	AllExperts > Molestation
	Search

About Sarah Harrison
Expertise
I am an expert and counselor on experts.com too. I am aware and have been through it all. I can answer your questions on being molested by my father, brother and how it feels as an adult to have dissociative identity disorder (DID) and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I can also answer questions on being in SAA, Sex Addicts Anonymous, AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, being married several times as I tried to run from all my fears, including getting lost on the road and yet I still would strike out to find a man even if I did get lost. There's not anything I can imagine that I wouldn't try to answer!

Experience
When I was fifty-nine years of age, I experienced an incorporation with Dr. William Tollefson, the gentleman that developed incorporation therapy. Now my three altars and I are one system instead of four of us fighting against each other. On top of the molestations of childhood, I was raped repeatedly in college by three men and left to die. I stayed in basically an abusive marriage for 26 years even though I was the one that was educated, six years of college. Organizations: United Methodist's Women's Group, Epiphany, Faith Partner's, Emmaus Walk Publications: Sarah Harrison has written several articles for the Women's Institute for Incorporation Therapy's monthly newsletter as well as articles for spiritual magazines. She has just recently published her own true tragedy of sexual abuse entitled, "You Love Your Daddy, Don't You?" Go to www.incestvictim.com to view the website and order her book. Education/Credentials: Master's in Education, Specialist's in Education, Specialist's in Administration. Awards and Honors: Teacher of the Year, on the Board of the Finance Committee for Gwinnett Co. Board of Ed. for seven years, CASA volunteer in Forsyth Co. for four years. Past/Present Clients: Women's group at Birmingham United Methodist Church in Alpharetta, GA and Epiphany at Columbia, SC. I want to start engaging in speaking conferences for other women's groups as soon as possible now that my book is published.

You are here: Experts > Health/Fitness > Abuse/Incest Support > Molestation > afraid for our child

Molestation - afraid for our child

Expert: Sarah Harrison - 11/3/2009

Question
dear sarah,
last night my sister in law came over to our house to tell us something very disturbing. she said when she was 11 years old my husbands father molested her while they watched tv in bed, and my mom in law was working nights. my father in law has been known as a godly man, and my husband and i have always been so proud to have him as our father. the night she told us she came over after we had finished having supper with them. my 2 year old daughter loves her grandfather more then any other person in both our families and we had just thanked God for giving as such a great family as we tucked her in last night, so to hear this a half in hour later was just horrifying. we could not even think of anything to say and my husband just started vomiting when he heard it. i believe that she is telling the truth! she would never say anything like that in vain and she told us she was most afraid to tell us because of how close we are to him, but she sees how much our daughter loves him and knew that we needed to know. i can not tell you how much i love and appreciate that she would protect her like that even when it was so hard to. he denies ever doing anything to her, and my mom in law believes him. i think i would almost feel better if he just said he did and asked for her and everyone else to forgive him. i am in morning for my daughter though and my question relates to her, how do i handle their relationship and put the boundaries that have to be there in place without essentially killing their relationship completely. she is just a baby and i don't want to have to expose her to this world of sexual immorality by explaining all of the things mommy and daddy now won't let her papa do with her now, but i refuse to put her in the same position too! i just feel sick for her loss of her normal healthy relationship with her grandfather, and the loss of who we was in our eyes.
thank you for your help through this!

Answer
Dear Lyn,
Something about the entire situation sounds erroneous to me. A family never goes that long without someone hearing about the molestation before now. Your husband or his mother would have known something before now. Also a dad does not wait until the child is 11 years old if they are going to start molesting them. If she in fact was molested, she would have had difficulty with sex growing up through high school and with relationships every since then unless she had therapy at that young age, which her mom and most likely brother would have known about.

I read your question when it first came up in my email, but have been doing some mind searching about your situation. Before you give up your relationship with your daddy and your daughter's grandfather, give it some more thought. Keep a close eye on them just in case, but also look at his sister to see if their might be reasons that she could be jealous. Does she have grandchildren to him, maybe boys that he is not as crazy about? Is she younger and unmarried and y'all are taking all of her dad's attention away from her?

If this is an untruth, can you imagine how it hurts his dad. You are just going to have to supervise their visits until you know the truth of it all and why his sister told you that. Talk to her more about her incident. I can tell you this. When you talk to her, if she says it only happened one time, then it never happened. Men like that don't just do it one time. It never stops. If he had been doing it with her, he probably would have made passes at you when you were dating his son.

I am so sorry about waiting so long to answer you. I was raised in a family of male molesters and I know their habits too well. I just don't know what made her tell you that, but I don't know her either.

I hope and pray to God that you can get the situation solved. God bless you and her father for wanting to protect your little one.

Blessings,
Sarah

Add to this Answer Ask a Question