When I was 14, my parents informed me that I had a half brother. He was my father’s son by another woman. My parents were already married when my brother was born, but I hadn’t come along yet. It was a huge scandal when it happened. My half brother came to live with us after his mother died. He was 16. My half brother got me pregnant. He didn’t rape me; I wanted to have sex with him. Everyone in the family found out—huge scandal number two—and it took me years to get over it and stop blaming myself.
Now I’m 26 and engaged. What do I tell my fiancé? My parents wound up divorcing—my mother called the police on my half brother and tried to physically prevent me from getting an abortion—and I don’t speak to her anymore. But my father and brother are still in my life.
I get panic attacks when I think about having to tell my fiancé about any of this, Dan, because I don’t want him to see me as sick. But if I don’t tell him, he’ll hear about it from someone else. What do I do?
The Sister Act
“This could happen to anyone,” says Debra Lieberman, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Miami.
A quick clarification: Lieberman means this could happen to anyone who meets a sibling under similar circumstances.
Coresidence throughout childhood—particularly early childhood—creates sexual aversion in adulthood, explains Lieberman, who has studied “sibling incest avoidance” extensively. It’s a phenomenon called the “Westermarck effect,” and it doesn’t just affect biological siblings; adults who grew up in the same home experience the same feelings of sexual revulsion.
“TSA and her half brother were not raised throughout childhood together and neither observed his or her mother caring for the other as an infant,” explains Lieberman. “These are the two cues that have been shown to lead to the categorization of another as a sibling. When these cues are present, strong sexual aversions tend to develop. Without these cues, no natural sexual aversion will develop.”
(What this means, of course, is that everybody who read TSA’s letter and thought, “What a sicko! I would never fuck any of my siblings!” needs to back the fuck off. If your parents had surprised you with a long-lost sibling when you were 14, dear readers, you, too, could be facing an extremely awkward conversation with your fiancé. There but for the grace of God, etc.)
So what, if anything, should you tell the man you’re about to marry, TSA?
“If it were me,” says Lieberman, “I would probably say something. I would explain the situation and the science. Unfortunately, this might gross out her fiancé, especially if he has sisters. But living with this stress”—the fear that he’ll find out at some point—”does not seem like a happy life.”
I agree with Lieberman: Tell your fiancé what happened, TSA. Emphasize that you were young, confused, and Westermarck-effect-deprived. You can also refer him to Lieberman’s website—www.debralieberman
.com—where he can peruse the research.
Good luck, TSA.
I’m a 23-year-old female in a monogamish relationship—thank you for that word!—with my wonderful boyfriend of two years. I moved away last year to attend graduate school, and we agreed it was okay to sleep with other people while we’re apart. The last person I slept with was an acquaintance who knew both of us and understood what the deal was with our relationship. My question is, if I’m just looking for casual sex or a one-night stand, should I make it clear that we’re just going to have sex and I’m not interested in dating? How much should I tell the person I’m trying to pick up about a significant other they won’t ever meet?
Full Disclosure Necessary, Yathink?
If you meet a guy in a bar, exchange four words with him (and two of them are “Open up!” right before he spits a Jäger shot into your mouth), and you wind up back at your place, FDNY, the person you’re about to fuck can reasonably make two assumptions: (1) you’re a slut (in the sex-positive, reclaiming-that-word, sisterhood-is-powerful, drink-Jäger-out-of-a-hot-guy’s-mouth sense of the term), and (2) he’s unlikely to see you again. Under circumstances like these, FDNY, you are not obligated to disclose your relationship status. The only things you’re obligated to disclose are the precise kind of clitoral stimulation you require and the exact time you’ll need him out of your apartment…
But if a nice boy asks you out on something that your parents and steampunks call a “date,” and he explains that you’re really, really special, and he refrains from spitting Jäger shots into your mouth, you are obligated to disclose your relationship status to him, lest he make the entirely reasonable assumption that you’re single and interested in him, too.
I am in love with an intelligent woman. She is exactly what I’ve always wanted: smart, articulate, independent, and friggin’ beautiful. The thing is, we fight constantly. Everything is going well, and then I say the wrong thing or use the wrong tone, and she blows up. In these fights, I am required to remain calm, but she can yell, scream, mock, or ridicule. These fights sometimes end in physical confrontations that she instigates. The therapist we’re seeing takes my side, but still nothing gets better. Her feelings are the only ones that matter. I’m afraid to read the advice you’re going to give me.
Confused, Pissed, and Sad
You don’t mention your own looks, CPAS, but I’m guessing there’s a big looks gap in this relationship, i.e., your girlfriend is objectively hot, while you fall somewhere between “Ron Jeremy” and “unconventionally attractive” on the male beauty spectrum. And that’s not an accident: She knows that you think you’re unlikely to do better than her, looks-wise, and that allows her to be just as psycho as she wants to be. Because she knows you’re not going anywhere.
Here’s the advice you were afraid of, CPAS: Go somewhere, anywhere, that she isn’t. You wouldn’t be putting up with this shit if this woman’s outsides were as ugly as her insides.
DTMFA.
What happened to your column? I remember back when your columns involved wonderful details about things like proper dildo protocol, indulging odd fetishes, and funny sex adventures. Now it’s all about the philosophy of what loving relationships should truly entail. I miss the old Dan who would coach readers on how to put large things inside themselves and recount funny/titillating anecdotes.
