Me (13 years old at the time): Dad, Mom’s cheating on you. I saw her making out with this man.
Dad: Listen here, princess. The guy’s filthy rich, and when you have money, it’s normal to have a hot mistress like your mom.
Me: But aren’t you jealous?
Dad: laughs
I was flabbergasted, lmao.
My bio father just passed away. I was talking to his best friend of 45 years, basically his brother, and he casually dropped he was raped as a boy. I had asked about my fathers sister, because a lot of that family is scattered and a mess, the daughter of the sister “something happened” is all I know. And he said molestation, and then that he too, was molested by a man as a boy. I was really proud of the 68 year old mam telling me that.
But fucking, add it to the list. Men need a fucking ‘me too’ because I know so, so, many.
That man probably had finally realized that it wasn’t his shame it happened but those that did it and those that enabled it.
I was beat by my father for trying to talk about being raped. I was very young when it happened the first time. It was easier to beat me to silence than it was for him to admit he delivered me to this man so he could go to a pool hall to play snooker and talk shit. He never took me back but there is a reason why I didn’t go to the funeral.
Telling people it happened is better than keeping it secret. After all the shame isn’t the victims its the rapist.
Men need to learn to talk about their issues in general. My pops was brutal when I was a kid. It wasn’t until I grew up that I finally understood that he was made that way. His own dad basically destroyed him.That didn’t excuse all the terrible things he did but it did explain it. It was hard to be angry with him after that. I felt sad for him. That’s a heavy load to carry all alone.
Yeah. My father’s an angry narcissist, but he was good at telling me that part of what really fucked him up was his mom being a violent alcoholic until right around when I was born. That and how he’d been bullied for being small for a long time as a kid and teenager because he was a late bloomer (he’s a very large man). That insight into him gave him a lot more willingness from me to keep him in my life than he’d ever know, and it helped me as a teenager to pick friends who could talk about their feelings. To this day I still see that angry sob as a small kid who never got taught to control his emotions healthily or how to feel love outside of a self or status focused lens.