so. lets just get this right out there. my SO hates my kid. i mean hate as in does not like my kid, turns into a different, very unhappy, dark, angry person when my kid is around...even when my kid mentioned. yes that kind of hate.
and why does my SO hate my kid so? because my kid has been known to repeatedly wake up in the middle of the night and lay on top of us, rub against us, touch us inappropriately beneath our clothes. my kid has done this much more to my SO than me. weve both knocked him off of us, in a half sleep panic. my SO has told me that ive stopped SO mid swing before. SO said they were half asleep and just fighting back. i do believe this. we're both restless, violent sleepers, especially when touched or having bad dreams.
both my SO and i are survivors of various sexual inappropriateness. SA, rape, and, for my SO most recently, was kidnapped, tortured and raped repeatedly last year. my SO is still learning how to live with what happened. and now this. my SO views my young child (who is between the ages of 2-5) as a perpetraitor, the enemy.
there was a time recently when my kid accused their father of sexually abusing them. after all the paperwork and damage was done ive come to find out that it was not true. yes i am sure. my SO and i thought for a while that the alleged SA was the root of this, and now we're both freaking out.
i can put myself on the back burner for now, and i know what steps i need to take to help my kid. what i need to deal with is this. my SO HATES my kid. we are both pretty sure this will never change. we are in love, though. the kind of love you fight for and dont want to let go of. we are trying very hard to find a way to make this work:
-i love my kid. and would not think of giving kid up at this point (when i say "at this point" i mean if this behavior continues well into the age where my kid definitely knows what they're doing.)
-im caught inbetween. i'm from the school of "always side with the victim"...but it's my kid, too!
-my SO hates my kid. wishes i was childless at this point.
-my kid and i are a package deal.
to use an ani quote for a moment: we both kept looking at the triangle, instead of what it's pointing to.
i KNOW the obvious choice: break up. i don't need to hear it again. don't say group counceling. my SO sees a therapist and they are stumped, beacuse breaking up just isn't an option. my SO and i have talked this problem into the ground, and we are stumped, as well. i don't need sympathy or anything like that. i need other choices.
if this problem is a triangle, then there are three points. we all know one. i need to figure out the others.
I understand that you don't want to break up. I know how that feels, but I really think you and your SO should split up. I have been in a similar situation, and trust me, you don't want to do this to your SO or your kid. It doesn't have to be permanent. You can stop living together and still see each other. Go on dates without the kid, keep your relationship going, but separate from the kid. Are you co-sleeping? Maybe it is a good idea to stop doing that. If not (and even if you are) your kid needs to learn how to respect boundaries. Set clear boundaries in every aspect of his/her life and clear consequences. (if you touch me like this you will spend time alone in your room). Get the kid therapy. I know it is a scary thing to do, but this is a serious problem that needs to be taken care of before it gets even more out of hand. I know your kid is very young, but if you have been clear with them that the behavior is not ok, they should be able to understand respecting another person's body. They should be able to stop. If they can not stop, I would say the child is emotionally disturbed (whether or not it is from abuse) and needs immediate help. Take time from your SO to work with your child. It does not mean you have to break up. Spend one on one time with your child working on them, and go on dates alone with your SO. Talk to your child about their feelings, what makes them angry, scared, sad, happy. Best of luck to you, mama. I hope you are able to work through this with your child and SO.
Is your child in counseling? That might help find the root of the problem..Has your child caught you and SO in a sexual act together? Your child might not understand that it is private.
I don't have any real advice. I'm sorry your dealing with this.
that is such a hard situation. i dont even know what to say..."HATE" is a strong word, and yet you used it several times to describe the way SO feels about your kid...no kid deserves to be hated , no matter what the reason. I know thats obvious, and I know you love your child so i'm sorry if that sounded preachy. i would be worried about the safety of your child...would SO ever hurt him? please keep us updated mama.
first of all, I just wanted to say I'm sorry you have to deal with this. I just wanted to throw a couple of things out there:
-get your kid in therapy ASAP, if he's not already. what I am reading from your post is that your kid is exhibiting inappropriate sexual behavior at an extremely young age, and you thought he had been abused by his father.
working from that standpoint, I'm having a few ideas.
one. he WAS sexually assaulted. by someone if not the father. these behaviors don't suddenly manifest. normal sexual curiosity is ok. like "whoa! i've got a penis! I'm gonna grab it! whoa! boobs feel nice to rest my head on!" but really inappropriate behavior is generally shown to a child, they have learned by example, and are now reacting to that example. please consider this option, as I really am worried this was the cause of it. I was sexually assaulted in an extremely violent way when i was a child near that age- 6. my exhibiting those types of behaviors and having other behavioral symptoms of assault was the way my mother figured out what had happened, since I did not tell her as I thought I would be killed.
two. not knowing how far you went in the court procedure, could kid have picked any of this up from testimony/psychologist suggestion? they get pretty detailed in there. especially if the kid is "not sure", the questions they ask can be leading and descriptory.
