Just found this page while creating another page! I had forgotten all about it! I am no longer second. I have put myself first and even though I am still married to my husband things have changed quite a bit.
It has been work. We went to therapy and I’ve dealt with lots of medical issues that made us realize that neither one of us is perfect but we’d rather be together.
I often wonder why 2 people would get together to have children and then abuse their own children. I should start off by saying that I am 50 years young now and have finally worked through a lot of the incidence of my childhood. Am I happier now, not really because I feel like I have lost/ruined most of my life because of this abuse.
My father had always had a temper and would punch/kick/slap my brother and I over the slightest of things. If he came upstairs and our rooms were messy he would take our stuff from the floor and hit us with it before he put it in a trashbag. He then would proceed to kick and punch us and then he would leave. Often after this, he would take us shopping and buy us things. What a strange message I got from him. It’s okay if people treat you like crap as long as give you gifts afterwards. Pretty messed up.
Next came the sexual abuse. when I was 11 I walked into the den to find my parents and my brother watching a XXX movie. They were all masterbating and wanted to know if I would join them. We had always had porn magazines and movies in the house and it totally grossed me out. One day when I was 12 my father took me out for ice cream and forced me to have oral sex with him. From there it progressed to night visits in my room. My mother “supposedly” slept through it, but who knows. This went on until I was a senior in high school and I finally got up the courage to tell him to stop. During my school years while other people were off having fun, I was so ashamed and stayed to myself for the most part. I didn’t date, the one guy I did date turned out to be gay. High school was horrible for me. From as far as I can count he sexually abused me over 150 times ( and that is a conservative estimate). Needless to say I don’t talk/visit with him and I finally started talking to my mom but on a limited basis.
Its been hard to maintain relationships all through adulthood because I feel like I can’t trust anyone. Because to the outside world our home looked so normal. I am suspicious of every father/daughter relationship but I am working through it.
Thanks for listening.
I knew when we met that you had been married for 22 years but thought that your family would accept me and forget about her. But that didn’t happen. Every family events her name comes up and last Christmas was especially fun watching old videos with her in them. Yes, I was tempted to leave the room but I didn’t, and inside I was seething. Why does it bother me so much? Perhaps it is because in emails, she described me as a bitch and a witch ( a poet and don’t know it). Maybe its because we pay her almost 4000.00 in alimony and life insurance, when she has been living with somebody for over 6 years now and won’t get married because then she would lose the money. I am divorced too and got remarried and got an alimony settlement of 10,000.00 and that was it. I just think that a marriage takes two to make it work, a divorce is rarely one-sided so to collect alimony for the rest of your life is just being spiteful and greedy. I also ask myself what kind of man would stay with a woman who wouldn’t marry him because she would lose her alimony. Which is more important love or money?
It has been almost 7 years for me since we first got married and it still bothers me. I know I should accept the fact that his family is just not going to accept me as part of the family, even though his 3 other brothers are divorced and have new significant others. I just don’t get it.
Being Second 