Looking for opinions on my mother's behavior regarding her son's pedophilia

[Nyssa]

Thank you all for your replies.

I did not answer because it was too much for me. I was starting to obsess on the subject and I needed to take a break from it. I have had a migraine for 2 days now. It's the kind of migraines I get when I throw myself into work, or frantically engage in meaningless activities to avoid painful issues. This is really annoying. I can't seem to find the right distance with family-and-trauma-stuff pain.

I won't go into detailed answers of the explanations you offered for my mother's behavior. I think you all made very good points. I will probably come back to it later. For now, I'll just say this : denial, acceptance, enabling ; it could actually be a little of each at the same time. The thing is, I will never know for sure what is in her head. And it shouldn't matter all that much if she was truly dead to me. I keep trying to bury her but clearly, it doesn't work. I should write about this endless mourning of my mother in my diary rather than here...

@AddHomnym

You weren't clear on whether they were abuse images (ie: cp) or normal photos.

Right. She asked for normal pictures. But she knows my brother takes a lot of pictures of his victims and future victims. He makes photo albums he can obsess on when they are not around. Well, he used to do that. Now, he can't because he is in prison...

Everyone knowing my brother knows pictures of kids are part of his deviance. Not that it could ever be healthy to provide pictures of a cute little girl to a pedophile rotting in prison. I just find it harder to deny, in this context, what a sick request this is.

@Dr.Knowbuddy

How long did they give him... let me guess... 5 years?

No, 15 years. He can apply for an early release once he reaches half of his sentence. He has already done 4 years pending trial, and 6 months since. So he could be out in 3 years.

 

[Lilacinprocess]

@AngelkeeperJ/AKJ

Everyone in the family knows my brother is a convicted pedophile. I...

Wow thats something serious and thats the reason you dont have a relationship with your mother because of his sickness because he's sick. But now that he's in jail you should talk to your mother and explain thats not right maybe she knows and because she loves him he tries to help him with his sickness maybe she even sends him pictures of other little girls as of now. So you should talk and say thats not right!

 

[Nyssa]

Wow, that's not helpful !

I am sorry, but you don't know why I don't have a relationship with my mother. How can you think you do?

To put it shortly, I don't have a relationship with her because she won't listen to me about the sexual abuse in the family. She never has. And that probably makes me the worst person to talk to her about her son's pedophilia. She just wouldn't listen.

Plus, like I said in the post you quoted, I don't see how this should be my responsibility. There are plenty of folks in the family who know about it. They could talk to her and try to get her to listen. Good luck to them !

Reaching out to my mother would only cause me a lot of unnecessary pain. There is no way I am putting myself through this... for nothing.

Clearly, if all it took was a "that's not right" to get my mother to stop enabling her son's behavior, that would mean she's just incredibly stupid and naive. And I wouldn't be here wondering what is wrong with her.

 

[Muttly]

I'm sending support your way. Please hang in there.

So you should talk and say thats not right!

It's easy to give advice like that. It's understandable to want someone to do something to stop a bad situation. The problem with saying "you should... " is that you don't know what that person's situation is. You don't know what their abilities are. And when it comes to a person with abuse history, it's easy to create secondary trauma with all the shoulds. A person who has already experienced abuse is now feeling the blame of others. It can lead to an increased feeling of helplessness instead of being a call to action, even when said with the best of intentions.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

@Nessa7 sending you support and validation. You have done all that could be done and am now exercising your right to be free of such a toxic family member today. I am so very proud of you for doing what you know is the right thing for you. Supporting and healing hugs.:hug::hug::hug::hug::hug::hug::hug::hug:

 

[Nyssa]

Thank you @Rain and @Muttly

Hugs to you too :hug:

Earlier this evening, I wrote a pretty detailed account of the ending of my relationship with my mother. It was inspired by that "You should talk to her" comment. I decided not to post it, because I was ashamed of being so wordy. Now I'm thinking f*ck it !

Spoiler: Here it goes. Spoiler because it is so freaking long. Feel free to skip this.

When I first talked to her about my brother abuse years ago, I just said "Mum, there is something I never told you"... and she went "Is it your brother? Did he sexually abuse you?". She had always suspected it... later, she said "I knew he was in love with you". In love with me? WTF?

She never expressed any anger at him for abusing me. She just said that she was glad if I could deal with it, and instantly asked me not to make a fuss about it.

Then she made it all about her, her pain and her suffering. After a few months of confusion and manipulation, she abruptly asked me to disappear from her life. She said "The only way for me to survive is to pretend you don't exist, so I ask you to disappear from my life". That was the last time we spoke on the phone.The day after that, she was e-mailing me that it had felt good to talk to me, and went on as if it was nothing.

