I am 43 years old and have just finished yet another round of counselling, because every now and again I struggle to cope and need reminding that it was not my fault, that he was the one to blame, that he should hold the shame and the guilt, but sometimes I forget.
My mum knew him from her schooldays, he had moved away and returned to his family home, next door to mine in a small village in Scotland. He moved back with a partner and they had two children, one of them newly born and the reason I ended up in his house. In hindsight it would be wonderful if I could go back to that day and decide not to go, but hindsight is not going to change things now. I had accompanied my mum to visit his baby, I had a cuddle and the baby fell asleep in my arms, his partner was pleased with this situation and said to me, “You can come round anytime,” and I did. I became a part of their family, I went round to their house everyday after school, helped put the baby to bed in the evening and I went round at weekends, went on day trips with them, shopping or just hung around their house playing with the baby. I was 10 years old at this time.
It began slowly, he started tickling me as I bent over to tuck his baby in bed, I did not think anything of this as I was 10, people tickle 10 year olds, though not everyone who tickles 10 year olds goes on to commit a crime; that’s what it is, a crime, you do not hear many people refer to it as that! Over time I would be sitting on the couch and he would tickle my back, but not in a make me laugh sort of way, in a soft, soothing kind of way. Again, not a crime, but little did I know, he was leading up to that. I do not know or remember how or when it started, but I began sitting on his knee at times when his partner was not around, as I was sitting on his knee he would put his hand up my top and tickle me under the arm and as he brought his hand out from under my top he brushed my breast on the way out. I remember thinking “did that just happen?” but I put it down to an accident and carried on with life. As time progressed and as I got older, he very clearly touched my breasts, and although I thought it was wrong (I was still only 10 and 11 when this was happening), I am ashamed to say I liked it. I know I should not be ashamed, but although I have had counselling throughout my teenage and adult life, I cannot bring myself to be unashamed.
Time moved on and I still went round to their house everyday. My mum referred to his partner as “my second mum,” they were an extension of my family and I loved them as such. The first night we kissed, and I mean proper adult kissed, I was going out to play tennis with my friends and I was round at his house beforehand, I cannot remember where his family were, his partner had maybe gone to England to visit her family and taken the children with her, unknowingly to her and anyone else, this left us alone in their house. He had told me to wait while he got some washing in and then I stood up to leave and he took me by the waist and we kissed, he told me he loved me and eventually as time went on, I told him I loved him as well. I feel sick writing it now, he was 34 and I was 12. I went out and met my friends at the tennis club, I told them what had just happened and I said it in a way as if I had a new boyfriend but he was older than me and I likened it to a storyline that was happening in a soap at the time, although naively I did not see a difference, I just referred to it because the couple in the soap had a bit of an age gap, but they were both consenting adults and it was nothing like what was happening to me, I just did not know that at the time. I do not remember how he managed it, but he had convinced me we were having an affair, yes, that’s right, a 34 year old and a 13 year old were having an affair.
By now the touching had started in my vagina, it happened all the time, when I was in his house, outside playing with his children and he was there. We would meet in his car some evenings, especially in the winter, he would arrange to meet me in a dark street nearby and pick me up, he would then drive somewhere away from people and he would touch me until I came. He would pick me up from school on Fridays and take me somewhere quiet and touch me and then drop me off at the train station in the village so that it would look like I had got the train home with the rest of the school kids. Other times he would make an excuse to go out for a takeaway so that he could meet me, but his partner was not suspicious because he went home with food. He took every opportunity to touch me and did not care sometimes that his partner was downstairs and his children were in the same room as us, he did what he did discreetly enough that no one knew what he was doing. He would always say to me that if anyone found out his partner and children would move to England and he knew that scared me because I was so attached to them.
He only once made me touch him and he was hard, but I did not know what to do and so I did not do anything. He would never touch himself in front of me either, but if we were in his house when he had finished with me, he would go to the bathroom, and now as an adult I know what he was doing. I was a very naive 12 year old! One time his 3 year old son (the one who was the baby) saw us kissing when were out, he said to me few times over time “I saw you and my daddy kissing,” but I brushed him off and told him “we did not kiss and his dad must have been helping to get something out of my eye.” I do not think the boy believed me, but he eventually let it go. I do not know if the boy (he is in his 30’s now) has ever told anyone else about it.. Over time I disclosed what was going on to my friends and my sister, but I told them “we are in love,” no one ever questioned it or told any adults about it.
Eventually his partner began to suspect something was going on, she treated me like I was guilty of something, she started to ignore me and not treat me as nicely as she used to. One summer she took the children to England with her and he told me she was suspicious of us and that she had left him. I remember feeling sad and worried that we had been found out. I know now that I should have had nothing to worry about, it should have been him, but I did not know that at the time. She returned not long after that and she was very distant with me and any remainder of a relationship had broken down. Me and him continued to meet and he continued to abuse me, so he obviously was not concerned that his partner would leave him and take his children with her.
A few months later, it was a dark November evening, his partner came round to my house in fits of rage, with a letter that I had written him that she had found a love letter in his jeans pocket , shouting that I was having an affair with her partner. At that time, no one, not that I can remember, assured me that I had done nothing wrong and that the blame was all on him. I went to bed that night scared and worried, I thought everyone was going to hate me for breaking up a family, for having an affair with a man who has a partner and children. My mum and dad got me out of bed in the middle of the night and, what felt like, interrogated me. It felt like the blame was all put on me, that my mum and dad took his partner’s accusations of an affair, put it on my shoulders and everyone went with it. The following day I saw one of their friends in her car, I waved to her and she ignored me. Their children started calling me names in the street, which went on for years, even after I had got married, moved to another town and had a child of my own. He never spoke to me ever again, EVER! He completely ignored me. I did not try to speak to him, but he never tried to speak to me either. His partner did not leave him, to this day they are still together.
It took me years to realise that what had happened to me was sexual abuse. I went through my teenage years hating myself, I had depression, anorexia, bulimia, I self harmed, I failed to do well in school, all because if him. When I eventually figured out that I was abused, I told the police and he was taken to court, but nothing happened to him, all that happened was his children were monitored by social workers, but I do not even think that lasted long.
I have carried the shame and guilt for my whole teenage and adult life and only recently, after another few months of counselling have I realised that I was not to blame for ANY OF IT. HE IS GUILTY, HE SHOULD CARRY ALL OF THE BLAME AND SHAME.
Survivor
