S/O Family reunion dilemma

[Anonymous]

I've come to terms that my father sexually abused and groomed me as I was growing up. It's difficult, it's disgusting, and I still have to fully process it. I've kept him at arms length and communicate with my stepmom (his wife) via text occasionally. But I feel stuck when it comes to navigating other family relationships.

I love my grandmother, his mother, and my aunts, uncles, and cousins on his side. My grandmother is organizing a family reunion next summer, which I really want to attend, but (a) I freak out about having my daughter near my dad, and (b) I feel very uncomfortable being around my dad myself. To make matters worse, my dad lives in the same neighborhood as my grandmother so I can't visit her without having him around.

My grandmother is getting old (approaching 90) and I'm not sure there will be more family reunions after this. I want to see my family but NOT my dad. How do I handle this? What should I do?

[Anonymous]

Does your family know about the abuse?

Have you been in therapy? What does your therapist suggest?

Visiting your grandmother separately is an option.

[Anonymous]

I'm sorry you're going through this, OP. That said, there's pretty much no way in hell I would go to this reunion, especially if I had children.

[Anonymous]

Are you seeing a therapist to work through all this? I hope so.

In my family, I had inappropriate things happen both between me and my brother, and me and my father. I would say the abuse was on the "mild" side of things, but very damaging to me. Nevertheless, I still love both of them, and want to see them occasionally. For me the mitigating factors are that my brother was an adolescent, and I now realize my dad was (and is) mentally ill.

But you don't want to see your dad now --and perhaps never-- which is totally understandable. You have a lot of options. One is not to go to the reunion. One is to go by yourself, for a short period of time, and just talk to your grandmom and other relatives, avoid your dad, and then hightail it out of there. One is to make efforts to see other family members separately on other occasions, though that might be harder to arrange. One is to communicate with your grandmom via letters (who wouldn't love a real letter in the mail!) and photographs, and talk to her on the phone instead of going to see her in person. If the reunion involves everyone staying at one place like a resort, you could get your own place and just go briefly to meals. You could agree to go to the reunion now, while your grandmom is planning it, and wait and see how you feel next summer. You can always get "sick," cancel, whatever.

You may be in a different place by next year. You may feel more solid and better able to compartmentalize this so that you can spend time with the family you want to. In the period when I was first dealing with my family's betrayals of trust, I was a complete mess. A year later I feel much more solid and while I am sad about how disappointing people were, it doesn't have the same grip on me and I can just sort of take them how they are, realizing that they are very limited people.

Does your dad know you are avoiding him, and why? That's something to factor into the equation too.

Anyway, I wish you the best. This is really painful to experience and I know that coming to terms with it is so hard.

[Anonymous]

Please do whatever you can to keep your daughter away from this alleged pedofile! I wish you peace and solace from this awful situation. Please find a counselor or therapist or support group. Be well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does your family know about the abuse?

Have you been in therapy? What does your therapist suggest?

Visiting your grandmother separately is an option.

Only one cousin (on dad's side) knows. I haven't been to therapy since coming to terms with this issue.

[Anonymous]

Don't ever bring your child anywhere near that man.

I'm sorry for your pain, then and now. I wish for you comfort and peace.