Where’s My Dirt?
Google happened to my column.
Back in the getting-large-things-inside-my-readers days, WMD, people would write me and ask, “How do I get this large thing inside of me?” Now people with large things can turn to Google for information about how to get their large things inside themselves. Another question I used to get all the time: “What’s a cock ring?” Now cock rings have their own Wiki page.
There’s just so much good, basic info about sex online—including basic how-to info—that people don’t have to ask me for basic information about fetishes or kinks or dildo protocols anymore. So most of the questions I get nowadays, and most of the ones I answer, are about relationships. Don’t blame me, WMD, blame Google’s algorithms.
It has been a long time since I filled a column or two with titillating sex anecdotes. I’m on vacation right now, so… wow me with your best/kinkiest/craziest vacation-sex stories, dear readers, and I’ll fill next week’s column with ’em.
Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.
My brother is in the exact relationship CPAS is in, except they are married and have three kids, so there is no DTMF to be done. I don’t think looks will have much to do with it (my brother is as hot as his wife, and often has women hitting on him), just the need for her to be absolutely in control and right at all times – and for him to be wrong and under the thumb. She’s perfectly reasonable most of the time. It’s pretty weird. My brother just does what CPAS does, and I have no idea how. I think I’d have walked out long ago.
Awww Dan, CPS isn’t going to dump the girl. Men are shallow, shallow, shallow. The only thing they care about is how a woman looks. If she’s hot, nothing else matters. If she isn’t hot, she’s invisible. Men want two things in a woman, skinny and hot, they don’t care beyond that.
CPAS, she could be insecure, neurotic and needy. Or she could be suffering from a hormonal imbalance. Hormonal birth control leaves many women bereft of their true persona and turned into angry, irritable, unstable, irrational and often physically violent facsimiles of themselves. I used to refer to it as “the hi-jackers have control of the aeroplane”. If she has started on or changed her birth control since you met, this could account for out-of-character behaviour. Try 2-3 months using non-hormonal birth control and see the difference. Dan, I’m your biggest fan but shame on you for not even investigating the possibility she’s not a witch before burning her at the stake.
TSA Tell him, your fiance has the right to know. Giving the stress you feel about this, you know in your gut that this is not like talking about previous lovers/boyfriends (which as we all know we should avoid these types of conversations as nothing comes good comes out of them). Difference here is that it was your half brother, it is incest (screw that BS about the Westermarck effect, you knew it was wrong, it was sick, yet you went ahead and did it anyway). It will come out, so he mind as well find out from you.
BTW, this is going to sound bad, but if I was the your fiance and you told me this not sure if I would proceed with the marriage…I would have to think about it for awhile. Yes, you were a kid, yes, it sounds like your family life growing up was not normal to say the least….but what you did was wrong. You knew it, he knew it, you were 14 so you knew the difference between right and wrong. It says alot about you as a person, and it says alot about your family, how you were raised, and would me question if your morals/beliefs as a result of this are really inline with mine. Besides, he deserves the right to know so that he can decide for himself if he wants to spend the rest of his life dealing with the baggage that comes from a family as screwed up as your’s was and is !!!!!
People keep missing the problem, her continuing relationship with her brother. She dumped her mother for her brother and her father who was more than a little responsible for this mess. I’m sorry, but the mother was justified in freaking out. She was being required to accept a hell of a lot when her husband’s bastard came to live with them.
@beentheredonethat I agree, the fact that she dropped her mother to keep her relationship with her brother and father is a problem. As I said above, the fiance has a right to know what happened so that he can decide for himself if he still wants to marry her. What she did in the past would probably be enough to make most normal guys run. And if it wasn’t, the fact that she dropped her mother for those two buffons sure as hell should be. Tell the fiance, don’t tell the fiance…probably does not matter in the long run because either way this relationship is doomed (breakup now or divorce down the road) unless her fiance is as screwed up as her or perhaps another long lost blood relative…in which case they will make a perfect couple 🙂
By the way…you have to wonder about the fiance and what skeletons he is hiding or the emotional problems he has himself. Giving this girl’s past / her values / her issues / probably low self esteeem / etc…I gotta believe he is not much of a catch himself. Yea, yea, I know…this is judgemental…but unless she hides it well…I can’t help but conclude that this girl is an emotional basket-case and has shown her true colors in terms of values/issues/drama/low self esteem/etc… yet the guy still wants to marry her. Either love truely is blind or this guy is a mess himself.
CPS,
Pretty much a consensus of comments – DTMFA.
But as someone who’s been through this personally, and as a professional who deals with this routinely, I strongly urge you to google “cycle of violence.” I suggest doing this when you have a substantial amount of time, and only when you are alone or are with only people who you trust and are supportive. It is very likely that you will react very emotionally as you read. You will be amazed that your unique experiences are actually not only very common, but are predictable and part of a well-documented pattern.
You will learn that you are involved in a toxic relationship and there are psychological reasons why it will be difficult for you to break the pattern and get out.
But you need to get out. AND, before you allow yourself to get into a new relationship, you need to better understand the relationship you are in, why you got into it, and why you stayed, knowing it was bad.
Good luck. You have the power to make your life better.
@97: Well, yes, if you consider paying a penalty in order to get out of a relationship to be the same thing as enforcement of the promise to not get out of the relationship. You still lost the relationship, which is presumably what you really wanted to keep.
