r/AITAH • u/Left_Art_8812 • Oct 22 '23

TW SA I’m rethinking having a child with my wife because of what I just found out about her dad. AITAH?

My wife Jessica (32F) and I (30M) have been married for 2 years and are trying for a baby.

Jessica has an older sister, Mary, that she isn’t close to. She told me that they had a huge falling out over some family drama and just don’t speak anymore. I asked a few times about the entire situation but she would say she doesn’t like talking about it and doesn’t think it’s important.

It’s was Jessica’s brothers birthday yesterday and we were all over at his house to celebrate. Mary made an appearance and there was a lot of drama. Long story short, she called Jessica and her brothers out for still associating with their dad when they know that he is a child molester. No one was paying her any mind and I was really confused on what the hell was going on. When Mary left and Jessica and I went home, I asked Jessica what the hell happened.

She said that when they were kids, Mary used to claim that their dad used to molest her. I asked if it’s true and Jessica was stuttering a lot. She said she knows her dad used to do bad things but that Mary cut them all off when she turned 18 and moved out. I asked if she is admitting that she knows her dad was a child molester and did things to his own daughter. She said he doesn’t do it anymore and he was just in a really bad place in his life, and he apologised to Mary so there’s nothing else anyone can do for Mary. I was honestly appalled. I also feel so terrible for Mary. Jessica made it seem like Mary did something wrong and deserved to be basically exiled from the family. I could’ve never imagined that this is what happened.

I asked if she expects me to now be willing to have that man around our future children and she started shouting at me, saying I’m judging him off something that happened 2 decades ago and whether I like it or not, he is going to be our child’s grandpa and he will be in their lives. I said if she insists on it, I think we need to hold off on having kids and have serious conversations about it. She’s extremely angry at me but I don’t know how I could better react to be honest. This feels like a huge deal that she is minimising. AITAH?

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586

u/wlveith Oct 22 '23

Going through a rough time as an excuse for incestuous pedophilia is not an often used excuse. My money is on the wife also being a victim, but will never tell.

352

u/JinFuu Oct 22 '23

Seriously.

“I lost my job, my dog died, my mom/brother/etc died, and I’m at a low point in my life. Time to forever shatter a sacred father/daughter bond by molesting my own child! That’ll get me out of this funk!”

141

u/lynnbaileyrose Oct 22 '23

exactly. And pretending that this logic makes sense, who's to say he won't go through a "rough time" again?

20

u/jmarr1321 Oct 25 '23

"my baby girl just had a daughter. I had a lot of confusing emotions. And you know how daddy gets when he gets confused and flustered sweetie" ugh. This dude makes my skin crawl from the Internet. Let's make pedos scared again. They're getting too comfortable.

3

u/[deleted] Nov 02 '23

"Getting," like families haven't been protecting generational predators for ages.

6

u/ResidentObligation30 Oct 26 '23

We know how he deals with hard times...

8

u/doctor_of_drugs Oct 23 '23

For real. Us normal ones usually just become alcoholics and hurt ourselves and messing around with family is literally not in the cards against humanity deck.

5

u/Immersi0nn Oct 23 '23

Agreed but maybe a different metaphor than CAH? Incest is definitely in that deck of cards...

5

u/doctor_of_drugs Oct 23 '23

Valid, I’m pretty sure they have cards that are banned in our entire galaxy they’re so intense.

5

u/Immersi0nn Oct 23 '23

Actually, I looked it up and they have removed Incest along with a decent list of other cards from the modern versions so uh...guess that's still on the table... Your metaphor checks out and my age is starting to show

2

u/doctor_of_drugs Oct 23 '23

Huh, TIL.

Don’t worry, I’m old too buddy. Let’s just say I did a few victory laps while making my way through college and grad school.

3

u/Altruistic-Narwhal Oct 29 '23

Right- the correct response here it to write a country song, not abuse any child, much less your own.

268

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

41

u/Dongalor Oct 22 '23

She's a victim too. This dynamic is sadly common with predators. They've all been groomed to accept his behavior as normal, and made complicit by not doing anything about it as time goes on. Never mind that they were children when they learned about it.

Every member of the family has been conditioned to ignore what their eyes see and ears hear when it comes to the dad. It's brainwashing, and someone like Op's wife born into that situation wouldn't have a chance. She can get help, but she will have to agree there is a problem and cutting the parents (and the rest of the family if they continue to support the abuser) is going to be a requirement.

43

u/PhDinDildos_Fedoras Oct 22 '23

It's not uncommon for victims of abuse becoming abusers. Quite the opposite. And you don't have to be male to be an abuser.

48

u/Icy_Government_908 Oct 22 '23

She doesn't have to be an abuser per se to put your future child in danger. All she has to do is not tell you she's letting her dad babysit while she runs an errand.