I would say it was a good idea that an earlier poster had: that somebody is isolated when sleeping: be it SO or your kid, though I would not do it in such a manner that kid feels abandoned or his behavior is so wrong that he is "bad" enough to be made to sleep alone. i am worried about the fact that you both react violently in your sleep, so this is for safety of all concerned, also.
what other behavioral symptoms is kid exhibiting? i find it hard to believe this is coming on its own. any other noticeable changes in behavior?
how does SO treat kid during other interactions?
and lastly, how are YOU feeling about this? I saw a lot of SO's feelings in there, more so than yours; and if you were also a victim of sexual abuse, I would imagine your feelings would be pretty strong as well.
do you consider your relationship healthy? there are no signs of control or abuse between you two?
good luck and hugs.
if you need ANYTHING, please please PM me. i'll give you my phone number, email, anything you need.
as well as being a survivor, I'm also an advocate for victims of sexual assault. if you need any help, I will do anything I can for you.
I definatley think your child needs to go to counseling. Even if s/he is too young to talk, an experience child therapist CAN help.
I think getting your kid in therapy very soon is a good idea. I agree with whoever said that that even if your BD didn't sexually assault him it seems clear your kid was either sexually assaulted or was somehow exposed to a sexual situation at some point. maybe they came across some porn or saw someone having sex or maybe another kid & them "played doctor".
im caught inbetween. i'm from the school of "always side with the victim"...but it's my kid, too!
It sounds like you're saying your SO is the victim here which is true in way but your kid is a victim too, if not of some kind of sexual assualt, there is hate towards him from your SO which is not healthy for your child could be bordering on emotional abuse. Even if it's subtle & your SO is staying away from your kid & ignoring him when he's around, kids pick up on that & he's going to feel really unloved & unwanted in his own home. Is it possible to live separetely & date for awhile like MamaButterfly suggested? They could stay away from eachother while your SO heals & then slowly build their relationship again.
In the meantime I'd get some books on sexual abuse prevention & see if it opens a dialog with your kid that will lead to him telling you where all this behavior is coming from.
((hugs)) this sounds like such a stressful situation for you all. I hope things get easier soon.
at the risk of you getting defensive I have to ask, is it possible your SO exposed your kid to something or did something inappropriate with your kid?
I think that theriverpiedra has given some really good advice. It's important that you all feel safe and comfortable, and I don't think that your child's comfort and safety can be sacrificed for a partner (I'm sorry to say). Counselling seems like a good idea. I think it was MamaButterfly who mentioned separating yourselves for a bit. I think that might be best. I think that your partner needs to stop experiencing the cause of his resentment toward your child before he can start to feel positively towards him.
You need to not be sharing a bed. In this situation, it is unhealthy for all of you. Hopefully you can find a good way to transition him into his own bed. I would recommend talking as a primary means of helping him figure this out. Tell him how things are going to happen, and then follow through. Maybe try a very consistent bedtime routine.
Maybe go to the library too, and find some kid-friendly books about privacy and boundries and the like. They could be useful, and the more ways you can try to explain this to him, the better. Just try to make sure your child isn't subject to feeling guilty though, you all need to be comfortable in getting past this, and I don't think it would help for you child to feel that he's doing something really 'bad' or the like, kwim?
Talk to your partner, too. Your kid isn't trying to hurt him, and it's important that your partner recognizes this, because I don't think it will help the situation if a large part of his (your child's) life is uncomortable being supportive, or understanding.
It must be terribly hard to be triggered and to feel so uncomfortable as a result of your child's tendancies. I hope you guys can all feel safe and comfortable soon. Good luck.
last night was a really dark night for me, and i felt the need to come, anonymous, because i didn't know how to talk about it, without that veil.
today is already better.
