General Relationship DiscussionAlthough anyone can post anywhere on Talk About Marriage, this section is for people interested in general relationship and marriage advice.
He cheated. There is no excuse for that. He needs to own up to that. Maybe his wife will never be able to forgive him. Maybe he is truly remorseful and they may be able to make it.
The difficult part is the 15 year old. I have seen 15 year olds that truly look and act like 21 year olds. They walk into bars and don't get ID'd. They are mature beyond their years. I know that when I was 15, I was probably the equivalent of being 12. No hair on my armpits, crotch, etc. I had friends with full beards and were fully grown at 15. To me, physical maturity and mental maturity are as important as her actual chronological age.
So to me it depends. Was this 15 year old equivalent to a 18 year old or was she equivalent to a 12 year old? If she was 10, it would be clear that her husband is a child molester. If she was equivalent to an 18 year old, then I see him as a cheater and not a child molester.
At best, the OPs husband is a cheater. At worst, he is also a child molester. Without knowing these people, it is difficult to tell.
He cheated. There is no excuse for that. He needs to own up to that. Maybe his wife will never be able to forgive him. Maybe he is truly remorseful and they may be able to make it.
The difficult part is the 15 year old. I have seen 15 year olds that truly look and act like 21 year olds. They walk into bars and don't get ID'd. They are mature beyond their years. I know that when I was 15, I was probably the equivalent of being 12. No hair on my armpits, crotch, etc. I had friends with full beards and were fully grown at 15. To me, physical maturity and mental maturity are as important as her actual chronological age.
So to me it depends. Was this 15 year old equivalent to a 18 year old or was she equivalent to a 12 year old? If she was 10, it would be clear that her husband is a child molester. If she was equivalent to an 18 year old, then I see him as a cheater and not a child molester.
At best, the OPs husband is a cheater. At worst, he is also a child molester. Without knowing these people, it is difficult to tell.
The unfortunate thing for him is that the many statuatory rape codes of the various states are never written to take any extenuating circumstances into consideration.
He cheated. There is no excuse for that. He needs to own up to that. Maybe his wife will never be able to forgive him. Maybe he is truly remorseful and they may be able to make it.
The difficult part is the 15 year old. I have seen 15 year olds that truly look and act like 21 year olds. They walk into bars and don't get ID'd. They are mature beyond their years. I know that when I was 15, I was probably the equivalent of being 12. No hair on my armpits, crotch, etc. I had friends with full beards and were fully grown at 15. To me, physical maturity and mental maturity are as important as her actual chronological age.
So to me it depends. Was this 15 year old equivalent to a 18 year old or was she equivalent to a 12 year old? If she was 10, it would be clear that her husband is a child molester. If she was equivalent to an 18 year old, then I see him as a cheater and not a child molester.
At best, the OPs husband is a cheater. At worst, he is also a child molester. Without knowing these people, it is difficult to tell.
I'm not going to go into the it's wrong regardless because she is a minor bit because I've already said it.
But you think a 15 year old who has attention seeking issues and is promiscuous AND told her family she was touched inappropriately by the husband is mentally mature enough?
He cheated. There is no excuse for that. He needs to own up to that. Maybe his wife will never be able to forgive him. Maybe he is truly remorseful and they may be able to make it.
The difficult part is the 15 year old. I have seen 15 year olds that truly look and act like 21 year olds. They walk into bars and don't get ID'd. They are mature beyond their years. I know that when I was 15, I was probably the equivalent of being 12. No hair on my armpits, crotch, etc. I had friends with full beards and were fully grown at 15. To me, physical maturity and mental maturity are as important as her actual chronological age.
So to me it depends. Was this 15 year old equivalent to a 18 year old or was she equivalent to a 12 year old? If she was 10, it would be clear that her husband is a child molester. If she was equivalent to an 18 year old, then I see him as a cheater and not a child molester.
At best, the OPs husband is a cheater. At worst, he is also a child molester. Without knowing these people, it is difficult to tell.
He knew her age. How old she looks would matter if he didn't. But he did. So he's a sexual predator whether she looks 10 or 30.
I'm sorry about your situation. It sounds really devastating and you must be going through a lot of pain. I advise that you make sure you have an objective space in which you can contend with these issues; give yourself some space from your family and your husband while you do so. They will all need space to sort through their feelings, too. Please safeguard the situation so that your husband does not have any more contact with your family because he has demonstrated that he cannot be trusted around them. He really needs counseling.
Look for a therapist you can actually trust and feel good talking to. I recommend someone who does narrative postmodern therapy. You'll feel less restricted by what the therapist does or doesn't do in his/her life. It might take a while before you connect with someone, but don't give up.
