First stepfather

As I wrote in my previous post, after my mother divorced my father she met another man. He was quite a few years older than her, probably old enough to be her father. He was already a grandfather and I think his granddaughter was older than I was at the time.

But she began seeing him and at first he was pulling out every trick in the book to impress me so that he had access to my mom. In Dutch they have a saying about it that in essence refers to “winning over the child to conquer the mother”. But this was probably his method to gain access to me without limitations as well.

They announced that they were getting married and of course I already felt off about it. I was also still very much hoping that my parents would get back togetherand my mom marrying another man certainly killed any sliver of hope I had for that to happen. But even if I protested, my mother of course did not listen to me and so I witnessed my mother marry this man that was old enough to be my grandfather.

He moved in with us and that was when the abuse started. I know the emotional abuse and remember that vividly, but I think I have blocked the sexual abuse that he subjected me to. I do remember that he forced me to bathe with him and that I REALLY did not want to. But he left me with no choice. My father also heard disturbing things that I told him about that stepfather putting a carton of a toilet roll in his pants and making whistling sounds while he invited me to look at his “birdie” (I am honestly about to gag as I write all of this).

But my father had no more custody (my mother had made sure that she had been granted full custody) and she used this against him every chance she got, so he could not question anything that happened at home. Any time he asked questions or did or said something that displeased my mother, she threatened him with her not allowing me to go over to him on the weekends. Or she contacted her lawyer again and had him send my father a letter.

This stepfather screamed so hard at me and the dog that the neighbors not directly next to our house, but the house next to that could hear him. He bullied me at home and I was at the time being bullied in school as well. I did not have a safe space and all that I wanted when I can home after being bullied all day was my favorite plushie for comfort. But at home was the stepfather who had put the plushie in a place so high that I had no way of grabbing it and while I was losing it as I looked up at where my plushie was sitting, he was laughing at me relentlessly.

The only respite I got was the weekends I got with my father and that was not even every weekend, but every other weekend and he still had his narcissistic boyfriend that he was living with, so even those weekends knew some strain. But it was better than the abuse I received at home from not only my mother but my stepfather too.

At one point he stepped out of line however and he actually did what he always did while my mom was away, but this time she was at home. It had become so normal for him to do it that he essentially did it on auto-pilot. And this was the moment that my mother took note and sent him away. It was not until after he had left that the neighbors dared to come forth with everything that they had heard.

But of course, by then the damage had already been done, even though I never really spoke about the sexual abuse. Simply because I think I have suppressed most of it.

But if you think that that was the last I had suffered at the hands of this first stepfather, you are sorely mistaken. But I will keep that for another post!

Until next time, stay safe.

Love
From a Healing Mom