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Answered in 4 minutes by:
9/3/2011
Ask Eleanor, Psychotherapist
Category: Mental Health
Satisfied Customers: 1,517
Experience: Marriage & Family Therapist/Prof. Counselor for 20 years
VerifiedAsk Eleanor :
Hello, I am here for you and am very sorry to hear this and certainly understand your concern. I advise you to take this very, very seriously. This is not something a child would ever make up and it sounds like you have no doubt that it happened. Is your husband a good father?
Customer:
He's a wonderful father. Truly. He's incredibly loving and involved with the kids. Really a wonderful father and man. But the thing is, I've always wondered if there was abuse in his own family, growing up. His sister has voiced aloud the question, "Gee, I wonder if our dad sexually abused me.? " (Which always sounded like a big red flag to me.) My husband and his sister both were single until unusually late in life, and avoided sexual or romantic entanglements of any sort until their late twenties. My husband always insists that he doesn't remember anything "bad" happening, but I've always wondered. And so . . . . when my daughter said this, I just thought WHAT??????? Why would you have a four year old touch a two-year-old's penis???????
Ask Eleanor :
Thank you for your detailed response. Your suspicions are most likely correct; your husband probably was sexually abused as a child. Abusers usually have been victims of abuse.
Customer:
Well, i know that.
Ask Eleanor :
He needs to find a psychotherapist to help him with his own abuse. This psychotherapy will take time, months, even years, but he can heal. You may go to http://www.ccpa-accp.ca/en/findcounsellor/?nm=--Name--&loc=&lang=&spec=psychotherapy&postal=--Postal+Code--&distance=50&sub.x=35&sub.y=14 to search for psychotherapists where you live in Canada. You will have to be firm and confront him. You may even have to tell him that unless he enters therapy, he will have to leave the house.
Ask Eleanor :
You cannot put your daughter at futher risk. If his behavior stops at this, she is unlikely to have emotional scars.
Customer:
Okay, thank you for the advice. So it sounds to you like a really bizarre thing for him to have done, then? I am just confused and can't tell if there is any possible explanation . . . other than abusive, inappropriate touching.
Ask Eleanor :
There is no other explanation, it was sexual abuse. I would also not leave him alone with your daughter until he enters therapy. You are very welcome. Any further questions for me?
Customer:
No, I guess that's essentially it. I needed someone to tell me if I was just . . . I don't know. It's hard to believe what's in front of your eyes in a case like this. I appreciate your help.
Ask Eleanor, Psychotherapist
Category: Mental Health
Satisfied Customers: 1,517
Experience: Marriage & Family Therapist/Prof. Counselor for 20 years
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