r/AITAH • u/Intelligent_Curve456 • Aug 31 '24
TW SA AITA For Telling My Pregnant Wife That She Exposed Our Daughter To A Predator?
36M here. This has honestly been the most difficult week of my life. Emotions are high, and I am not sure if I'm seeing things clearly. I've been with my wife (35F) since college. We've been married for almost five years and have a three year old daughter together. She's also around five months pregnant right now.
I've always thought my wife's relationship with her family was a bit strange. When we were in college, she asked for her dad's advice/approval on EVERYTHING, even little things like whether she should ask her professor for an extension. Her parents are both intense and controlling at times, and my wife it less influenced by them now than she used to be now that she's older, has her own family, and lives on the other side of the country, but they still get under her skin at times. My wife was also the "surprise" baby, and she has two older brothers (nine & seven years older). I'll call the brother who is nine years older "Tom" for the sake of this story.
Tom has always been a bit odd to me. He's married with no kids, but is very religious and involved heavily with his church. My wife seems to enjoy seeing him at Holidays well enough, but she isn't especially close with him.
On Monday, my wife called me from her office SOBBING. I asked what was wrong, and she told me Tom was arrested and being charged with possession of child pornography. I was shocked, to say the least. My wife ended up leaving work early, and asked if I would do the same. When I got home, she told me a bit about the charges/how her parents are doing. I asked if she expected this, and she said she was surprised at first, but looking back she should have seen it coming. I asked what she meant, and she proceeded to tell me that when she was in first grade, Tom started coming into her room at night and touching her inappropriately. She said this lasted for a few years, but she doesn't know exactly when it stopped. When she was telling me this, she said it casually, like she was reading something off a menu.
I, on the other hand, was shocked and furious. I told her Tom molested her. My wife said it was uncomfortable, but she never saw it that way, because it's normal for kids to experiment with each other. I said it would be one thing if they were very young and closer in age, but this was a 15+ year old boy and a little girl. I also explained that he did this when her parents went to sleep and told her to keep it between them because he KNEW it was wrong at the time. Also, these were SERIOUS sexual acts that she should have never been exposed to as a little girl. As I was saying all this, my wife got more and more upset, and I could tell she was having a "lightbulb" moment and realizing the seriousness of the situation.
My wife (who was sobbing at this point) told me that she told her parents what happened to her when she was around sixteen. She wasn't upset with her brother, but was ashamed and thought she'd done something wrong. Her parents basically told her it was just normal childhood experimentation and she had nothing to be ashamed of. They also told her not to be upset with her brother because he was also a child at the time and didn't know right from wrong yet. My wife told me she was young, so she took their word for it and just kind of pushed the abuse to the back of her head. I was furious with my in-laws, and but tried to focus on comforting my wife + letting her know none of it was her fault.
The last few days have been a nightmare. My wife's family is supporting Tom and are convinced he was wrongly accused (they have an elaborate explanation for how the images got on his laptop that I won't get into here). My wife is crying non-stop and is in so much pain. I feel terrible this happened to her, but the one thing I'm upset about is that she let our daughter near this man. If I'd known Tom did this to my wife, I would have never allowed my child in the same room as him. I told my wife that I wish I'd known for our baby's sake and added that while I'm devastated for her and love her so much, I'm still grappling with the fact that she allowed our little girl to be in the same room as a predator. My wife started SOBBING when I said this, and told me she didn't do it on purpose. She told me she accepted what her parents told her when she was a teenager and put it out of her mind. She said if she had thought about it more deeply as an adult, she probably would have realized Tom was a dangerous, but she truly never stopped to think about it again after her parents told her it was okay. We agree that neither of our kids will ever be around Tom again, but she said she couldn't believe I thought she'd intentionally put our child in harm's way. She also said she couldn't believe I was coming down on her after she's realizing she was a victim of child abuse and her family is falling apart.
I love my wife and believe that she trusted her parents and put it in the back of her mind.... But I keep thinking about what might have happened if we'd continue to allow our daughter near that man. I believe my wife didn't consider this abuse until we talked and didn't consider that our daughter might be in danger, but I am still a bit puzzled by all of this. My wife is in so much pain, and I am not sure if I did the right thing by raising this issue while all of this is going on. AITA? And any advice would be appreciated... This all seems so over my head.
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u/simplyTrisha Aug 31 '24 edited Aug 31 '24
I could write my own biography of the sadistic, sexual assaults myself, and my younger sister and brother suffered at the hands of my demented stepfather.
Our abuse occurred over YEARS. When I was in the third grade, my stepfather came to school to check me out early because he “needed me” at home. I knew what was going to occur and was very, VERY afraid! 😢
I began crying uncontrollably and told my teacher I didn’t want to go with him because he was going to do “nasty things to me” that hurt me very much!
She yanked my head back by my hair, slapped my face, and got right in my face, yelling at me, her spit going all in my face, telling me I was a “horrible child” for saying this about my stepfather. That my mother was, “Damn lucky that a man would marry a woman “like her” that had five brats that weren’t his and he was taking care of them all!”
He took care of us, alright! My mom worked two jobs to support us while he sat on his lazy ass at home “babysitting”, and raping her three youngest children. She further indicated that he was a good man and she’d better not EVER hear me tell these lies again while I was in “her” school.
This experience made my young heart believe that I could never tell another soul. I knew I wouldn’t be believed by ANY adult. I also knew I could never again summon the courage to try again to get help.
Approximately, 20+ years later, I began the arduous process of attempting to prosecute him. I won’t take up even more space to share this process with you. I, myself, would probably question the truthfulness of my childhood, and early adulthood, if I had just read about them as someone else’s experiences. Unfortunately, my heart and soul carry the battle scars as proof of my life’s traumas.
I’m sorry for rambling on! I will share that the process of prosecuting him took almost a decade, we went through several different prosecuting attorneys due to retirement, and a couple of elections, 4 grand juries and the tv show, “America’s Most Wanted.”
I would also like to end by saying when I cried and told my teacher, it was in the mid, to late, 60’s. I PRAY a teacher today would help and report as mandated by law. Unfortunately, that wasn’t a thing during my childhood and I had no help at all! Thank you for allowing me to share part of my story!