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oneforyvg · Mar 7, 2010, 01:54 PM

My son was molested when he was 7 years old. I recently found out. He began to hate me and blame me for this. I was suppose to protect him. But I didn't know? We started to get close and talk about what happened. Well he hating me all over again. Telling me I am a bad mom. I deserve all his anger. But what can I do??

oneforyvg · Mar 7, 2010, 01:57 PM

My sons was molested when he was seven. I recently found out he is 29 now. I went to counseling and spent as much time with him as I could. I thought we were okay. But I believe he feels that I should have known and should have protected him. Yes I wish I had known and I would have done something. But he hates me all over again. What do I do?

Fr_Chuck · Mar 7, 2010, 02:40 PM

Ye needs to get into professional counseling

Jake2008 · Mar 7, 2010, 08:35 PM

Counselling is not a cake walk. To go through the gut wrenching feelings of dredging up the past in order to understand and get past it, takes a very long time. He has likely been haunted by the events of 20 years ago, and has bravely gone into counselling to finally deal with it.

It is not about him finding fault with you, but rather an outlet for his anger to blame you right now. He may even blame himself for not telling you, but like you, he didn't know what to do at age 7, and you were unaware, so you weren't able to deal with it either.

Expressing anger is good, especially if he's still going through the stages of counselling. Don't take this personally, which sounds ridiculous to say, but I mean in a way that he actually hates you, because he doesn't. Let him talk, vent, say what he needs to say, and allow his emotions to come out. Try not to be defensive, or to argue with him. Mom's can accept a lot from their children, because it is unconditional love, and he is banking on that right now.

Your grief over what happened to your son will of course, also affect you, and it is great that you too have attended counselling. I hope that when he finds peace, your relationship will return to normal.

Hang in there.

METERRE · Mar 7, 2010, 09:28 PM

Having been a victim of sexual molestation since the age of 5, I understand your son in some way. I think trying to fix what was broken in the past now, will be quite a journey. What counted was that you had been close to him back then, and perhaps then, you could have known it was going on.
I went through the same period of let's say (distance), to not say the word hate, with my own family member(parent). I did also think they should have known and felt loads of anger and guilt and all sorts of feelings towards them and myself.
One thing a parent of a victim should not do in my experience, is to make the incidence seem unimportant or say "it's the past, forget about it." If that were easy to forget, we would have already. However you must also not make your reaction of it an overwhelmingly big deal or that can also put an awkward barrier between you. You must show that you are trying to understand his feelings at a deeper level, but do not pity him. He could get to become comfortable with the situation if he is pitied too much, the same way if you show your guilt too much, he could get comfortable with making you feel guilty.
I can't say I'm completely over my past, but I believe in God, and that has helped me greatly. Something that I can say now, is that even though I suffered because of that past, I am now thankful things happened how they did. It might not sound sane of me to think that way, but if it hadn't happened the way it did, I wouldn't be who I am now. And as for my relationship with my parent/s, I'm working on it, because it isn't only you (the mom) who is supposed to cooperate to make things better, he has to do his part also.

P.S. If you or your son are non-believers, do seek professional help if that's your best option.