WTF?

I am a 38-year-old married man. I am very attracted to my mother-in-law. I secretly try to touch her butt whenever it is possible. I like to lift her nightie when she’s sleeping so that I can look at her and masturbate. Two months ago I was traveling with her at night. While she was sleeping I squeezed her breasts and pressed my hand between her legs. I know she was awake because she was gulping, but she kept her eyes closed and didn’t say anything. I just want to have sex with my mother-in-law. Please advice me on how to make a move on her.
–Mother-Lover

Let’s review the facts, shall we? You secretly try to grope your mom-in-law whenever you can. You like to check out her private parts while she’s sleeping. You recently fondled while she was sleeping and despite the fact that she was “gulping”, she never once opened her eyes or said a word. Have you noticed that not once in any of these encounters has she ever been fully awake or explicitly given you her consent? Don’t you think it’s just possible that she doesn’t appreciate your tender attentions but that she’s terrified to say anything, oh clever one?

Now, I don’t discount the possibility that a son-in-law and mother-in-law could be attracted to each other—all kinds of things can go down in a joint-family living arrangement. But that does not sound like what’s going on in this letter. It sounds like Mr. Mother-Lover is molesting his mother-in-law, and that either she’s unaware of what he’s up to, or that she knows what he’s doing and feels totally violated by it. (It’s the detail about her gulping while he groped her that gave me the heebie-jeebies—like she was trying to pretend nothing was happening but couldn’t suppress her reaction.)

My advice to the letter-writer: stop this at once and move out. What you’re doing isn’t cute and it isn’t seductive. It’s abusive and wrong. You might think I’m overreacting, but I can’t help but be disgusted by your blatant disregard for another person’s boundaries. Your behavior is horrid and violent and it’s about time someone brought that to your attention.

Dealing With Sexual Abuse

I’m a 28-year-old single woman. I was sexually abused by a man my family trusted when I was 8 years old. He told me it was a game and that it was our secret. I had no friends at school so it felt good that I had a “friend” to share secrets with. It was only when I was 15 that I realized that what had happened to me was wrong. I thought I was okay and nothing was wrong with me, but I guess I was in denial. Last year I realized that I had many of the symptoms of a child abuse victim. I suffer from low self-esteem and a lack of self-confidence. I oscillate between hating sex and craving it and I don’t trust people (especially men). To this day I have not told my parents because I know they would be shattered by it and I cannot do that to them. Only two of my closest friends know. I have joined an online support group and have been working on healing. I have painfully and slowly made some progress. But there is still a long way to go.

My parents have been looking out for a groom for me for quite some time and now I’ve begun to communicate with one guy they’ve found. I’m confused about whether I should tell him about what happened. If so, then at what stage of this process do I tell him? I don’t want to share my biggest secret unless I’m completely sure that this is the guy I’m going to marry. There are moments when I wonder if I should tell him at all, but that would be unfair to him. Any advice?
–Trying To Heal

First of all, let me congratulate you on how you’ve been handling this. Childhood sexual abuse, particularly when one is a child, is one of the most traumatic violations that can happen to a person, and you’re facing the process of healing with tremendous strength and courage.

As for the issue of disclosing this abuse to your loved ones, I don’t have any easy answers for you because this just isn’t an easy situation. I think you’re absolutely right that your future spouse should know about the abuse and what you’re doing to address it, but it might not be a good idea to tell him before telling your parents. You obviously know all the players in this much better than I do, but you might be surprised by your parents’ reactions—they might not be as shattered as you anticipate, and ultimately, you shouldn’t have to face the healing process alone. Also, you might want to think long and hard about whether you’re really ready for marriage, particularly an arranged marriage.

I guess my real advice is to talk to your online support group about the best course of action. The other members of the group probably have some experience in dealing with the issue of disclosure and they can help you see all the options. I would also recommend giving the good folks at the Center for Counselling a call. CFC is a therapy and counseling organization based in Chennai, and the people there have a lot of experience in helping survivors of sexual trauma. Check out the website and see if you can get in touch with them. Good luck, and keep me updated on how everything goes.

Momma’s Boy(toy)?

