My Mom's (Ex) Best Friend's Husband

 

Dirty Grandpa.

 

Every day that I wake up I have that sinking feeling during parts of the day, a memory, scent, sight, sound, etc. awakens things of my childhood. We recently had to have our roof repaired. When the ceiling finally started drying out from all the rain, there was a musky odor. It smelled like snuff and a wet basement. It instantly sent me back to being in my great granddad’s house. I was around 5, maybe 6 years old. He had me laying on the bed, trying to have sex with me. I was screaming because of the burning pain. When I think of it, I can still feel the pain. My sister was just shy of 3 years younger than I was. I don't know why my great granddad had me and my sister, and I don’t know that he attempted anything with her. She was too young to remember, and my memories are only of what he did to me. She was standing just outside the bedroom door. She was squalling because I was crying in pain, and she knew he was hurting me. She was so young, but even then, you know when someone is doing something wrong. Neither of us knew what was happening. I just know that with all the pain I was hoping he would stop. I don’t know that I completely lost my innocence that day, but it’s forever seared into my memory just because of the sheer pain of it. Throughout the rest of his life there would be situations where he would be at my grandparents. He would take me to the side of the house where no one could see, and he’d lift me up. I was probably 5 or 6 at this time as well, but he would pull my shorts to the side and then I’d feel that burning pain again. Trying to break free of his hand. His fingers. “That burns!” As I cry he’s trying to shoosh me. He tells me once he stretches me it’ll feel better. Once he realizes I’m not going to stop crying, he gives up and tells me if I tell anyone, I’ll get in trouble. Ok. I’m a kid. I don’t want to get in trouble, so I keep his secret…for a while. Turns out he probably did assault, or attempt to assault merely every female in his family that wasn’t a daughter, but everyone else was fair game. He was a sick, sick man. Apparently, he got saved on his death bed. I sure hope so because his sins far exceed anyone, except for my next attacker.

 

Mom’s (Ex) Best Friends Husband

 

There were SO MANY different occurrences that I don’t know when the first time was that he touched me. He mostly made me do things to him. I grew up riding dirt bikes. My parents had them, their friends had them, and us kids shared a few different bikes that fit our size. It had to be early on in all of the assaults, but this particular day is very clear in my mind. There was a building at my mom’s best friends husband’s house, that they kept their dirt bikes in. Me and the other kids were going to ride, and I needed to run to the building to get the helmet. I did my best to make sure I was never alone, but on this day, I was in a rush to get that helmet and get back to my friends to ride. I run in and the door closes behind me, but I’m not alone. He asks where I’m going. “I’m going to ride. I needed a helmet.” He stands there like stone, not moving, and no intention of doing so. He pulls his…he pulls IT out and puts it in my face. This wasn’t my first rodeo with him, so I knew he wanted me to put my mouth on IT. “Don’t tell anyone. They’ll get mad at you.” I did a good job over the years avoiding him, but the same story every time he would catch me alone... I would be the one to get into trouble. I’m not sure at what age, but my Dad lived in Virginia and me and my sister were visiting him and his girlfriend Kathy. She used to buy us all kinds of movies and books. She bought this book, ‘No No, The Seal’. That’s when it came to light that the things I had experienced with my great grandad and my mom’s best friend’s husband were WRONG! I realized I should’ve been telling. So, the next time it happened, I told. Mom’s best friend’s husband tried at getting me to suck…IT. I stayed the night with them, with his daughter, who was one of my best childhood friends. I didn’t have many of those. I was sort of socially awkward, so they were few and far between. I woke up to him standing on the side of the bed I was facing. He pulled IT out and it was in my face. I acted like I was just totally sleeping and rolled over to the other side. He then came to that side of the bed and puts it in my face. I turned again, and he would come to the side I was facing. He finally gave up, but the next day I told. I told my mom and his wife what he was doing. I’m not sure how much time there was between me telling and him cornering me in the back hallway of their home, but he told me that my mom and his wife wouldn’t be friends anymore and I wouldn’t be able to be friends with his kids because we all wouldn’t hang out anymore. He told me that I needed to tell them I lied. I was a CHILD. The only solid friendships I had were about to be over. I didn’t have many friends to lose. If I had to say that I lied so that I could keep my friends and my mom wouldn’t lose hers, I’d do it, and I did, and so it continued for a while. I eventually told again, but they didn’t believe me because I said lied. I told again and was asked to show with my hands how big IT was. Again, I was a child so I’m pretty sure IT looked larger than it was. I probably gave him way too much credit. No one believed me when I told so I just did all that I could to stay away from him and be aware of where he was, always, so that I could avoid him. I tried to never be alone, and when he would catch me alone, I stopped telling. I was so happy when I got my license. I didn’t have to be with my parents all the time. I made new friends and tried my best to avoid church because he was there. When I was 17, I just happened to be home one weekend. I was usually gone out with friends, so I was rarely home, but this day I didn’t have plans and decided to put on my bikini, in my home, and go swimming. As I got out of the pool, he and his wife were pulling in the driveway. I did my best to dry quickly and get in the house. As I hurried down the steps of the deck he came walking around the house. He states, “You look good in that bikini”. I’m not sure why, but it creeped me out worse than all the times he put IT in my face. The way he said it. It was like a growl. It disgusted me. I ran in the house and hid in my room until he and his wife left. When I came out my mom told me she had been calling my name. “I know.”

“Then why didn’t you come?”

 

“He was here. He creeped me out. He told me how good I looked in my bikini…”.

