Opinion on sensitive topic please.

In My Humble Opinion
1

A friend of mine came to me this weekend with a truly upsetting topic. She and her husband have been married for about 3 years, and have been together for a much longer time total. There has been a lot of friction since the wedding between Husband and his Sister. Wife didn’t know the cause of the friction and assumed it was for something trivial that had caused an argument before. Wife defended her husband to her inlaws and spent 6 months pissed at her Sister-in-law for being “such a bitch” about everything. Finally things came to a head over the weekend and Husband finally told Wife what the true issue was. Apparently Sister has been going to counseling since August because she started to remember something happening between Husband and Her when she was a child. Apparently this “something” consisted of dry humping and touching between Husband and Sister when they were about 10 and 2 respectively. Parents caught them and decided not to bring in authorities because they were worried that they would split up the family. They buried it and never said anything again about it until now. Sister is angry at the family for not doing more to protect her. Sister’s shrink has her convinced that this continued after they were caught. Husband remembers it happening and being caught but swears that it didn’t happen again.

I know everyone involved very well. Husband is a really good guy, this floored me. I trust that this is not something that continued and feel it adds up to curious kids being left alone for too long. I hope I’m not being callous about it, but have a hard time believing he would do anything like this. Wife is standing by her husband, they are going to do some counseling together.

What do you think dopers? Any advice I can offer them?

2

I was going to say that it sounds like no big deal kids playing doctors and nurses etc, then I clocked the 10 and 2 bit. It’s amazing that the sister’s recollections from the age of two have actually being borne out (to an extent), given that the husband’s admitted doing something. Even so, it’s a pretty flimsy basis on which to get the pitchforks out.

I think your friend just needs to get her husband to come clean to her with what he recollects of the incident - could quite legitimately be nothing sinister at all. Sounds like they’re down that road with the councilling. You just have to be supportive of your friend either way, you’re a couple of steps removed and can’t really be making judgements. Hope it works out OK.

3

Yikes. I know people who were molested by older siblings or step-siblings, but I think every incident involved a history of abuse in the family. Kids are horny monsters and 10 is still really young, but the age difference does strike me as abnormal (IANAD). Not that that means that it both could have happened and the husband is a nice, decent guy.

I’m not sure what you can do, really. Counseling sounds like the right thing for all three of them (separately). Hopefully the sister’s doctor will help her work through her anger and any other problems she’s had. If the parents are still alive, ideally they could get some counseling, too, or help clear up some of the factual stuff.

Really, though, all you can do is listen, and I’m sure your friends don’t expect more than that.