That, and good luck getting your girlfriend to not laugh in your face if you suggest financial or other “penalties” if she dumps you while she’s on the other coast. If I had a romantic partner who seriously suggested something like that to keep us honest while apart, I would break up before moving — it’s frankly creepy. You stay with someone because you care about them, not because they have made it too injurious to leave.
The financial dissolution of a marriage is not a penalty, by the way; it is the division of jointly acquired assets.
Quoth @108:
I thought she dumped her mother because her mom called the cops and tried to physically prevent her from having an abortion? That’s not “freaking out”; that’s actively causing injury to TSA, her brother, and likely her dad. And I’m guessing those weren’t the only times her mom sabotaged her.
Not sure why you’re assigning blame for getting rid of mom. I can only assume you’ve never had the “pleasure” of a toxic parent. Sometime you need to cut yourself off from certain relatives.
Hunter 78: You are projecting your own biases on the mother. You have no clue as to what the mother’s motives were. She may be devotedly catholic or of some other religion which holds abortion to be a mortal sin. That may offend your sensibilities and that of others who post here, but it is still a valid moral principle as long as you ensure that the resulting child is raised by a loving family. Sort like your comment about a guardianless child, which is an inconsistent and hypocritical position to take given your subsequent rant on the mother trying to prevent the abortion. Frankly, I have no problem with killing people either before or after they are born. The human race would be far better off if more people were culled. Starting with the lobbyists, politicians, lawyers, and religious zealots (including secular humanists). After all, religion is just a believe system. Forget calling the police, I would have castrated the bastard for so abusing my hospitality in such a gross manner and done the same to the father for failing so abjectly to protect their daughter. Ultimately the father was responsible for the actions of his son.
Just my modest proposal with a tip of my hat to Jonathan Swift.
to whitness:
It’s God’s plan! He designed us this way. Who do you think Adam and Eve’s children had sex with? Incest is OK according to the Bible.
@107: What if you don’t think it was wrong? What if you only think it’s likely that other people would think it’s wrong?
I’m not saying it wasn’t wrong, but I’d say it was wrong more along the lines of, I dunno, stealing your parent’s car to go joy riding or something.
The only think TSA is “guilty” of is having natural feelings and not having a developed enough brain to resist them.
@108: What’s wrong with her continuing relationship with her father/brother? Her father does not seem to have done anything bad to her. And she seems to believe (and probably is) just as culpable in the issues with her brother as her brother is. Only her mother forcefully tried to circumvent TSA’s will. Sounds like the relationship with the mother would have been just fine if not for that.
CPAS, I hung on to the relationship that you are considering ending. To the point of marriage with children. Thought I could manage it, or make it work, or something. I was right. It works for everybody, but me. I can’t bail now because I can’t in good conscience leave my kids with their mother. Yes, that’s the way it works when you’re the dad. Listen to Dan (ignoring the bit about your ugliness.) DTMFA
obviously incest spawned the human race, have you not been reading your bible??
I have had the terrible misfortune of becoming well-known in my extended social circle as being reasonable, caring, calm, and grown-up. I mean, these are all generally true, but it means I can’t get away with NOT being any of these things, which is frustrating as all hell when I have to deal with petty, vindictive, passive aggressive, immature fuckheads of mutual acquaintance.
Several times in the past few years I have had serious issues with people being complete turds to me, our mutual friends have said “Oh that’s just how he/she is…” while I have basically been ordered to stay on my best behaviour because I’m “better than them”.
Thankfully my actual partners are mature and sensible, but CPaS’s situation just reminded me of that. It sucks being the only grown-up in the room, sometimes…
Have to agree with Where’s My Dirt? – what’s happened to the column, and for that matter, the podcast? Have all the interesting questions been asked? After listening to the marriage proposal at the end of episode 249, I had to think that the Lovecast has officially jumped the shark.
There is nothing wrong with consensual incest. That’s not a matter of opinion. It’s a fact. It’s fine to be judgmental, as long as you make the correct judgments!
@114: Well, we enforce the criminal law by penalizing people who violate it, for instance. The idea is to make it less likely that someone will choose to break up with you by requiring the process of ending a relationship to be difficult.
I don’t know why you think stabilizing a relationship is a bad thing or creepy. I mean, some people will leave someone as soon as they find someone better, but if people want to make it less likely, they should have that option.
There is a trade-off between the length of a relationship and the potential quality of your partner. If you change partners regularly, you have the opportunity for novelty as well as always dating someone of your preferred age. You could keep “trading up” in whatever you value, to get a better and better partner when you get the opportunity, but you lose the benefits from building a long-term relationship. And if someone wanted those benefits it makes sense to structure things to encourage long-term relationships.
Hence, marriage, for instance, which you must think is creepy also.
You oversimplify things when you say “You stay with someone because you care about them, not because they have made it too injurious to leave.” Any relationship has benefits and drawbacks, and people often have mixed feelings. In hard times, people often stay together because they care about the person and because they don’t want to lose the relationship or its benefits, or they don’t want to move, or they don’t want to give up mutual friends, or they don’t want to go through the emotional pain of a breakup.
Nonmonogamy is another way to encourage long-term relationships because then you don’t have to end your relationship to date or have sex with someone new. (And for some people, monogamy might be a way to encourage long-term relationships!)
There are definitely penalties associated with divorce. I wasn’t specifically referring to financial ones, I meant more like the waiting period required and process involved and so forth.