THANK YOU so much for all your input, mamas. i was afraid that when i put this out there, it would be looked at but go unanswered. so thank you again.
mamabutterfly- what you said about seperating, or at least living seperately. after i read that, i spoke to gf and we agreed that is what's best. so, now looking for seperate places. living seperately indefinitely- until weeble has been in therapy for a while. i can't stand therapy, personally, but it looks like we'll all be going. gf alone, me alone, weeble alone, and then group. now to find a good sliding scale..
you know, when it happens to you and you look back, you swear up and down that you'll never handle it the way your parents did. and that's just what i've been doing....granted, they looked the other way and did nothing but i'm NOT doing much about it except crying and making half-assed attempts to help kid. this is stopping, like, NOW. fuck that shit.
julesmama- i'm sure that gf would never intentionally hurt weeble. i say intentionally becayse of what i mentioned about us both being violent sleepers- hell, we've even hurt eachother. truth be told, all three of us are pretty violent sleepers.
and NO, i haven't co-slept with weeble since before gf and i got together. we all share a room, so it's hard to be competely certain weeble never woke up and saw us, but weeble is a loud snorer and we never even attempted anything until we heard some real snoring going on.
theriverpiedra-other behaviorial symptoms...i wouldn't really know how to recognize, really. weeble hasn't began acting introverted, angry, sad....anything that i would peg as strange, or, more accurately, nothing i or gf could really describe here. hopefully therapy will help put words inot how i think kid is a little different.
one thing that has bothered me a LOT is sometimes when we cuddle, gf and weeble used to cuddle, weeble will tell me, straight out of the blue that i can touch his privates if i want.
gf goes back and forth with weeble. gf is always careful to be civil and distant but kind to weeble, because she knows how anything else could affect him. sometimes, still, she tries to befriend him. it's on and off, and weeble doesn't seem to mind (although, he hasn't said one way or another, so who knows), but we live with my family for now so he has other people to distract from the lacking relationship between her.
i'm really not feeling about this right now. keeping a lid on it for now. i think if i really let myself think about it, i would crumble. so therapy is going to be fun for me! lol
and yes, my relationship with gf is healthy. no abuse, and everyone has little harmless control issues but we rebel against eachothers perfectly. heh. thank you so much for putting yourself out there, friend.
astrogirl-
i had really never thought of it that way..well, i mean i thought of my kid being the vitim if there was SA, but in terms of hate....not really
while gf and weeble are ALWAYS supervised, either by me or unknowingly by my family (i haven't shared any of this with them yet. it'll bring up too much anger about my expereinces and won't be beneficial because, even still when we thought weeble was being abused they kind of swept it under the rug), i'm sure there has to be some vibes of discomfort and disgust from gf. i'll try to be a lot more senstive to that.
and as for her possibly sexually abusing weeble...no. i really don't think so. if i had even gotten that feeling at all, we would've ended right there. i could go into her long history, but it is just that- long. i'll just say that i am sure. and beyond that, i don't know when it would've happened. but my mind is spinning with someone else, though....FUCK FUCK FUCK.
revolt- at this point, talking about this situation like that with gf, showing any compassion for weeble, results in a blow up. it's near impossible. as i said she's is in therapy, has been for a long time. i know and trust her therapist to work through her's anger and then approach that. at this point i know i just need to let her come to me on that.
i don't think i missed anything...if i did, i'll just post again. again, and i can't say this enough, THANK YOU mamas, each and every one of you, for helping me work this out. for answering at all for i didn't feel alone and freak-like. it feels a lot less hopeless now. and i'll definitely keep you all updated on everyones progress. :)
I'm glad everyones advice was helpful & you feel like you have a starting point of where to go from here. I'm glad you don't get the feeling that your girlfriend is the one who did something inappropriate with your kid. I just figured I'd throw the question out there because sometimes you don't even think to question whether it was certain people & then when their name comes in to question it suddenly makes sence kwim. Hopefully you can get an answer soon as to whether the person that you just thought of did anything. Maybe ask your therapist or call a hotline to find out the best way to approach it with weeble & the person in question. good luck with everyone's healing.
I'm glad that you're feeling better about this today and I hope things begin to get better.
I just wanted to apologize for referring to your SO as 'him' I'm not sure where in the thread I got the idea, and it was wrong of me to assume.