I started to distance myself from her. I was a complete wreck at that time. Not only was I trying to face my brother abuse, but also my father's. I was having horrid flashbacks and nightmares with my father. I had never talked about it to anyone. I was a huge mess.

Meanwhile, my mother was mad at me for keeping my distance. She wanted to have me back in the family, as if nothing had ever happened... but I just couldn't anymore. Mainly because of my father. The man terrified me (still does).

I told my mother about my father's abuse. I sensed that it would put an end to her attempts to have me back in the family. And it did. She left me alone for a while. Later on, I learned that at this point, she and my father started to prepare themselves in the event of a trial. They hired a lawyer and researched the false memory syndrome thing. My mother had me followed by a private investigator. And they started to tell everyone around them that I was either going crazy or was in a cult.

I did press charges against my brother and father.

To the cops, my mother kept saying I was lying, or that I was crazy, or in a cult. She pretended to be so worried about me... where in fact, she just wished for me to disappear. To her best friend, talking about me, she wrote "I just long for the day where she will be locked up in a psych ward", without any expression of concern for me.

In her various depositions, she dropped mean little comments that had nothing to do with the case, such as "my daughter never had much success with boys", "she is unattractive because she is too skinny" Or "When I look at my son and my daughter, I can't help to notice that she is complete failure while he has succeeded in life".

I was confronted to her at some point, in the investigating judge's office. She kept repeating "You are crazy" and "I love you, cure yourself and come back". At first, it made me cry, and then it made me angry. I told her to shut up and that I would not come back to serve her denial. But she continued her wailing. She eventually got the judge's nerves who told her she would charge her for pressuring the witness if she didn't stop. That day, my mother also said "everything that comes out of my daughter's mouth is bullshit".

At the trial, she was very cold when talking about me. She kept saying I was making it all up. The judge asked her is she had reconsidered her position since 15 other victims of my brother had now come forward. She acted as if she didn't understand the question. And then she stated she had never ask herself that question and was not planning on doing it.

At the end of the trial, she apologized to the parents of the 15 other victims, but not to me. She didn't say a word to me, expect when calling me crazy when she took the stand.

After 9 years of criminal procedure, my brother and father were convicted. That was 6 months ago. A month later, my parents were starting a civil suit against me to disown me on the ground of my ungratefulness... because I had called my father a incestuous pig and because I had accused him of rape, a crime for which he was acquitted (he was convicted of sexual assaults). In their argument, they said that I was never a victim of my father -- even though he was convicted of sexual assaults on me -- and that I had put them through a terrible ordeal with the criminal case. Hence, the ungratefulness. Poor them.

That was my mother's reaction when I spoke up about the abuse... And that is how I came to cut ties to my her.

So no, after 10 years of that shit, it makes no sense to just call my mother and tell her "you know, what you are doing for your son, it is wrong". We are WAY past talking to each other...

 

[scout86]

I believe the technical term for people like your mother is "crazy", although "evil" might apply as well.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

OMG I am so mad at you parents and brother and what incredible courage and fortitude you showed in taking them to court. Your mother is a big part of your abuse because of the extremes she went to cover it up and redifine the entire thing to cover her own ass. Thank you so much for sharing this. You are one very brave woman and the fact that you stood alone during the ordeal with your mom shows incredible great inner strength. I would never, ever have anything to do with either for that kind of dishonesty and smearing your good name to all in her circle. She is a very corrupt woman and you have such a pure heart to escape from that family. I hope for you a real happily ever after for the rest of your life based on the fact that you survived and lived to see them put in jail. It is too bad you could not go after your rogue mother as well. Oh what a piece of work she is. I am so angry at her for everything she said and did to you.:hug::hug::hug::hug::hug::hug::hug::hug::hug::hug::hug::hug::hug::hug::hug::hug::hug::hug::hug::hug:

 

[Nyssa]

Oh my god. My mother is a crazy evil piece of work. You both nailed it.

It means a lot to have this validation. It hurts, too. She wronged me so much... and I am so not done hurting... any of the abuse, actually. I have mostly been fighting them so far.

Thank you for reading me.

Time to go to bed on this side of the pond. I hope you have a nice and peaceful evening.

 

[Sweetchick]

I have not read all of your responses, but have you considered the fact that your Mother's son maybe the Father of this child? And that he may well have been abusing your cousin and actually got her pregnant?

 

[Nyssa]

Not possible.