But there are financial ones as well. For one thing, there are often legal and court fees. You may have to move or sell your house or property quickly. You lose the tax benefits. And, yes, depending on the state, you may be required to pay some form of support, or, in community property states, give up some of your individually earned income.
Interesting fact: there are some states that have a special type of marriage (so-called “covenant marriage”) which is harder to get out of than a regular marriage, and you can choose either type of marriage when you get married. Which is a great idea, because people should be able to lock themselves in, if they so choose.
man, this bs is starting to read like ann landers…
107, what you say is almost like a parody: “You knew it, he knew it, you were 14 so you knew the difference between right and wrong.” Probably not old enough to legally consent to sex in most states, but hey, old enough to be judged by you, right?
I don’t think TSA did a darn thing wrong, and she has nothing to be ashamed of. I can sympathize with why her mother wanted to go to the police–wouldn’t you do that, if you thought your 14 year old was being preyed upon by an older boy, no matter who he was? But I can also sympathize with why this upset TSA, because she believed that the brother was innocent and didn’t want to see him harshly punished for something she participated in. It also forces her to play a victim role that may have made her feel worse about what happened.
Maybe there’s a lot more to the story between TSA and her mother than we know, but if the main reason for their estrangement is the mother’s reaction to this situation, I hope that TSA will eventually be able to establish a relationship with her again. The mother’s actions may not have been good for TSA at the time, but they also make sense in some respects, and obviously the mother is traumatized by what happened as well. She can’t be expected to react and behave perfectly under those circumstances.
@Hunter78
Dude, I prefaced it with the fact that it was judgemental. No need for name calling.
And yes, guys dig girls for the chemistry, but it is our history that makes us the person we are today. Fact, the girl slept with her half brother. Fact, she got pregnant by sleeping with her half brother. Fact, she had an abortion. Fact, she no longer talks to her mother because her mother tried to stop her from getting an abortion and called the police on her half brother. FACT: it’s been 12 years and she has not forgiving her mother. BIGGEST FACT – she has concealed all of this from her fiance.
Putting everything aside that happened when she was 14…it’s these last two facts are probably the most revealing.
– While I do not agree with her mother trying to stop her from getting an abortion, TSA was only 14 at the time. TSA had already shown poor judgement by sleeping with her half brother and by not having safe sex (she got pregnant). It’s a parent’s job to love, care for and protect their children. The mother probably thought she was doing this. Note, I said thought. And quite possible her mother is one of those Christian anti-abortion zealots. In which case the incest and pregnancy probably drove her stark raving mad at the time. All this on top of her husband’s son from an affair coming to live with them. That’s a lot to handle…even for the best of moms.
But either way, it’s been 12 years and TSA has not forgiving her mother for trying to do what she probably thought was right at the time. The mother made a mistake, yes. But she can’t forgive her mother. Hmmmm says a lot (Empathy, compassion, forgiveness).
– She has not told her fiancé. No need to go into too much detail on this except to say that it would appear she is not very open or honest with her fiancé.
So yes, it’s the chemistry we dig. But it’s the complete person (inside and out) that we love.
@Suzy (post 129)
Are you kidding me? She was 14, not 5. She was old enough to know right from wrong. Is 14 still a child, yes. Was she still growing and maturing, yes. But she was still old enough to know right from wrong. The irony is that you are right that in most states she is not old enough to have consensual sex, but she is old enough to be charged as an adult for murder. Go figure.
But for the life of me I can’t see how you could possible say “I don’t think TSA did a darn thing wrong”. She did do something wrong. She did 2 things wrong…had sex with her half brother…and she had unprotected sex. Should she still feel ashamed about it? No. We all make mistakes, it’s part of who we are, we learn from them, and probably most importantly we have to own up to them so that we can accept them and move past them. Too many people make excuses either for themselves or for others (she was too young, she did not know what she was doing, it wasn’t my fault, etc).
Without knowing the whole story, I too agree that the mother’s reactions made sense at the time, and that she was just trying to protect her daughter. Yes, the mother probably handled it poorly, but a situation like this is tough for all involved and the mother probably over reacted. It would be hard not to.
With regards to “hey, old enough to be judged by you”. Yes, I have no problem saying that what she did when she was 14 was wrong. Does it make her a bad person? No, it makes her human. And I hope one day she finally gets past it and no longer feels ashamed for what she did when she was 14.
There is a problem with trading up and getting a reputation for doing so. Few people stay a the top of food chain for an extended period of time. If you do it to others, at some point it will be done to you and probably repeatedly as your attractiveness deteriorates over time? Possibly this is the reason for cult of trying to appear forever young in this culture. You’ve limited yourself to interacting with people who consider other people a fungible commodity.
@129,
The source of TSA’s Mom’s attitude toward the half brother is understandable. Husband has affair while actively making family with her; live with it. Mistress dies, and she is forced to accept husband’s infidelity in form of his son; live with it. The boy gets her daughter pregnant.
Just rereading the above makes my head hurt. I have no idea about the Mom’s religious beliefs, but it’s pretty clear that the Mom’s role in this was shut up and take it til this point. Then for whatever reason (she tries to protect her grandchild) she went against her husband’s flow, she gets chucked out by her family. Pretty fucking brutal from that angle.