Allow yourself a period of separation from your husband while you work out your issues. He has behaved inappropriately with a minor and while he might be rushing to fix your marriage, it is clear that he has got some real work to do on himself, first. His transgression was a big one. This isn't just cheating, but something indicative of bigger and deeper problems within him in addition to problems you may have in your marriage. You will be able to think more clearly about what you want if you are not immediately with him while you are thinking things out, especially given your history with abuse and dysfunction. It's going to take a very long time to make sense of these things, so hang in there.
Don't blame your sister. She acted foolishly, too, but she's a teenager and your husband is a grown man who has basically behaved like a predator. If she has issues with male figures in her life, I am sure the situation was complicated for her, too. She's known him and trusted him and it sounds to me like he really should have known better than to take advantage of a teenager who is young enough to be his own daughter and who isn't even fully mature yet.
Hang in there. What happened is not something you could have prevented, but how you behave now and what you do is entirely in your control. Please don't tune out the very big problem that has now come to light, especially not out of any sense of obligation.
Not only did he know her age, he had known her since before she was five. He had been, according to the OP, a father figure to her. She wasn't just some random fifteen year old, which would be bad enough. Posted via Mobile Device
Let me be clear...I am not blaming my minor sister...she is the victim and my husband is the adult and should have known better....
It's natural to be confused and conflicted when so much is going on. I'm glad to hear you distinguish between feeling betrayed by your sister's behavior and assigning blame. We feel betrayed whenever the people we love and trust do things that show a disregard for our hearts, so that part makes sense. And you'll come to terms with it at some point in the future.
It is important to hear you say that you are not blaming your sister. It is also important to hear you saying that your husband should have known better. You also need to recognize that he probably did know better, which is why he concealed it, and that he lied and deceived you and did it anyway. You have no way of knowing whether this has happened with other people in the past, either. Please recognize that the blame lies solely with your husband here, that his transgression wasn't just manipulating your sister into sexual acts, but that his transgression was his choice to be a sexual predator regardless of the fact this little girl is not only his sister in law, not only a minor, but also someone who would be vulnerable because of the power imbalance there and because of the family history which he knew fully well; he has behaved this way despite the fact that he has basically watched her grow up.
As he is now, without reforming himself, he should NOT be trusted around children or impressionable young people -- especially if his response is such a cowardly deceitful and blatantly false "I was too drunk to remember". If you stay with him while you try to work things out, you are sending him the message that his behavior was okay with you and that prevents him from learning how wrong it was on so many levels. He's looking for that. I am not saying go run and get a divorce now, but I honestly believe that a separation is a very good idea for your mental health and for him to understand the consequences and problems of such depraved behavior. Please think about not just blaming him, but understanding how much blame he should be getting and also the severity of the blameworthy transgression.
Your life if falling apart, but you need to step farther back, not just to see how your marriage will survive this, but whether this man can be helped to become someone who is safe to be married to. Given what you know about him now, how much more is he hiding? Do you really know who he is, after all? Look carefully at what he reveals about himself now that he's been caught out because it will say a lot about his character; these are things you need to see and make sense of before you make a decision about whether or not to stay with this person.
It's interesting that he married his wife when she was 19yrs old and I would imagine dated her beforehand. She said that she was troubled and he helped her. Her sister is 15 and troubled. Maybe he is turned on by troubled teenaged girls.
Yes, turned on and knowing they are vulnerable and he can prey on them. He surely preyed on the sister.
Even if the 15 year old lay down naked in front of him, there is no excuse, not one, for him not shutting her down and walking away. I don't care whether she initiated and planned the whole thing, which i highly doubt.
I bet the number of men who would walk away is far lower than you think.
I probably would, but I'm also going to make sure I'm never in that circumstance.
That said, I've also sat on a jury and sent a guy away for 8 years for doing that with a 14 y/o. She was aggressive, and freely admitted that she sought out a "experienced" guy for her first time. She said she wanted it to be good instead of fumbling around with a kid her age. The point of the age of consent laws is to protect kids from predators. This girl didn't need any protecting, she was going to go and have sex. In the end, I feel OK with what I did, because the guy knew exactly what the consequences would be and took the risk.
She's mature enough to know she'll get more attention by being the victim than the aggressor.
So is my 5 year old girl who's in kindergarten.
Children under 18 aren't given the responsibility that adults are given because they are still biologicaly growing, and they have growth hormones coursing through their body that can still override ther rational processes. That calms down in adulthood, and the law is set as a standard at age 18 (generally speaking) as a recognition of that. Adults, and at 30 something there can be no question that this applies, are expected to have the self-control to act rationally without their hormones overriding that rational restraint. Whether the line is at 18 or 21 or 16, it is plain as day that it is more understandable for a 15 year old than a 35 year old to not have the will-power to override hormones.
With that said.. We've been talking about this for 4 pages without any sign of the OP. I stayed out of it because it's all just messed up as far as I'm concerned.
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