Loving and Leaving an Abuser: A Mother's Struggle to Save Her Child from Sexual Abuse

Loving and

Leaving an

Abuser

A Mother’s Struggle to Save Her Child from Sexual Abuse

ELLEN MARGEL

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

Loving and Leaving an Abuser

A Mother’s Struggle to Save Her Child from Sexual Abuse

Copyright © 2010, 2011 by Ellen Margel

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ISBN: 978-1-4620-1960-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-1962-5 (dj)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-1961-8 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 05/13/2011

Dedication

To my daughter, for the inspiration and strength that I have needed

so many times in my life.

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Afterword

Resource List

References

Preface

I have been encouraged by many people to tell this story. It is about the man I married, with whom I had a child, and later divorced. He was an abuser. He abused alcohol, heroin, and cocaine. Eventually, he emotionally abused me and sexually abused our daughter.

I made a poor choice when I married him. Life presents each of us with opportunities that require choices. Some of the choices we make will turn out to be very positive. Others, unfortunately, cause us great pain. If it is true that making good choices will guarantee a happy life, is there no hope for those of us who make poor choices? Are we doomed to suffer the consequences forever? Or is it possible to make new choices that will enable us to turn our lives around? There are instances in this story where an emotionally abused partner might relate to my behavior. Some experiences were described in order to explain how I regained my emotional strength and sharpened my survival skills.

The story told in this book is completely factual. The names and places, however, have been changed. It is written with love to offer comfort, hope, and insight for traveling an unpleasant journey—an emotional roller coaster—through our legal system. The ride began with the discovery of my husband’s drug addiction. His addiction was made aware to me after five years of marriage and two days after I had left him for the final time because of his emotional abuse. The roller coaster careened downhill upon the revelation of his sexual abuse of our daughter, when she was less than four years old. The final loops of the ride were through the court system—they needed to be navigated in order to bring us to safety. Although the incidents took place over twenty-two years ago, I remember almost every detail as if they occurred a few hours ago. Thankfully, my daughter has forgotten most of the incidents.

Many people have lived through similar situations and have found ways to cope. A woman who learns of the sexual abuse of her child or children feels very alone because family and friends—usual support systems—have never experienced this dark side of human behavior. At first, people cannot find the words necessary to comfort you and help you gain the strength to do what needs to be done. This is the time to turn to new people, who are experts, who are not emotionally involved in your particular issue, and who have the trust of the courts. It is my hope that this book will help you find the inner strength and courage to help you and your children.

Children are a very important part of our society. They need our help to become strong adults, as they are powerless to help themselves. It is, after all, the responsibility of parents to care for and protect their children. Child abusers are often adults who may have been abused when they were children. Very often, they come from homes where domestic violence was a major part of their upbringing. This cycle of violence and abuse needs to be broken. We live in a country where resources are available to assist abusers and victims in making the necessary changes.

The first step in helping is for an adult to believe a child’s story and then seek help. Knowing that they are believed and that someone wants to help them will give children the needed assurance that they are loved, that not all adults will hurt them, and that the abuse can come to an end. The nonabusive parent has to be strong enough to take the necessary steps and needs to know where to turn in order to get the proper assistance.

Parents, please listen to your children. Two of the adult women in my life who learned of my child’s story have shared with me that their fathers sexually abused them. As children, they revealed the incidences of abuse to their mothers. Their mothers didn’t believe them and did nothing to help. Consequently, these victims have carried so many unanswered questions with them throughout their lives. They are functioning, loving, productive, educated women; but they have questions that can’t be answered because they weren’t allowed to ask them when they were children.

In far too many cases, the nonabusive parent denies the abuse because they are dependent on the abusive adult. As parents, you need to do whatever is necessary to see that your children are educated or trained in a field that will give them the ability to feed their families when they become adults. An education should guarantee that no one need remain in an abusive relationship because of financial difficulties.

Our children depend on us to supply the environment in which their needs can be met. According to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, certain needs have to be met in order for a person to become a secure and productive adult. The first step is to have our basic needs, such as food and shelter, guaranteed before we can proceed to the next step, which is looking for safety. That explains why addicts shoot drugs into their veins with dirty needles. The drug has become their basic need, and that need is exclusively all important. After the basics and safety, comes the need for love. When we feel safe and secure, we look for love and belonging. The next step in the hierarchy is self-esteem, and then you can move to becoming self-actualizing (being all you can be), which is a lifelong process. Imagine someone who is suffering abuse that is bringing them back to step two, the need to feel safe. Now imagine that the person being abused is a small child. You can certainly understand why, without an intervention of any kind, there would be scars that would follow them well into adulthood, with some irreparable damage. A loving adult can make the difference.