I have sympathy for TSA, but I feel sorry for her Mom. Until TSA resolves the issues underlying thier break, then all she’s doing is burying the trauma. Since I am attempting to create a resolution myself (with family issues of neglect and betrayal), I can tell her the stakes could be the stability of her future marriage. At least all of her parties are still alive
Peace.
FDNY: Call me. 😉
CPAS: Fuck her. Fuck her good, hard, and long. Fuck her and fuck her and fuck her. Fuck her how she likes it. Fuck her how you like it. Ignore her except for the fucking. When she starts the yelling, walk away. ESPECIALLY if she ever says something like, “DONTCHU WALK AWAY FROM ME!” When she STFU, fuck her REAL good. Make her get there, the right way.
Then, one day, when she’s yelling at you, stare at her. When she stops the yelling say, “If you EVER scream at me again, I will stop fucking you. We can talk. But the next time you raise your voice at me is right after the last time I fuck you.”
She might be worth keeping, if you can show her that you are more valuable than getting yelled at ever deserves.
I really think Sister Act needs a good therapist to assure her that actually no she doesn’t need to tell her fiance. She really, truly doesn’t. It’s in the past and time to be over it. The reason she wants to tell him is most likely due to residual shame and revulsion.
Count me in the exes as friends category. I feel if you can’t be friends you’re not really over them, or they’re douchebags. But a blanket refusal of contact to me spells unresolved relationship issues.
I completely, totally, and whole-heartedly agree with #3. Dan, Dan, Dan – it’s not just a looks thing, Honey. It’s a self-esteem thing. Trust me. I’ve met a lot of men who get locked into abusive relationships (almost as many as there are women who do). The abusive women they were with weren’t necessarily trollips, but they weren’t the prettiest pieces of ass these guys had either. In my circle, it seems to happen most to men who were older and freaking out because all their friends were settling down. The problem is these men didn’t just settle down… They settled. And I’m certain it happens to younger men, too, but not as much as younger women (men aren’t in as big of a hurry to settle down).
Really, the ending up with a nasty asshole thing is very common for those of us who grew up in dysfunctional families. The assholes make us feel safe because they are familiar (like “mommy” or “daddy”) and/or you may even believe you can “fix” that person—giving you a false sense of control (this is called codependency). BTDT. Seen it too happen too to male friends sadly. 🙁
@126: “I don’t know why you think stabilizing a relationship is a bad thing or creepy.”
Stabilizing a relationship BY THREATENING PAINFUL CONSEQUENCES if it ends is creepy. Jesus Christ, you even mentioned beating them up as one possible example consequence. On what planet is that not creepy? So is telling your boyfriend he owes you ten thousand dollars if he dumps you. Ask for that from me and I’d dump you on the spot, just for that.
Yes, there are additional considerations in deciding to stay other than “Because I care about her.” Examples include “Because it would cause a lot of pain to everybody involved, to smash the family like that” or “Divorce is generally a financial catastrophe for all concerned, except the lawyers, so maybe staying together and working it out might be wiser.” You will note, however, that all of these involve consideration of the other people, which is a minor variation on “Because I care about her.” They aren’t examples of “Because I’m stuck in the trap she laid, and dare not chew off my own leg.”
There’s nothing wrong with running these calculations in your head when contemplating making a run for it, especially if they cause you to reconsider. (Seriously, in most cases (i.e. barring abuse), what you are feeling at the moment is just infatuation, and once that wears off, both you and the new squeeze will be in basically the same relationships as the ones you both left. Is it really worth it to cause so much pain?)
Still, that’s a LOT different than setting it up at the outset so that if you leave I get to beat you up or empty your bank account in retaliation for leaving.
134, ftw.
Dan is absolutely right about CPaS. I saw this first hand, with a former friend who was, by all accounts, a skinny, unattractive weirdo. But, he had a stunningly hot girlfriend, to whom everyone else I knew reacted with incredulity, pulling me aside and asking “what’s SHE doing with HIM!?!” That was, until they saw her flip her fucking lid on him, usually in public, and with an apparent glee that betrayed a deep-seated streak of willful cruelty. She actually had an evil sparkle in her eye. Seriously. Of course, that’s probably what made the sex so great (according to him, anyway).
When he was finally unable to tolerate further torment from her drug-addled vacuity, vicious mood swings and vituperative emotional manipulation (which often included explicit reminders of just how far out of his league she really was), she would react with outright violence, situations so out of control that most folks would have called the cops, though I and others would come and extract him instead. There was one time where in the midst of an argument, she grabbed his favorite sweatshirt, cut it up with a butcher knife right in front of him, then proceeded to throw it on the ground, and piss on it. She literally hiked her skirt up and let loose like some kind of Bob Guccione centerfold. Ultimately, only moving to opposite corners of the country could break their twisted, psychopathological bond.
DTMFA might be even harder for this guy than it seems. If she’s anything like that one (who knows, they might even BE one and the same!) he should consider filing a restraining order first.
Dan is absolutely right about CPaS. I saw this first hand, with a former friend who was, by all accounts, a skinny, unattractive weirdo. But, he had a stunningly hot girlfriend, to whom everyone else I knew reacted with incredulity, pulling me aside and asking “what’s SHE doing with HIM!?!” That was, until they saw her flip her fucking lid on him, usually in public, and with an apparent glee that betrayed a deep-seated streak of willful cruelty. She actually had an evil sparkle in her eye. Seriously. Of course, that’s probably what made the sex so great (according to him, anyway).