 

Fast forward a few days…

 

My mom had her other best friend over and she tells me that she promised herself when I turned 17, she was going to ask me about all the times that I told on my mom’s best friend’s husband and what my great granddad did. She said she wanted her other best friend there to witness what I said. I was able to describe, verbatim, everything I’d ever told. Nothing ever changed. The events of my life didn’t change. Not one word. She told me she believed me. For the first time someone heard me and listened. I’m not sure really what happened after that because I never had to see my mom’s best friends’ husband again, and my great granddad died when I was about 12. HE couldn’t hurt anyone else, but over the years I began to obsess over the fact that there may be other girls that were victims of my mom’s best friend’s husband. I often wondered if he made anyone else suck IT and told them not to tell. I had been plagued with nightmares of my mom’s best friend’s husband and the things he would do. I was also plagued with nightmares of the things my great grandad did, but maybe they weren’t as bad because he was gone. I was constantly hyperaware that my mom’s best friend’s husband could be hurting someone else. Aware that other people, other KIDS, could be experiencing what I experienced. There was nothing I could do to protect anyone. No one believed me then. Why would they believe me now? But wait, my mom does believe me now. I had that. Or so I thought. My mom had a stroke not long after she asked me about what I went through. Please don’t judge my mom. She stopped hanging out with her best friend after I told her. I’m not sure what she and my stepdad did or said to him and his wife, but they no longer hung out. I think my mom was afraid of losing her friend when I was a child…just as I was afraid I would lose mine if I didn’t say I lied. As I got older, I realized the importance of friendship. When you lose someone so close to you, a friendship, you grieve, almost like you grieve a death of someone you love. Maybe it wasn’t right, and if the shoe were on the other foot, and it were my kid coming to me, I’d go to jail. No questions asked. No “show me with your hands how big it is”. Anyone that assaulted my child would be no more. Plain and simple.

 

As I said, my mom had a stroke, so she forgot about our conversation when I was 17. There was a huge rift between me and my mom for a while. She even accused me of lying about ALL OF IT. I. HIT. HER. A mistake that I haven’t let myself live down. I started having the same nightmares over and over. Mostly of my mom’s now ex best friend’s husband. I started having mental breakdowns. Self-medicating and vodka became my crutch. I wanted to die. I wanted the dreams to stop. Why does it hurt so much more now than when it was happening? Maybe because I was reliving it nearly every night. I was waking my husband up crying in my sleep, grinding my teeth so bad that I couldn’t chew at times, screaming myself awake. The nightmares had consumed me so much. I took a bunch of klonopin and slept for almost 24 hours. I didn’t even realize my mom had gone to the store and completely stocked my fridge and cabinets while I was passed out, praying not to wake up from my klonopin coma. Again, please do not judge my mom because the good outweighed the bad with her. I don’t think she knew how to handle the whole situation, and she had had a stroke since and I don’t blame her. I blame him. I blame his wife for not knowing, or suspecting anything, or just downright ignoring the fact that her husband is a pedophile.

I know I'm all over the place with this. I just hope that somehow my experience will help someone, somehow. I could go into the details of every single occurrence, but that wouldn’t be comfortable for anyone, especially me.

I. HIT. MY. MOM.

She accused me of lying. I still don’t know if it was the heat of the moment that she said it, but how could someone tell me at 17, “I believe you. Your story has never changed” to “You’re a damn liar”. I just seen red. It was an automatic reaction that I regret. I’ve always been a firm believer that you should not hit your mother. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind. After my mom came over and stocked my fridge and cabinets, I hit her. I still feel like no matter what, there was no excuse for hitting my mom. Oh, and she hit me back. She went outside, came back in and said, “I have one more thing to say to you” and when I said what, she sucker punched the hell outta me. I deserved it because no matter what, I should never have hit my mom.

That was in 2011. Fast forward to 2015, again. Another mental break. I blasted my mom’s ex best friend’s husband on social media…my mom’s ex best friend, too. I warned her. I told her all I wanted was for her husband to admit to her, my mom, and ME what he did. What he made ME do. She kept going back to where I said, “I LIED”. I sure did. I lied, when I said I lied. I lied because I didn’t want to lose my childhood friends. I lied because I didn’t want my mom to lose her friend because that meant losing mine. Call it good or bad, but someone did come forward after I blasted them. Part of me was happy that someone else knows that I’m telling the truth, but sad that he attempted to do things to her, too. I have spoken to her a few times since 2015. My husband decided last year that he thought we should go after my mom’s ex best friend’s husband because he felt like that’s what I needed to finally get past all of this. Don’t think for one minute I want a dime from him or his wife. I just want, at some point, that it be on record that he is a pedophile. We even spoke to the other lady he attempted to assault, and she was on board with giving a statement about what he did to her. You see, he told her not to tell, but she told a neighbor who then told her dad. She was 12 and younger when he would do things. Her dad threatened his life and told him he would tell my mom’s ex best friend if he ever tried it again. He never did so it stopped before it could get started good. I’m so happy that she told, and someone put a stop to it before he got to her the way he did me. If there is a victim #1 and victim #2, then more than likely there are more, as I always feared. There are probably more girls, women now, that he has made attempts with. I asked my husband a few months ago why he stopped pursuing the idea of taking my mom’s ex best friend’s husband to court and he said that my nightmares had gotten worse since we started talking about it and he felt it was because of that so he decided to stop pushing the idea. I want to tell my story. If you want to know or read more I will share. I have left out names because I hope that in not saying them, I can weaken their power over me. They are nothing but mere titles to me.

#AdultSurvivorofChildhoodSexualAssault #childhoodtrauma #ptsd #bipolardisorder