I am in a very peculiar situation. I am a 37-year-old housewife and I live alone with my 17-year-old son because my husband has been working abroad for the last fifteen years. As an only child, my son has been a pampered quite a lot. He is very affectionate with me. From childhood onwards, he has been sleeping in the same bed as me. He kisses and hugs me very often, and he also likes to touch and fondle my body. I had always assumed that this was just childish innocence. However, one night I woke up from my sleep to find him masturbating while clenching my breasts. I continued to lie there as if I was sleeping, but I was shocked inside. The next day I checked his computer and found out that he had been visiting many incest sites and reading incest erotica. I am completely dumbfounded. I don’t know what to do. How do I handle this situation? Should I tell my husband about this?
–Don’t Want A Momma’s Boy

I suppose I don’t have to tell you this, but you’ve got a serious problem on your hands. I think the very fact that you let your son touch you this way in the first place is a problem. What on earth were you thinking? Physical affection is one thing, but allowing your child to feel you up cannot just be chalked up to “childish innocence” unless he or she is still an infant. You need to sit your son down for a frank talk about all of this, and to hell if it makes him feel embarrassed. And yes, you need to involve your husband in this conversation as well. First of all, it’s very important as a parent to draw boundaries. If your son “fondling” you makes you feel uncomfortable or distressed, you need to tell him right upfront. No one has the right to touch you without your consent, not even your child. Second of all, you have to tell him you found his incest porn and that you were awake while he was masturbating. It’s important that he recognize that none of this is a secret. Finally, you need to get both him and yourself into therapy. Seriously, it’s that important. It sounds like you’ve fallen into a weird codependent relationship with your son and now it’s time to create the boundaries that should have been established much earlier. Your kid is all confused about his love for you as his mother and his own burgeoning sexual desires, and you haven’t done much to help him by allowing him to have his way with you for so many years in so many small, but significant ways. Enough’s enough. It’s time for you and your son to get some professional help so that you can disentangle the threads of this very complicated problem and start rebuilding your relationship as mother and son, not as weird sexual codependents.

What To Do?

I am very stressed out and I need your help. I have been married for the last 25 years, and until recently I thought that I had a happy and successful family. I am a housewife. I have two daughters, aged 18 and 15. A few years back my eldest daughter confessed to me that she was being sexually abused by her father. I was shocked, but I had a long talk with my hubby and he promised that it wouldn’t happen again. I believed him and we tried to move forward as a family. However, recently my youngest daughter also told me that the same thing has been going on with her. I am broken. I had loved my husband so much and I used to think that he was very responsive and caring. I had another talk with him about this, but I feel cheated on and I also feel bad for my children. What should I do? I feel like dying, but have a responsibility to take care of my young daughters. Please help me.
–Shocked Mother

You need to get either your daughters or your husband out of the house right now. What your husband is doing is wrong and he’s not going to stop just because you’ve had a little chat with him about it. He is sexually abusing your children, and it’s only going to be come more damaging to them if you don’t help them leave situation immediately. Sexual abuse, particularly when it’s perpetrated by a family member, is incredibly undermining for victims and can leave them permanently traumatized if they don’t get counseling and support. I’m really glad that you believed your daughters when they told you what was happening—so many parents don’t. But now it’s time for more drastic action. See if you can have your daughters stay for a while with friends or a family member, someone that you trust and that you and your kids can open with about what’s happening in your house. After that, see if you can get them into ongoing therapy. They’re probably suffering from feelings of guilt and shame, and they need someone to process those feelings with. (I’ve mentioned them before, but Tulir is an excellent organization that does advocacy and counseling for victims of child sexual abuse.)

After you’ve those first vital steps, you need to decide what comes next. You may want to divorce your husband, or perhaps stay permanently separated from him. Either way, your children should not have any contact with him. And remember: even if you are a non-earning member of the household, you are still entitled to a share of your common property, and that includes your house. Contact a lawyer and see what kind of arrangement you can come up with that would allow you to stay in your home without him there. You may even want to contact the police about this. Right now the laws that specifically address sexual abuse are inadequate and cursory, to say the least, but under the Protection of Women From Domestic Violence Act of 2005, you may be able to get the police to put a restraining order on your husband, file a case against him on behalf of your children, and apply for a monthly remittance from him for household expenses, and all while he’s out of the house. (The sexual abuse of women and minors is definitely covered under the bill—the PWDV Act is really a very progressive piece of legislation and ought to be used more frequently.) Like I said, talk to a lawyer and see what the best course of action is. But remember, the most first thing is to protect and support your daughters through this. Get them out of the house, get them counseling, and kick your monster of a husband to the curb.

But at the same time, don’t forget to take care of yourself! Right now you’re confronting the dissolution of a long marriage, the necessity of taking care of your traumatized daughters, and the shock and horror of discovering that the man you spent your entire adult life with isn’t the person you thought he was. That’s a lot to take in all at once, and you need to make sure that you’re strong enough to face those storms with dignity and courage. Your feelings of rejection and sadness are completely understandable, but you don’t want them to fester into feelings of resentment and anger against your children. Start talking to a counselor or a therapist in order to process your emotions so that you can continue to move forward—again, Tulir is an excellent resource for this. Good luck.