Reply to Found out that BIL was badly abused as a child and I don't think that my sister knows it

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Reply to "Found out that BIL was badly abused as a child and I don't think that my sister knows it"

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[quote=Anonymous]Spouse of abuse survivor here.  I had known that my in laws had used corporal punishment and werent typical in their emotional climate.  Just making it through the wedding planning taught me that.

After we were married I started to hear more isolated but disturbing anecdotes about childhood- usually in the context of comparing to my own fairly typical experience where there was yelling and minimal spanking.

But then I visited with my husbands aunts/ uncles and they filled me in on some truly horrific background.  This was shared in the context of "thank god spouse has made a life for himself/ so glad to have you loving him" sort of conversation.

It made so many things make sense.  My spouse isn't one for therapy, but when I brought this up, a lot more was shared.  There had been fear I would blame my spouse for what had happened and all sorts of other stuff.  We had learned that we needed to manage some topics differently and more sensitively due to our experiences.

We sort of set it aside until we had children, and that is when we really had to start processing things again.  It is hard (not impossible) to parent well in the absence of positive role models.  And it brought up a lot of stuff for spouse when he realized how impossible it would be for him to treat our children the way he was treated.

However, he has also come to terms with some of the likely mental illness that was driving the abuse in his parents.  And after quite a few years has been able to move closer to acceptance.

This is really messy stuff.  I would definitely have questions about the motives of the neighbor, but that is a weird thing to make up.  My spouse's family was a really fundamentalist Christian group who always put on a facade in public.  Which has the added issue of making it hard for him to join a faith community because he confided in his pastor who did nothing to help.

But I would want to know- especially if there are kids involved.  I would probably couch it as- I ran into an old neighbor and she shared something with me I thought you should know so that you can tell your DH.  He at the minimum needs to know people are sharing this story about him so that he isn't surprised if others have heard it.

I hope that your BIL has done the hard work of therapy, and his parents have too, and they've restored their family.  I guess it could happen.  But especially if there are children involved I would share.

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