice of a manipulator ("we were meant to be together," "I can tell that you like this," etc.), and worried that you will be (further) devastated if the details come out. Trust me: his asking her out even AFTER you had discovered the situation is a way of threatening your daughter. He certainly does not want all the details to come out either, because his grooming -- and perhaps sexual abuse -- likely started when your daughter was a minor.
A note from my own experience: years before my daughter disclosed, and about a year after we had moved far away from the rapist neighbor, my daughter received an invitation from him, to an academic camp which he would help lead. At the time, I thought it was both strange -- the camp was 500 miles from where we lived -- but nice that he thought of her. When my daughter disclosed years later, I remembered that invitation, and was stunned to realize that it was his way of showing her that he knew our new address and could find us and kill us if she told, as he had promised to do when we lived right across the street.
I believe as you do, that your daughter feels guilty and cannot face you, but maybe it's not "because she knows I know the truth," but because she knows that you don't know the half of it.
As to my responses to your posts, I took the details you provided, and your own choice of words, to make sense of the situation as you described. Many of those words implied that you held your daughter responsible for going along with a manipulator. I am so glad that you have decided to seek professional help, with which you can dissect -- and maybe reassess, and reposition -- all of these details. Using accurate language can be liberating!
The other great thing about YOUR seeking further help is that it may give your daughter the courage to seek help herself. She absolutely, certainly needs it. AND she needs you. Even if, let's say, it's the worst case scenario, and this truly was a mutual "romance," she still needs help to deal with her conflicted feelings. And she STILL needs you. A mother's forgiveness has magical healing power that can provide a solid foundation for emotional growth.
Bless you for choosing to walk the path ahead. Taking that one painful step after another can feel like torture, but you will become stronger than you'd ever have believed you could be before this. I pray that you will soon be able to reunite your family.
I want to apologize for being so narrowly focused on your wording and not on your feelings. I'm sure you were trying to express the situation as well as you could. You're still in the middle of mourning for your dad. I can't imagine the shock you must have felt when you came home to....this.
The wording really stood out to me because I have a parent who tended to ignore, sidestep, and/or minimize the the pain I felt as a child/teenager/young adult. A few days ago, I re-experienced this as an adult, from the same parent, and I was already triggered. When I read the words you chose, they sounded as if you somehow blamed your daughter for being manipulated. I bet you didn't intend for that at all, but used words that were the closest you could come to expressing what you meant, in the middle of a very emotional situation.
I do believe that when we change our words, we can change our minds -- and we can change others' minds as well. It's the difference between "don't do that" and "do this instead," or between "I can't do it" and "I can try again." My hope for you is that, by using words that lack any implication of mutuality in the situation between your daughter and your ex, you will be able to see your daughter as innocent (which is different from "not guilty") and possibly afraid. This will automatically draw you closer to your daughter in your own heart, as you prepare to try to reconcile. When you talk to your daughter in terms that are free from innuendo, and just listen to and acknowledge her thoughts and emotions, I suspect she will be able to see your true heart, and to know that you are ready to support her fully. That's all I really want, for both of you.
Hugs. This is so hard. I didn't mean to make it harder.
Thank you for your letters. Sorry I did not respond earlier but did not have access to a computer. I'm sorry for what happened to your daugther, that must have been awful. And I understand the power game the man has played in letting her know he knows where she lives. That's a terrible manipulation game and I hope she has recovered from the traumatic experience.
I thank you for understanding my feelings- really that's all I wanted from an online support group was to know that I was not alone. There are many different situations and it's such a quagmire to wade through.
My desperation comes in just wanting to talk with her to hear her side, to support whatever she tells me and to move forward together. I have no doubt the grooming occured much earlier and that she was manipulated, but I don't think she was controlled or in fear of me finding out. I know she was promised that I would never find out, so when I did, that caused issues for her. She did not deny it so save my feelings, but because she knew it was wrong. There is so much to unpack. All I know is that my life has been on hold for two years and although I've tried to move on and get back into the real world I mourn for my children. I was just feeling very stuck and unsupported.
I will think about the words I use and get myself ready for when she wants to come back into my life so I can support her fully. Thanks for listening.
Mainly, I am concerned for your relationship with your daughter. You both need each other
Have you thought of writing a letter to your daughter? Maybe if she reads your words at her own pace, she will hear them more clearly in her own head. Maybe just share with her all the things you love about her, memories of special moments and adventures you shared. Edit out any requests for contact -- she's already made that decision, for the moment. If she just knows how happy you are, and will always be, that she's your daughter, without any mention of the trauma, then she can begin to make an independent decision about this gentle human who loves her to the core, and who sees her as whole and sufficient.