Sounds like you guys are taking some progressive steps to get through this; good luck :)
I'm really glad to hear that you are taking a strong stance towardsthe situation witth your son now. I've never heard of a kid acting like that without having experienced abuse. I can only imagine how terrifying it would be to confront that, but I think you are making the right choices.
I'm also glad you and your girlfriend are going to be living seperately. But I have another question: did your boy exhibit these behaviors when you guys were sleeping together, before your SO moved in?
God,mama, this must be so rough for all of you. You are going to do the best thing forr your son by getting to the bottom of it. Do NOT sweep it under the rug. I hope you can find a therapist you can trust! Good luck.
Hate is such a strong emotion, I could never be with someone who felt that way about my child.
If you kid is between 2-5, he is still basically a baby/toddler. I highly doubt he has the capability to plan those type's of things, and has to have been exposed to some sort of sexual behavior to even think about things like that.
I think counseling would be beneficial to everyone involved in this situation.
I agree hate is a strong word, and yet, I don't feel like her partner's hate is just plain hatred, in the normal sense.
When you take all the factors into consideration, I think her gf's feelings make a lot of sense. I don't think, from what I gather, that she just hates this child. Her hatred is centered on a very specific and very upsetting behavior from the child. She can't control her feelings about it anymore than the child can control the way he is acting out, for whatever reason.
In the first post, those were some serious issues brought up. The fact that this woman was kidnapped, raped, and tortured last year is just horrible, and she isn't even done dealing with the trauma from that (understandably). That is some serious shit to get over. Then, to have a male, even a child, to touch her under her clothes at night while she is sleeping, in an extremely vulnerable state? She can't connect or empathize with the child, because he is doing the same things to her that horrible horrible people did to her. This is something that even someone who has never had to deal with sexual assault before would have a hard time being okay with. Add in her past history, and of course she is feeling anger towards this child, even hatred. It is not a hatred born out of anything in HIM, really, it is a hatred born out of her own fears and trauma. It is something she never would have felt, never would have connected with this child, if it wasn't for this behavior (slipping into the bed with her while she is sleeping, and touching her private areas under her clothes).
I seriously think that with therapy all three of you could heal. I think the first and most important thing is to defuse this situation, make everyone safe, which means that living separately would be in everyone's best interest for now. I hate therapy too so I know how that is, but I honestly think this situation is so complex, and really so out of your control, that you need someone who is objective to the situation to help you three unravel these threads.
But I don't think all hope is lost. I think your gf's apparent hatred for your child is actually connected very deeply with her past experiences, not you and your child. It is not your child that is turning her into a "very unhappy, dark, angry person," it is his behavior that triggers her unresolved emotions. But if she is willing to work with you, to separate the child from the behavior, and if all three of you are willing to work with a therapist, then I really do think you can all move forward, together.
i'm glad you're feeling better/more hopeful now!
"one thing that has bothered me a LOT is sometimes when we cuddle, gf and weeble used to cuddle, weeble will tell me, straight out of the blue that i can touch his privates if i want."
whoa.
something's definitely going on there.
this is a rough situation all around.
I'm actually going to PM you some stuff later tonight/early tomorrow morning. I have to run right now, but I have some information you might want to look at. I'm a great one for getting things done at 3 am, too.
and you're welcome. like I said, anytime, anything I can do to help.
hey. this is tough. thank you for trusting us enough to talk about something that's so emotional and difficult.
I've had conflicts between my SO (hub) and my child. These are mostly about discipline I don't like him yelling at my son or punishing him or telling him he can't do something that I think it's okay for him to be doing. These things, though, come from some differences about how strict we feel parents should be, and I've never had the feeling that my SO felt hated my son. Even so, it's so hard to feel torn, especially when emotions are running high. It requires a lot of serious introspection and weighing the costs of making changes.
It really sounds like your SO has a lot of healing left to do. I understand how your child's actions could trigger feelings of being abused and hurt. But like other folks have said, a pre-schooler isn't capable of abusing an adult. Sure, behaviors have to be dealt with. Children need to learn boundaries, but your son isn't an abuser. He's not even an potential abuser. He's a child who needs love and boundaries.
I'm glad to hear that you and your SO won't be living together for now. That situation sounds just too complicated and hurtful for a child. It's hard to miss someone you care about, but your baby needs his mom. Growing up in a household where he's made to feel like the scapegoat could cause some serious problems later on.