When he was finally unable to tolerate further torment from her drug-addled vacuity, vicious mood swings and vituperative emotional manipulation (which often included explicit reminders of just how far out of his league she really was), she would react with outright violence, situations so out of control that most folks would have called the cops, though I and others would come and extract him instead. There was one time where in the midst of an argument, she grabbed his favorite sweatshirt, cut it up with a butcher knife right in front of him, then proceeded to throw it on the ground, and piss on it. She literally hiked her skirt up and let loose like some kind of Bob Guccione centerfold. Ultimately, only moving to opposite corners of the country could break their twisted, psychopathological bond.
DTMFA might be even harder for this guy than it seems. If she’s anything like that one (who knows, they might even BE one and the same!) he should consider filing a restraining order first.
@116,
It amazes me how TSA’s story keeps percolating through my brain, and causes me to reexamine all the opinions expressed here. Going back to the beginning, ie before the brother shows up, the problems stem from the CPOS father. In fact TSA’s problems are side effects of the CPOS’s creation. The Mom caused… what? She’s toxic because she responded badly to the (statutory) rape of her daughter? The Mom, TSA, and the brother are victims of the CPOS’s actions.
The more I think about it, the issue of abandoning her mother is more shameful, because, in my opinion, it’s a case of blaming the victim. TSA isn’t 14 anymore, so it’s time to do the grown up thing of considering another person’s point of view and trying to solve the problem instead of running away.
wendykh This is an uncommon situation. What is it about huge family scandals that you don’t get? It is only a matter of time until a drunken (that is generally the case)friend or family member makes some off hand remark (or direct reference) (usually at some kind of family gathering) about the scandals under the assumption that the fiance already knows all about it. Or are you proposing somekind of ridiculous conspiracy of silence by everyone who knows about the scandal. She and he will be far better off if he hears about from her and it is long past the time that she should have told him.
In the case of any ex-lover from an affair, the consensus opinion of most experts is that an ex-lover can never remain a friend because the only way to ensure that the affair is over is to sever all contact. This is a bomb waiting to explode when the other person in the relationship or marriage is unaware of the affair. It is just tempting fate. When they are aware, it is futile to attempt to reconcile until and unless the affair is both really, truly over and as importantly that it is demonstrably over. That is only possible after all contact is severed. The ex-lover has to effectively be expunged. Letters, diaries, pictures, gifts, memories, compromised friends all have to be eliminated which is why it is so hard for most people to reconcile. The cost is to just high and people can’t or won’t pay the price. It is a whole lot easier and less painful (for both parties) to start over with some one new. Children make reconciling or starting over so much more complicated.
I know I’m way off topic, but I may as well continue with my rant. The first victim of an affair is credibility. Since the cheater has engaged in lies, deceit, and betrayal, it isn’t so much that they don’t have credibility as that they have negative credibility. Some how they have to prove that they aren’t lying before they can start to prove that they are telling the truth. Where one ends and the other begins is impossible to tell since they tend to overlap. How a cheater asserts any right to privacy while striving to reestablish their credibility is beyond me. Any attempt at secrecy or privacy is typically viewed with varying degrees of suspicion. As I said, reconciling is difficult if not impossible for many people.
TSA, you have no idea how normal this all is. I hope Dan gave you some relief on this topic. Your partner is already in love with and I don’t think this information will send him running.
TSA
Fiance has a right to know something, but maybe not the details of exactly who was involved. What does he need to know exactly? That you had a deeply tragic experience in your teen years that caused a serious breach within your family, and he may end up dealing with after-effects. I would include not only the pregnancy and how it ended (I think TSA did succeed in getting an abortion), but also a hint that “you may hear other versions of this story”. I would share with him your complicated feelings – you blamed yourself for years, etc.
If he asks to know more, say, “I would prefer not to go into more detail – but I’ll listen to your thoughts, feelings, and concerns”. Fiance might want to know if the person who fathered that child is still in your life (and yes he might have a right to know that) so he may need reassurance that you’re not currently involved, voluntarily or coerced, in any clandestine relationships.
A therapist might help you formulate what needs to be shared and what does not.
I would also advise any family members that you’re still on speaking terms with exactly what you do end up telling your fiance, including that you didn’t reveal the identity of the father.
If I married someone who had a big family secret like that, and I found out after marriage, I’d likely stick with them but it would be a shock. Fiance will have to deal with some of these family members and he’s going to feel strange esp if he was kept in the dark the whole time and then things come to light later on.
@141: Sometimes there are no white hats.
Agree the dad is a CPOS, but that doesn’t excuse the mom’s actions. Those actions trigger my toxic “spidey sense,” as they involve narcissism, rage, and physical confrontation. These are the same types of interactions CPAS describes, and everyone (rightly) tells him to DTMFA.
If mom’s reaction was out of character, then maybe TSA should think about giving her another chance. But I’m betting it wasn’t.
@142 – Moving on is hard, but it doesn’t have to be as hard as that. If the cheater has a long history of being honest, and this is a one-time fuck-up, and they give up their online/phone privacy for a few months… yes, you can rebuild the trust. Expunging the other person does not seem as crucial as convincing both spouses that there is still a wealth of love, respect, and passion in the marriage.
