Wow, you have come a long way. You are a very wise person, and have taken the silver lining from every cloud - best of luck to you & your family in the future!:-)

Thanks dogdog! I hope that my own experience as a child of divorced parents and SD will allow me to make wiser choices than my parents did with me and my sister for DS. I do not want my relationship with DS to become what it is with my mother today.

Oh, Almost, I am SO sorry, and I didnt mean to dredge up painful memories for you, truly....Was wondering if you had been programmed to hate your dad and if it was still possible for your mom to control this after you were an adult..Conversation last night between DH and myself he feels BM is controlling 18 year old someway..He hasnt visited in 3 weeks, right around the same time he called and asked for his tax rebate check..DH said didnt get one, then our accountant called to say kid called his office(and he did say a woman was in the backround coaching questions)and acct of course couldnt give a kid OUR financial info, so I guess Kid and BM think we re holding something back(which didnt belong to either of them legally anyway)...So I wondered if maybe she was coaching him to stop visiting...Thats why I wanted to know, again sorry if I made you revist a place you didnt want to go and cause you pain..Thank you Dotz

It is okay. It is easier to talk about it now and with people that are trying to do good things for their own children and sk. I would say that BM still has a hold of SS. I eventually grew out of it around that age but I played one parent against the other to get what I wanted and ultimately alienated my mother by choosing my father to get what I wanted. I think that my dad gave in to me because I had not asked for anything from him. It took me a long time to see how my mom controlled me and probably until I split from ex and was a single parent myself before I realized the full extent of the games she used to play. I probably would have put up with anything from ex to keep my family together to not have to put DS through what I have gone through with separate families but all I can do is make due with what I have been given and realize that I am better off than SM is with all that she puts up with from ex. But back to your SS, I do believe that as he gets older, married, kids, he will have to become more responsible and realize that he does not want BM controlling his life anymore and maybe will be able to sit back and see the whole picture. And, unfortunately, maybe not. I hope that for his own sake that he can because I do believe he is missing out by alienating his father and SM.

wow almoststepmom, you went trhough a lot. you sound very wise. and you make a lot of wise decisions for yourself and DS.

not to make you feel bad but i wonder if you ever thought of telling someone (like authorities) about being molested. i know too much time passed and probably nothing could be done but i hate knowing that something like this goes unpunished.

Am I missing something here? Isn't it a very GOOD thing that the OP stopped going to visit her father, since that meant that the stepbrother didn't have the opportunity to molest her?

TOS if her mom (no offense almost) had not been a bitter b&(*ch maybe she could have gone to her mom at the time and told her what was going on instead she had to keep it bottled up.

She didn't have a decent relationship with her mom and result she couldn't go to any adult to get help so she shut down and dealt with it on her own.

Had her mom not been so bitter maybe she could have done something about the SB so yes it was a good thing she didn't go visit dad anymore but I'll bet she dealt with the guilt of seeing her sister go there after she didn't not knowing if the SB was doing the same things to her sister... had she had a good relationship with her mom (her mom's doing) maybe she could have protected herself and her sister and anyone else who the SB could prey on. Instead she had to bottle it up and not say anything for fear mom wouldn't be any help just more bitter.

I think that both parents pretty much failed OP. It is so sad and I think that is why she is working hard to not fail her own son the same way, she also sees that her X fails his son in so many ways (maybe not as bad as her father did) and she is trying to protect him (nobody pritected her).

OP, I am sorry for your parents issues. I would have said I am sorry for your childhood, but it seems like you barely had one. I can see you are doing the right thing by your DS, even with a controlling wierd SM.

Pseudo, calling a mom a "b*tch" for being bitter about a spouse who beat her up?

