Dear Queenie,
My husband’s son by his first wife wants to come to live with us. My husband is all for it, but my oldest daughter (by my first husband) says he used to molest her when he came to visit us when she was little.
She was afraid to tell me then because he said he would beat her up if she did and he would tell his father she was a liar and then his father wouldn’t want to be married to me anymore.
But now she is older (she is 11 now) she is afraid he will molest her again and maybe her little sisters (by my present husband) too, and she is also afraid he will take revenge on her for telling on him.
I told my husband I don’t want his son in the house with my girls, but he said I was making too much of what my daughter said and she was just jealous of his relationship with his son and trying to make trouble.
He said even if she was telling the truth, his son was older now and would have outgrown such behavior and anyway he would talk to him and make sure he would not bother my daughter again. He said the little girls would be safe enough because they are his son’s sisters and he would never commit incest.
Queenie, is he right?—Protective mother
Dear Protective mother,
Your husband couldn’t be more wrong. Child molesters do not stop just because someone tells them to and they are rarely held back by considerations of incest. In fact, the convenient accessibility of his half-sisters makes it even more likely that he would victimise them.
In addition, there is the trauma your oldest daughter would go through in being exposed to her molester again.
Do not try to cut your husband off from his son, but make it clear that the relationship must be maintained outside of your home and away from your daughters.
Your first responsibility in this situation, and your husband’s, is to your daughters, and the only way you can guarantee their safety is to make sure his son is never alone with them, which would be impossible if he was living in your house. For example, how could your husband guarantee that his son would not sneak into their room at night when everyone else was asleep?
If your husband does not want to listen to you, go to the Women’s Desk and/or Safe Haven for expert assistance in explaining the ugly facts of his son’s life to him.