142 I do know about family scandals, have one similar to this one actually in my family tree. Very similar. It just simply isn’t talked about. In my particular case, the toxic mother who wanted to turn it into her drama and punish those involved to get back for crimes committed against *her* was banished from the family, much like TSA’s mom. In our case, the mother had been brutally and violently raped as a child by relatives and when she found her children and stepchildren playing extensive doctor she flipped out as TSA’s mom did even exaggerating and lying to police instead of listening to guidance of social workers and Child Protective Services who felt those actions were unnecessary and inappropriate for this case. You bet your ass no one talks to her anymore. She made it allllll about her and wasn’t listening to her child or stepchildren at ALL.
Again in our case, the children and stepchildren got therapy to find out why it happened, why it was inappropriate, learned appropriate boundaries, grew up and became normal and responsible citizens. They did not see any reason their spouses needed to know this information as on the few occasions they felt it necessary out of some misguided sense of all or nothing honestly, the lover/potential spouse reacted by being appalled the siblings/stepsiblings still were in contact, wanting to go beat up the perceived instigator, and basically not allowing any sort of agency for the “victim” at all.
I am predicting, should TSA tell her fiancee, it’s very likely he will want to go kick the shit out of brother and ban him from the family blah blah blah. Insist he’s never to be around their children, that sort of thing. Or decide she’s some sort of depraved slut. People who read Dan’s columns are generally more open minded and look how many people here feel sorry for the MOTHER who decided all on her own how this would be handled (any woman who tried to force her 14 year old daughter to give birth to her half brother’s baby while simultaneously trying to have him arrested has a fucking screw loose, period, no matter her feelings on abortion).
It is quite likely mom was a bitch and a half outside of this. I mean let’s look at fact here, her husband has a child with another woman and she insists they’re to have no contact. What the hell kind of woman does that? Okay let’s assume they had no contact by the dad’s choice. What the hell kind of woman builds a family with a man who abandons his first born son? Fucked up.
I hope the kids had therapy about this like we had in my family. If not they need to get it. If they have, they, or at least TSA, needs more. People who have been through this and had therapy don’t talk about it. There’s just no need to. And we’ve discovered most people just don’t fucking get it how yes, we’re normal people who might have made a mistake or been involved in something that does not need either current white knighting nor armchair mental health lessons from people who don’t know wtf they are on about.
Oh and as for exes, I was talking about EXES not affair situations. Yeah I am with cutting out the affair lover. Continuing contact is a nice way of letting the spouse know where your loyalties lie :-/
That said, I do know some people who had an affair, realize that was a dumb thing to do, or ended it for whatever reason, who just move on and say nothing but still see one another socially and just pretend it never happened. That can work too.
Men get stuck in abusive relationships too. And it’s not just because their partner is “out of their league.” It could be in some cases, it could also be they are just literally beaten down.
It’s not just an ego/pride thing.
Married in MA, I too sympathize with TSA’s mother, though we may not know the full story or all the reasons why TSA is upset with her. Regardless, it’s a huge deal to cut a parent completely out of your life, with lifelong repercussions that can be hard to predict. For TSA’s own sake, I hope they can reconnect, even if it’s in a limited way.
wendykh, you make an important point that people who were once victimized can have problems understanding similar situations without putting it in terms of their own experience. However, why are we expecting perfect reactions from people who have been through serious traumas? And why expect people to behave rationally when reacting to potential (or real) harm to their own children? For most people, those issues also come with a lot of self-blame, which will be even more difficult for someone who survived abuse and thinks s/he failed to protect the children. No, TSA’s mom should not have foisted an unwelcome role of victim on TSA, but wouldn’t most parents react that way? How many would back off from blaming the half-brother without the benefit of, say, a therapist’s help?
FatherLeeds (131), your position doesn’t seem consistent to me. First, you’re saying TSA did something she knew at 14 was wrong and sick, she’s fully responsible for that, it says “a lot about her as a person” today, she has terrible “baggage” from it, her values today are in question, her relationship with her fiance is hopelessly screwed up, and he may well not want to marry her. But then, you want to say that she shouldn’t be ashamed of what she did and it was merely a mistake, of the sort we all might make? No, I don’t see how you can hold both of those positions at once.
I don’t think any 14 year olds should ever be having sex, so in that sense, yeah, it’s “wrong”. However, the very reason I think 14 is too young for sex is the same reason I don’t assign blame to the ones who do it–or at least, not in the way you do. There’s a difference between taking responsibility and deserving blame, and that’s true at 4, 14, or any other age.
I do agree with you that she needs to tell the fiance, though. If my husband suddenly came out with a story like this today, I would not be terribly upset with him for having kept it a secret. However, it would be better to have told it earlier. Not only is it better for the fiance to know the truth, but it’s better for TSA to enter the marriage knowing she has disclosed everything important to the man she wants to trust and love forever. Secrets can wear terribly on people, even if nobody else ever finds out. And in this case, for purely practical reasons, she has to tell because there are lots of other people who know what happened! The fiance cannot find out from someone else, period. It has to come from her.
What ever TSA’s reasons for not wanting her mother in her life, if she doesn’t she doesn’t.
Sure, it’s great when families all can get along, but this idea that somehow TSA not having anything to do with her mother is inherently bad for TSA doesn’t make sense. She mentioned it, but she clearly didn’t portray it as some big issue in her life that she doesn’t speak to her mother, and those reading more into it are clearly injecting their own issues.
When I met my partner he wasn’t speaking to his mother. When he explained why I didn’t think she sounded all that bad and I encouraged him to re-establish contact with her.
