“If envy was wings, I’d be a 747”? You seriously think that because someone had some small happiness that you didn’t, they need to put up with any amount crap in order to “avoid disturbing the peace”? I hope you get a good therapist, man, because that’s very fucked up.
Would this be a poor thread to point out that fucking B is preferable, due to the increased roundness and number of holes?
Her post deserves a B, an O, a couple of Qs and, why not, toss in a D and a P.
Riiiight.
Never said put up with. Said handle differently, with tact.
Can you point out where she stood up for herself and demanded respect? Because the way I read it, she scurried off and complained about it to everyone except for the person who actually perpetrated the offense. The courageous thing would have been to confront him directly about it (possibly with aunt present). Betcha the mere threat of telling others would have gotten him to knock it off without the need to actually do so and ruin family holidays for everyone.
Aunt says she will handle it. She cancels flash 80th birthday party for your uncle, on your word of what has happened.
She also asks you to not tell anyone. In your words, you told “everyone”. You changed this story later.
I think Rigamarole has a valid point.
Stupid scurrying complaining whiny assault victims.
Oh, and cowardly. I forgot cowardly.
Everybody knows that when you politely ask a sexual assaulter to stop, he will certainly do so immediately. You can trust that he won’t do it again because he knows that if he does, the victim will ask him privately and politely to knock it off, and he will be terrified of this consequence.
And even if he doesn’t, well, who gives a fuck? Eating mashed potatoes with family is more important than the pwecious widdle feelings of an assault victim or three, amirite?
Just a reminder, people, we’re in MPSIMS, not the Pit or elsewhere. Keep your remarks to each other civil, please.
Thanks,
twickster, MPSIMS moderator
See post #19. I didn’t tell everyone, I told two people, one of whom swore he wouldn’t say anything, and one who couldn’t and didn’t say anything because of professional obligations.
And I obviously had to tell my children, because they would have wanted a reason why everything changed and we weren’t going there anymore.
This thread, if anything, has taught me that some people will take anything, turn it into a controversy, argue about it, and tell you that you’re wrong. It hardly even matters what you’ve done, someone can construe it to be the wrong thing. I admit that I didn’t handle it perfectly, but I cut myself some breaks because being assaulted like that kind of fucked with my head. I guess next time I’ll know!
Alice, it’s just people reading your personal experience and mapping it inappropriately onto their own personal experiences, combined with a total lack of empathy.
Seriously, the aforementioned situation with my mom’s boyfriend? I won’t be in the same house with him, and I’ll gladly tell anyone who asks me why I won’t. If he’d molested me in someone’s kitchen? I would have posted that shit on Facebook. I think you showed remarkable restraint in only telling as few people as you did, honestly.
Don’t worry about it, some people just don’t like the fact that now they’ll feel guilty about watching the big Thanksgiving football game with Uncle McGrabbyhands. Being in the dark is so much better for their conscience. I mean, it isn’t like it was their wife or sister who was grabbed, it was that pesky cousin who fucked it up for everyone.
I still keep my back to the wall so my family’s Uncle McGrabbyhands can’t get a butt touch in.
Please read the entire post before responding.
No, it matters exactly what you did. Your aunt asked you not to tell anyone. You have no reason to hate your aunt, but you told people anyways. Now she finds out that many other people know about it, and she gets resentful towards you. Your actions specifically led to what happened in this case.
That said, this is not a slight on you, but on the human inability to handle situations unemotionally. It makes no logical sense to go around telling other people who are likely to tell others, but, as human beings, it’s really, really hard thing not to do. When you are hurt, you have a built in need to share.
So I guess I’m saying I see where We would have some doing all the work, and others free-riding. is coming from, but he really should not be judging anyone until he’s been in a similar hurtful situation and resisted the need to share that hurt. And then, when he does, he needs to share how he did it with all of us, rather than castigating you for not doing the same thing he did.
(My apologies if Rigs is female.)
I’m confused. This seems like the kind of situation that you handle in the moment, maybe by telling uncle grabby to get his hands off you and never do that again. The idea of going to other family members for a solution (aunt, brother, in-law who has an MSW) doesn’t really make sense to me at all.
I’m not saying there’s any reason to keep quiet, and I can see telling other people what happened just because it’s creepy and we tend to tell the people that we’re close to if something creepy happens to us, but this sounds more like gathering a committee to decide how to handle “the situation”.
It may just be a part of your particular family dynamic, but it does sound like you handled it in the way that would create the most drama and damage. Couldn’t you have just punched him in the face and moved on with your life?
The interesting thing for me about this is not the cut-and-paste error, but the fact that BigT apparently 1) has to cut-and-paste user names when referencing them, and 2) fails to notice when he has accidentally cut-and-pasted an eleven-word sentence instead of a one-word user name.
Anyway. Carry on.
Thinking of you, Alice. I hope today goes well.
No, I didn’t feel like I could punch him in the face and move on. I froze. I didn’t know what to do. Also, he is very strong still, not at all some stereotypical 80 year-old frail and fragile thing, so I did have a real sense of fear that he could hurt me. He is the 4th male family member to do this to me, so obviously I have some past issues with it. I felt small and helpless and powerless. It was hard for me to think clearly, which is exactly why I felt the need to talk with my brother and in-law about it, not for drama reasons.
I stopped reading the thread after a few people attacked Alice for over-reacting.
BULLSHIT
Abuse is abuse, and the details are just details.
It messes with people.
Alice, Just because SOME people judge you for standing up for yourself in your family, don’t let them get you down.
Stay strong, get past the pain any way you can.
It’s too bad the holidays are so tough. It brings up all the abuse in my past, too.
I remember the happy, fun family times at Uncle Frank’s when I was a kid, and how they were overshadowed by his abuse of me, my brother, and some cousins, and who knows how many others.
Family isn’t just about blood relatives, it’s about people who care about you.
For me, I stand with everyone who stands up to the abuse, whatever it was or still is.
Find some peace.
Love
David
This is the fourth family member to do this to you? I’d say the fact that this has continued to be a problem for you is a good reason to find some joy in not being around the rest of your family this year. If this is truly such a common issue, you are better off not exposing yourself to such a toxic atmosphere.
I’m sure there are family members that you love and you’re missing, but that doesn’t sound like a remotely safe environment. Be kind to yourself.
Well, it makes me very sad to read that post. I’m going to tread lightly here if I can, because I don’t want to seem unkind, but feeling small and helpless and powerless is only one option in this situation. I wasn’t there and I’m not you, but can you understand that from the outside it seems that there were other choices available to you?
Obviously there’s not much payoff in continuing to spend your holidays with generations of people who have hurt you, or in keeping that information to yourself for the sake of family harmony.
But (and here’s where maybe I stick my head up my own butt) if you, as a grown woman with this history, haven’t yet learned how to do something other than freeze and feel small when some guy makes a grab for you, I think it’s time to do something about that.
Well, yes, I guess that it is. This hadn’t happened to me as an adult with a family member, so I was not prepared and didn’t have a plan for how to act. Also, I completely trusted him and never would have thought that he’d do that, so I was very much taken by surprise. Also, for those who’d castigate me for telling the two people, I wasn’t asked by my aunt to not tell anyone until three months after it happened, after I’d told them. I’d like to think I would have obliged her if I hadn’t already told anyone.