Every family is dysfunctional, right? Well, some more than others.
It took me until my thirties to understand how dysfunctional mine was (through many co-payments to my therapist) and until my forties to be mostly at peace with this. My family’s ultimate test came fairly recently when my youngest niece, at the age of 19 and who I will refer to as “M”, confided in me and some other family members that she was raped and subsequently molested for several years by her father, my brother-in-law. This news should have been the worst of it but it was my family’s reaction to it and subsequent inaction that revealed our deepest cracks in the pavement. It was the flashlight that shone a light on how an already ill-prepared family was unable to support and protect one of its own.
We all want to assume that if something like this happens in our family that its members will do the right thing. That people will believe the victim and speak up against the perpetrator. But that’s assuming your family has a certain baseline of emotional wellness. For me, this was a black and white issue, I believed M and my support for her would be unwavering from that point forward. And if you support M, that means you no longer have contact with the person who raped and molested her. That is the only correct response the way I saw it and there is no middle ground on this one. For most of my other family members that was not the case and this is the fault line that has divided us.
My sister, M’s mother, has told my niece that she does not believe her and has chosen to stay with her husband, my niece’s rapist. This decision has caused a ripple effect that has greatly influenced others responses, mainly my mother and one of M’s older sisters. After initially being supportive, my mom has pivoted to partly not wanting to acknowledge what happened and also lashing out at other family members who support M. M’s older sister doesn’t seem to know who or what to believe and continues to have regular contact with her mother and stepfather, M’s rapist.
At first, these reactions filled me with rage and disbelief. I couldn’t wrap my head around why we weren’t all rallying behind M and helping her. Why would anyone think she would lie about something like this to only risk losing most of her family and gain nothing in return? And for the record, false accusations of rape and sexual assault are incredibly rare. But then I realized I was expecting too much from a family that didn’t have the emotional tools to handle something like this. No mother stays with their child’s rapist unless they are severely damaged themselves. That isn’t a normal, healthy response. I’m not saying it’s easy to accept that your husband did this to your child. Nor am I saying it’s easy to leave this man that you have shared a life with and whom you most likely still love. But for the love and protection of your child, it is necessary.
As I continued to zoom out, I began to see how the puzzle pieces fit together to better understand (not excuse) my family’s behaviors. I saw how through learned history, both my mother and older niece seem to understand that if they speak up against M’s rapist and/or my sister, my sister will cut them out of her life. And if push comes to shove, my sister will choose her husband. Knowing this, even though I disagree with my older niece’s actions, I understand that she has a tough choice in front of her. If she chooses to stand up for M then she risks losing a relationship with her mother.
My mother has told me multiple times over the years that “every parent is scared of losing their child’s love” and this has served as a peephole into the relationship between my mom and sister. This explains why there is a clear track record of my mom accepting and normalizing any bad behavior from her. When you operate out of fear of losing someone’s love it means that you’ll do anything to keep it, even at the destruction of relationships with others and forgetting your own moral compass. My mother then twists and distorts this fear into her definition of unconditional love. As a mother myself, this made me question what it means to love your child unconditionally. Does this mean you will not question any of their actions no matter how bad for fear of them not liking what they hear? For me, to love my child unconditionally means I will love him no matter what but I do not have to agree with or accept those actions. Put another way, I will still bring him fresh-baked cookies if he is in prison for murder but I will not help him dig the hole to bury the body. That said, I am not expecting my mom to stop loving her child, my sister, but I wish she would just put down the shovel.
In the end, instead of us all banding together to protect M and cut the perpetrator out of our family like a cancer, we are all flailing about and misdirecting our anger at each other. Within this process of telling her story, M has had to set some healthy boundaries to protect herself and to continue to heal. This included breaking off contact with her mother and her sister if they continued to have contact with her rapist and not fully support her. Because of this, M is viewed as the one who is tearing up the family, not the man who raped and molested his child. They do not understand why it is not normal or healthy for a victim of sexual assault to continue a relationship with people who choose to be around the perpetrator. And there are consequences if you choose to still have contact with said person. But then again, this understanding is built on the premise of believing her. Thankfully, my niece has a support system who stand behind her, including another sister and her boyfriend, and she continues to work with a therapist and a sexual assault advocate.
For myself, I have had to set similar boundaries with my sister and older niece and I still struggle at times with my decision to end contact with them. However, I always come back to what is right for M, myself, and my son and it further validates my choice. As far as my relationship with my mother, although still there, it is forever-changed. For now, we mostly avoid talking about what happened until it bubbles up to the surface and then it quickly turns into an argument. In order to move forward, I had to accept my family’s reactions even though I do not not agree with them. And I will always wonder if these reactions would have been different if M would have told us about the abuse when it first occurred when she was a young child. But then again, for many reasons most children are too afraid to tell anyone about their abuse. Additionally, I had to accept that until my family chooses to believe her and stop any contact with her abuser, we will never completely heal.
This story, while at its core is about what happened to my niece, is mostly about how the undercurrents of dysfunctional family relationships can shape the reactions to tragedy and trauma. It is how an already damaged family was unable to absorb the impact of an event that would have shook even the most stable of family structures. It also leads to a bigger discussion about family dynamics and the decisions we make and boundaries we set in order to protect our own emotional well-being. This is the part where I want to hear about you and your family relationships. Are you navigating some of these relationships differently compared to how you did when you were younger? What are some healthy boundaries that you have had to set in order to protect your own mental health?
I am blown away by the response of M’s family, your description of the logic behind it does add perspective even for my cynical self. I hope M knows that we, your readers, believe her. You have handled this situation so well, I would not be able to maintain the level of connection that you have been able to with certain family. I get so angry when I think about this situation and how, somehow, M has become the problem. I can only assume the abuse does not stop with only her, that probably plays into the reactions as well. I hope you can rekindle with your niece at some point, I know how important she is to you. She knows you are here!