What a mistake. He eventually did and what a mistake. Encouraging him to do that is what I consider my one true mistake in our relationship. They reconnected and it lasted about a year before he wrote her off again, and this time, having seen and experienced her for myself, I was glad he did. How much I regret pushing him to speak to her again, and as a result putting him through all that crap, which I didn’t understand, all over again.
We don’t know the whole story behind why TSA doesn’t speak to her mother. And from her letter that doesn’t seem to be a particular issue for her anyway. Trying to make it into one is missing the mark.
What I do know is that the idea that staying on good terms with parents is somehow inherently, vitally important, is B.S.. TSA isn’t a little girl anymore. If she has decided that not being in touch with her mother is what she needs why not accept that she understand her situation better than any of us?
Quoth @150:
I don’t necessarily expect people to behave rationally when reacting to harm to their kids; I expect them to behave rationally when interacting with their kids. Being emotionally out of control when dealing with your kids is a formula for hurting them, as TSA’s mom demonstrated.
Give yourself a time out, go to another room, have a drink, whatever, but never interact with your kids when you’re furious.
153, I’m not sure what TSA means by physically prevent from having an abortion, so I can’t speak to that. However, calling the police when someone has sex with your 14 year old daughter is not necessarily an irrational response. It might be just the right response, in many cases. I have no idea if it was the right one in this case; I simply understand why it bothered TSA.
152, that’s exactly why I wonder if TSA should try to resolve some issues with her mother. She could have many excellent reasons for never speaking to the mother again. However, if one of the most important reasons is that the mother tried to call the cops on big brother, and generally reacted poorly to finding out that her 14 year old was having incestuous sex, well… I cut that mom some slack for the poor reaction. Few people would handle that situation with impeccable grace and ease. If someone just said, hey, I’m not speaking to my mom for good reason, that would be one thing. In this case, though, we seem to be hearing a crucial reason, which is why I’d advise caution. I’m very happy with my parents, thanks, so no projecting my own issues here, but I’ve seen other cases close up and personal where family ties are severed, and people really, really suffer. Like I say, it’s very hard to predict all the fallout that will happen, and how much it will hurt the person who decides to do the cutting-off.
@154: But it wasn’t just “someone” who had sex with TSA; it was her half-brother, who was living in the house. It’s not like he was going anywhere. That decision had to have pissed off TSA, her dad, and her brother. Further, I got the impression that the sex was not discovered until TSA got pregnant. So there’s no need to haul brother off– TSA was already pregnant. Damage done.
Obviously we don’t have complete information, but the information we do have suggests that the call was motivated by malice, not protection. By anger, not by concern.
I agree that “calling the police when someone has sex with your 14 year old daughter is not necessarily an irrational response.” But we’re not faced with that general scenario; here the daughter is already pregnant, and the guy who knocked her up is her brother, your husband’s son, and (I’m assuming) your step-son. And in that scenario, bringing all that family drama into the public sphere serves no rational purpose.
Suzy,
I don’t know if we have any real crucial facts at all. She mentioned what her mother did, and then that she no longer had contact with her. She didn’t say those were the specific, or only reasons, or if such behavior was a one time aberration or an on going pattern. Also what stood out to me wasn’t the calling of the cops, which you seem to be focusing on, but the attempt to force TSA to bear a child conceived in incest. Even many right to lifers accept incest as a reasonable exception to their no abortion stance.
Trying to force a child to carry a baby conceived in incest to term is really extreme in my opinion. And if this was not an aberration in her mother’s behavior then not only does she have reason to cut off contact, she would be foolish not to.
I know a lot of gay people who have had to cut off their parents due to the way their parents treated them, and most of them have done just fine. Almost all of us lose contact with our parents eventually when they die, and most people manage to go on and not suffer for it. It is the natural order of things. If someone feels their relationship with their parent is toxic and wish to end contact before the parent dies there is no reason to expect worse repercussions.
Sure, for some people there may be issues if they did that, just as some few people never manage to get over the death of a parent, but there is no reason to think it is inherently so. And no reason to assume so in TSA,s case based on what she has revealed.
I’m all for children keeping in contact with a parent when reasonable. I just don’t buy the expectation of dire consequences when they don’t, and have learned not to second guess the decissions of those who make such a choice for themselves. At least not without knowing a lot more details about the circumstances than we do about TSA and her mother.
You know, FatherLeeds, I’m pretty sure that what you did at fourteen only says a lot about you as an adult if you haven’t actually changed since then. If you haven’t grown up and developed empathy, for example. Or recognized your own imperfections and insecurities. Or even learned that prefacing statements with “LOLImgonnabealljudgmentalhaha” does not in fact negate any subsequent douchebaggery you spew.
@147,
I’m truly sorry for the pain your family has endured. I am also very sorry for the pain that my family has endured, especially my own pain. I wasn’t penetrated, but I was fondled and grabbed and stalked in my own home by family. I assure you that anything smelling of abuse around my children would Send. Me. Off. And, I assure you it would be all about me and my wild feelings of rage and protection.
I could come up with a counter argument disparaging TSA’s teenage behavior, but w/o support what good would it do? I think TSA, her mother, her brother and his dead mother are all victims of the CPOS father. That doesn’t help her with her problem of informing her fiancee. I also think she should consider trusting her future husband with who she is.
Peace.