Fear is an extremely strong emotion. The victim of an abuser may be afraid to tell anyone of the abuse. The victim or the caregiver may be afraid to leave the abuser if he or she is the main source of financial support.

It is important for you to be always aware that you are not alone in this world and that there are occasions when you might need to ask for help. If the safety of your child or children is the issue, never be too proud to ask for help.

When I was in the throes of my nightmare, I didn’t know that there were services available to me. Today there are victim services agencies in every state that have different types of assistance available. One phone call could be the start of a new and improved life. The advocates will speak with you and assist you through the nightmare of abuse and help to return you and your child to a life of normalcy. They are there to help you become a survivor rather than a victim.

Perhaps this story will educate the reader in some way and give you some insight. It is my hope that your family is free from such problems, but you may know someone who needs this help. You could be part of the support system for a nonabusive parent. Please be assured that your support is so important. The resource list at the end of the book will give you more opportunities to become better aware of the issue of abuse.

Acknowledgments

It is necessary to give thanks to those people who are my rocks in life: Linda and Rich, Margaret and Bill, and Ellen and John. Others, such as Dennis, Ann Marie, Norman, Mary, Leigh, Ro, Grandma Edie, Jean, Rosanne and Walter, Bridget, Dolores, to name but a few, were with me through my darkest hours. There have been so many people who have been there each step of the way, especially when I didn’t know that I needed them. They have provided safety, information, and assistance in ways that go above and beyond. Even more than that, when I felt the most alone, they showed me kindness. They warmed my soul and restored my spirit.

Thanks to my parents for giving me the emotional tools necessary to prove that it really does pay to do the right thing. My father had died before this horror came to pass, but I know that he helped me get through the worst of it. My mother was there for me every step of the way. For the first time I can remember, when my divorce was over, she told me that she was very proud of me. I was forty-four years old at the time!

Most of all, thanks to my daughter. An adult now, she has given me generous encouragement and has taught me so many lessons in life. She’s brave, fair, and has a wonderful soul.

There is total recognition here, and during every day of my life, that God is always with us to guide us.

Chapter One

A Romance Begins

This story begins on the evening that Sean Roberts walked into my life. I remember meeting him while out with a group of friends at a function for singles. While many men at these events can be shy and standoffish, Sean started a conversation with me almost immediately.

His dress was a bit flashy for my taste, but he was so friendly and outgoing I wrote it off as him trying to impress some single ladies and overlooked his poor fashion sense. We spent the entire evening talking. Before I left, we exchanged phone numbers, began dating a few weeks later, and were together for almost nine years after that fateful evening.

Many of the events that shaped our lives before we met were never discussed with each other. Many were never mentioned. Our life together would reveal a world that I was unaccustomed to, as well as survival skills and strength of character that I never knew I possessed.

Sean was pleasant enough, but I don’t think my friends thought he was my type. Once they saw how happy I was whenever Sean was with me, they came around. After all, I was thirty-three years old and could make my own decisions, sensible and otherwise. Sean thirty-eight, was a divorced father of three boys: Sean, Jr., who was eleven; Kyle, seven; and Brian, six. If you think this is heading in the Brady Bunch direction, think again. I had never married and had no children, although eventually becoming a mother was the most important goal in my life.

In the beginning of our relationship, Sean and I spent a lot of time learning about the things we had in common—as well as our (many) differences. There were so many things that Sean carefully neglected to tell me about his past that wouldn’t surface for a long time.

Sean was an entrepreneur at heart and the owner of a small store in Arlington, New York. I preferred the more traditional nine to five route and was a high school teacher in a small town. My home was across a river from where Sean lived and worked. Our differences didn’t end there. Sean was gregarious and fun while I was slightly more conservative but enjoyed having fun as well. Sean never went to college, and it showed when he spoke freely but incorrectly in public. I could overlook Sean’s grammatical mistakes because he made me laugh and because I knew he was intelligent and seemed to have common sense regardless of his lack of schooling. We were also of different religions; Sean was a lapsed Catholic, and I am Jewish.

I was always the one everyone came to because they felt I was strong and someone who could handle anything that they chose to share with me. I enjoyed that role immensely, but who does the comforter go to when she needs to be comforted? In that sense, Sean was stronger, and I felt