I have not thought about going to the authorities because I will not sacrifice the one decent relationship with a parent I have because of my loser of a SB. I think that at the end of the day that my SB is a miserable person who drinks constantly just to get through life. I have learned to be able to attend family functions with him there but I keep at a distance. He tries to call me to wish me happy birthday and things like that but I am not at all receptive. I do not know if that is his way of trying to make up for what he did to me or what but he will never be able to right what he did to me in my eyes. However I will still continue to be the peacemaker and refuse to tear my family apart this many years later. Besides, I have found that my father is very loyal to my SM and her children (she has four--3 SS and 1 SB) and I honestly do not know what kind of response I would get from him and that scares me. I do love my SM also and I value the relationship I have with her. I did not think at the time that SB would turn to my sister. I guess I was too young and naive to understand what was truly going on. I honestly had no idea what sex was and it took me a few years to put all the pieces together. My mother's way of dealing with things is to ignore them. Completely! If she doesn't discuss them, they did not happen and will not happen which is why I guess she has never discussed what she found out in my diary or anything else that has happened through the years for that matter. I had a few issues at my dad's house that I was not believed over the youngest SS (who still to this day lies and manipulates) so I was afraid that even if I did tell that I would not be believed over my other step-siblings. I guess after I quit going, my dad and SM caught my SB kissing my sister. They blamed my sister, explaining to her why it was wrong as if she was the one that was pursuing him. I did not know this until many years later either and my sister does not believe that anything was even said to my SB--I guess he was old enough to know better??? The youngest SS has also made accusations about her own brother to my sister once when they were discussing him years ago--I do not know what to believe from my SS because she is such a manipulator and has to turn every incident into something about her but if it is the truth then I feel for her as much as I do for all of us that were subjected to my SB. It amazes me that my dad and SM could be and still are so blind to SB. My dad is a little tired of constantly bailing out SB every time he quits a job and needs money or whatever he has going on that he needs which is constantly. SB has a daughter that he had custody of that for years. I was freaked out that maybe he was doing things to her that he was to all of us and that is when I went to counseling. I am still not sure why but whenever I used to press the way that my SB was raising his daughter to my dad and SM they continually defended him--like leaving an 8 year old little girl at home alone from the time she gets out of school until 10 pm while SB is at the bar is fine. I realized that I was not going to be able to make them believe what SB is capable of and has done because they saw him as the great father that was doing the best that he could at saving her from this awful BM. Too bad that both of her parents suck!!! My oldest SS tried to get the neice but SB would not ask BM to let her go out of state in fear that BM would demand her back if SB did not want her. It was a no win situation for my neice. So I used to try to go get her as much as possible and take her on vacations with me and take her shopping. She wanted a mother in her life and didn't have one and barely had the father that she lived with but she eventually became to busy with friends to have time for me. My SM believed that the alternative of living with BM was worse and sometimes I was not so sure. My neice did choose to live with her BM for awhile because she was craving her mother in her life but realized what life was like with her and is now living with SM ex (father of SB). And at 16 now, she runs wild. Things have been bad with her and she has done some things that truly make me wonder if SB did things to her but she has always led such a wild life between SB and her BM that I have no idea where some of the things she has done have come from. I guess that if I can protect DS from a life like I have had then I will have learned something from my own experiences.

KKNY, OP s Mother is the controlling one...SM is the non judgemental one she calls if she needs to talk....

I almost forgot. No offense taken for the B comment about my mother. She totally defines that comment--believe me I know. I later found out that (and like I said that I do not condone a man hitting a woman) but the beating comment that my mother gave me in the car were not totally accurate. Yes, my father slapped her and hit her hard enough to give her a black eye but I do believe when she said that he beat her that it was a little exaggerated. I believe that her statement in the car that day was for my benefit and to make me see my father as this monster and have this picture of my dad like he was getting her down and beating the tar out of her. Like I said, I know that what my father did was wrong but I still feel that it is something that she needs to let go and should not have put me through that for just enjoying my time at my father's the night before. I still have some resentment toward my father for not fighting harder to keep me and my sister in his life and he seemed to let us go so easily but I can see why he would not want to fight just like I do now. I guess that in a way that I get the peacemaker in my honestly but I would never let DS go without a fight and that is where the resentment comes into play. But it is what it is and I am glad that now that I can have a relationship with him.

Dotz--I believe the crazy SM kkny is referring to is the one that my ex is married to now. She is A LOT like my mother. Very controlling, b****y women!

Gotcha...

yes, i was referring to her Xs wife

I think that the less the OP saw of her father, the better - he beat her mother (and yes, giving her a black eye is beating), blamed her little sister for the SB molesting her, favors his current wife's children over his own, etc.

I think the mother did the right thing by telling the OP about the beating.

There are times when being a peacemaker backfires.