Dirty secret

[Srcyu]

Enabling father had a dirty secret.
Under the cover of a group he attended, he and another member actually used to sneak off and visit a woman, 'who took gentlemen callers.' A prostitute.
One week bpd mother informed him that he had to take me with him to his group. I can't remember why, I do recall his annoyance though. I clearly remember ending up standing at her front door. She looked down at me with disbelief.

I was left playing with her cat while the three of them went off to another room. I didn't have a clue.
Bpd mother refused to believe me afterwards and enabling father lied through his teeth.

I accused him of lying later when we were alone. He said it was none of my business. None of his wife's either it seemed.
He kept a half naked photo of the woman, I was the only one to see it.

I wonder, did bpd mother really never suspect anything? Obviously my lowly position meant my word had no strength against his. He knew that. Did he feel perhaps, that she could be lied to about just about anything and that she would always believe him? How sly of him. In my badder moments I admit to feeling, ' it served her right.'

[Leonor]

Hi Windmill,

I'm so sorry this happened to you. It's just excruciating to allow the awareness that you didn't have one abusive parent and one not-really-abusive parent.

The shocking fact that your father involved you in his sex life is sexual abuse. The fact that he brought you to a brothel is sexual abuse. The fact that he abandoned you while he had sex in the next room with his friend and a prostitute is sexual abuse. The fact that he introduced you to a prostitute is sexual abuse. The fact that he implicated you on his sexual betrayal of his wife, your mother, is sexual abuse. And the fact that you were then  blamed or shamed and silenced for it is sexual abuse.

You deserved only to be honored and respected and cherished and protected.

[Srcyu]

Leonor,
Thank you, that really hit home. Abuse can take so many forms. I learnt that day that neither parent could be trusted. He would lie and deny. She would disbelieve and absolutely refuse to listen.
The thing I'm dwelling on now is her, did she REALLY not believe?

I told her so much detail. It made no sense that it wouldn't be true. I'd not previously made up stories. If it were me, I would have been very suspicious of him and started looking more closely for clues. I would have said to my child something like, 'thank you for telling me, these are grown up things and I will deal with it.'

She didn't want to rock the boat obviously, which made her part of the abuse. I was surrounded by it. It's a lesson we all learnt though wasn't it?
Don't Tell The Truth.

[notrightinthehead]

Gosh! I shudder to think the messages you got that day. And the conclusions your little self drew. Obviously useful ones because you survived your childhood.
Did you ever confront either of your parents? How did that make you feel?

[Srcyu]

notrightinthehead,
I never confronted bpd mother about it, I was too young. The memory slipped from my conscious mind soon after. The photo that enabling father kept was on his desk at work.Years later I had called into his office to get a lift home I think, I was a young adult. I just stared at it, unable to properly compute what I was looking at. This was in the 1970's and pictures of half naked woman were everywhere.

It passed silently between my father and me who the person was. He carried on as though nothing had happened. He knew that, yet again, bpd mother would dismiss the idea. She would be furious with me in fact for bringing the matter up.

He must have visited that woman over a long period of time. The feeling I was left with? That he was safe and I could not penetrate his bubble with the truth.

[NarcKiddo]

And on top of what Leonor said, I am utterly gobsmacked that the second man should have found it in any way acceptable for a child to be dragged along to their assignation, even if you were just in another room with the cat.

As to whether your mother was aware - that is hard to say. There is none so blind as one who will not see. My mother had an endless string of affairs. Many of these men were brought to our home and had meals with the family as if they were just "friends". I was privy to what was going on from the age of about 10 onwards, but forbidden to tell my father. He is not a stupid man and I think he knew fine well what was happening. But it saved him the bother of attending to my mother's physical needs, I suppose.

I think these people do not want the truth. It is of no interest to them. My mother has said as much to me. I was brought up to lie to all and sundry. My mother once told me she and my father would rather people lie to their faces with pretty words than insult them with the truth.

[Srcyu]

NarcKiddo,
You've explained that well. The truth is never of any worth to them, only appearances.
The other man - yes. I had known him for years through the group. It was based in a park and fairly family friendly.  He lived for many more years than my father. I wonder what sort of reaction I would have received from  him if I'd approached the subject as an adult.

Really, I came dangerously close to being made to participate in something far worse than just being in her house.
It's fortunate that I only ended up there once.

[easterncappy]

I actually wrote a very long blog post a couple weeks ago about pretty much the same situation occurring in my life. It took me until the age of 26 to really fully wrap my mind around how screwed up this was. And I pushed a lot of the memories to the back of my brain.

Both of my parents cheated on each other, and they made it out like this is just a normal fact of marriage and all couples do it, and if anyone says they don't, they're lying.

I was a lot "closer" to my mom than my dad, although I know that my dad did it digitally at the very least.

My mom had several extra marital affairs, with various men, and she would take me to her "appointments" with them. I was expected to keep my mouth shut about them, and she'd make up all sorts of cutesy secret lingo between me and her, so that we could talk about them in front of my dad, without him knowing. One boyfriend was nicknamed Sweatpants, because her excuse for us going to see him was that we were going to go buy sweatpants.

Of course, I was expected to act like this was completely normal, and the few times that I questioned it and told her it was wrong, I got treated like a terrible person and troublemaker.

It really messed with my perception of relationships well into adulthood, I eventually figured out that most marriages are between people who love each other and don't cheat on each other. I had a very strong paranoia for a very long time that anyone I married would end up cheating on me. My husband even called me out on it once, saying that I'm only saying these things because I grew up in a household where cheating was rampant.

[Srcyu]

Hi easterncappy,
That was so immature of your mom to involve you like that.
We all seemed to have parents with various degrees of atrocious behaviour. The back of our brains are quite full where so many of the memories are stored.
Your husband sounds insightful and knowledgable though. Silver linings.