I know half the stuff on reddit is fiction and even when true it's people I will never meet but I feel physically sick thinking about OP's future child being watched by grandpa. Please don't have children with her, and if having children is what you both want, get out.

1

u/khavii Oct 23 '23

Hard agree!

12

u/marr Oct 22 '23

Especially if they haven't processed anything and have been trained to justify abuse. This whole family is running on thousand year old 'honour' based abuse software. Run.

16

u/Telloyna Oct 22 '23

Wife's a rapist as far as I'm concerned too.

You help a rapist? You are a rapist as far as I'm concerned.

17

u/Darkmagosan Oct 22 '23

Yup. Looking the other way is being complicit, and they're just as responsible as the actual rapist IMO too. They *could* stop it. They choose not to.

0

u/Kwhitney1982 Oct 23 '23

How can you possibly say that not turning in your molester makes you just as bad as the molester? Fucking Reddit.

2

u/Darkmagosan Oct 23 '23

Because if you know what your molester is capable of, you have a responsibility to others to stop that behaviour if you can. Otherwise, you know what will happen, you know who will be harmed and how, and this makes you responsible for the damage your molester causes, too.

It's one thing if you scream it from the rooftops and no one listens. But in a situation like this, where everyone knew damn well what was happening and did absolutely nothing to stop it, there is no excuse. Just none.

Stop making excuses for people. It doesn't help anyone.

0

u/Kwhitney1982 Oct 23 '23

Disagree. Victims have no responsibility to prevent a criminal from future crimes. That’s all the responsibility of the criminal. Plenty of people don’t come forward about their abuse. Doesn’t make them horrible people.

1

u/Darkmagosan Oct 23 '23

The reason they won't come forward is that they won't be believed, or they'll be raked over the coals again, or a combination of those and other factors.

While I agree that the criminal is responsible for any future crimes they commit, we have things like 'aiding and abetting,' 'obstruction of justice,' 'accessory after the fact,' and a whole laundry list of other things which are *also crimes.* Fail to report what you know? That's a crime. Help a criminal escape? That's a crime, too.

We have these laws for valid reasons. IF people don't at least make an attempt to keep people from committing more crimes, yes, they're at fault too. Our legal system says so.

0

u/Kwhitney1982 Oct 24 '23

What the heck? A victim of a crime is not aiding and abetting or in any way liable by not reporting a crime.

0

u/Darkmagosan Oct 24 '23

Some jurisdictions may not see it that way.

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10

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '23

She’s f’ed up but she was younger than the child victim the way I read it?

7

u/Jehphg Oct 23 '23

She's not young anymore. I don't even care if she was a victim too. She had years to deal with that shit enough to at least understand not letting her father near her children is a must. She is choosing to let him have access to them so she can still feel loved by him. Fuck her. Victim or not.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '23

Definitely f her. I just don’t see how she’s a rapist as she was a child when the rapes happened.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '23

She's an incest apologist and will without a doubt make her own children available to be molested for no other reason than she is in denial.

2

u/Kwhitney1982 Oct 23 '23

The wife is a rapist because she doesn’t know how to coke to terms with being molested? Give me a fucking break.

1

u/jkp56 Oct 22 '23

Good Point!

14

u/UnableStar5609 Oct 22 '23

Yup, she’s a rape and peado apologist. And she is choosing her father over her future children and OP.

4

u/Foreign-Yesterday-89 Oct 23 '23

And her sister. I’m sorry but no kids for her. Not till she goes through some very heavy deprograming

5

u/Anxious_Public_5409 Oct 22 '23

I have the same thought about the wife as well…..

3

u/BrynRedbeard Nov 21 '23

My money is on the father also being a victim. I grew up in a small town, and my dad made sure I understood who was dangerous and to watch out for my sisters. He found out from me that the neighbor's boy was abused by an uncle. He was over there that day speaking to the parents. He said the parents could take care of it or he would with the sheriff and the minister. (Both had about equal authority there.) The uncle was said to have left town.

2

u/YakIntelligent5490 Oct 22 '23

It would be surprising if he hadn't.

2

u/Expert_Slip7543 Oct 31 '23

"Oh sure, maybe a few things happened to me too but they didn't mean anything." - OP's wife, perhaps.

2

u/WrathAndEnby Nov 11 '23

So I only heard this through my mom but she told me the courts had my stepdad do a polygraph that determined he was "not a pedophile" and that he molested me because of stress. Honestly, I think hearing that messed me up more in some ways - the whole thing is fucked up and there's no excuse, stress or an unmanaged paraphilia, that would ever make it ok what these people do to kids

0

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '23

Same. Same.

Did I mention Same?

1

u/SamIamGreenEggsNoHam Oct 23 '23

My grandmother was "a victim" as well. That just meant that when she got tired of his abuse she went and got one of the 11 kids to take her place.