Bra Archives

It came to my attention that my daughter (almost 17) was playing around with my husband (stepdad). They were poking, kicking, etc – just playing. She got up, went to the bathroom, took off her bra, came back to where he was and proceeded to take his hand and put it up her shirt onto her breast. The lines between the two of them have been blurred for quite some time. She has often acted like a jealous girlfriend – for example, she would get angry if he wanted to sit next to me or take me out instead of sitting next to her or taking her to the batting cages. I have repeatedly talked to them both to no avail. Now this happened – not once, but twice. They’ve apologized. I have other children – including one with him. I have no income of my own or family to run to to just up and leave. And I’m just not sure what to do. We’ve been together for 13 years. I blame her for being so provocative with him (something she does not display around here), but I blame him exponentially more. He didn’t tell me, he lied to me about it, he could have acted like a parent and said this is wrong, or even used his strength to not allow his hand to go there. Instead, he claimed that he got freaked out, squeezed her breast and said boop! Help!

This is very, very serious. You say the boundaries have been blurred for quite some time. Maybe what you are interpreting as jealous and provocative behaviors are your daughter’s efforts to tell you in the only way she can to wake up! Your husband is not drawing appropriate boundaries. It may be that he has been molesting her. It may be that he has threatened or bribed her to keep quiet about it.

You keep talking to the two of them as if they are equals in the situation. They are not. She is your child. He is a man who is supposed to be keeping her safe. He may be justifying his behavior on the grounds that he is not related biologically to her but he is her stepfather, not her boyfriend. One slip in the boundaries is perhaps a “mistake.” More that once? Please! You are in serious denial.

Your daughter needs help, not talk. In your state, sexual abuse is defined as when a parent or other adult uses a child under age 18 for sexual gratification. Your husband should be reported to Child Protective Services at 855-GA-CHILD . That’s easier said than done, I know, especially since you feel dependent on him. For that reason, I suggest you first call your state’s 24-Hour Statewide Domestic Violence Hotline, 800-33-HAVEN. Although you may not think of yourself as being a victim of domestic violence, your daughter certainly is. The counselors at the hotline can help you figure out how to keep everyone safe and how to manage without your husband, should that be necessary.

All of you — your daughter, you, and your husband — need counseling. Your daughter needs help sorting out what has been a confusing and abusive situation. If she has been manipulated or “brainwashed” to think her stepdad’s behavior is OK, she is especially vulnerable. You need emotional support as well as some practical help to keep your family secure and afloat during a difficult time. Since you husband can’t keep his hands to himself, he needs to leave until he has done some serious personal work. He must take responsibility for his behavior and he has to learn impulse control before he can be part of the family.

Please don’t let your fears prevent you from taking action. Your daughter, and your other children, need a tiger-mom right now. They deserve to feel safe from sexual abuse in their own home. If your daughter is to have a chance for a normal relationship with a partner someday, she needs you to get the family the help you all need.

I wish you well.
Dr. Marie

My sister has self-diagnosed and is using that to get her way. She has started seeing a therapist, but all she does is use what the therapist says to again get her way.

Examples of this are how she takes great liberties in telling me anything she wants, and then claiming “You can’t tell me I can’t say that to you, because my therapist says I am allowed to have an opinion.” She doesn’t work or go to school, she likes to sleep strange hours (5 am to about 3 pm) and then claim her bad mood is because she can’t sleep. She can’t clean, cook, do laundry; she’s constantly trying to force all of us to do things for her (like yelling at me if I don’t feel like getting her clothing downstairs, or getting mad at my mother for not washing the right bra). But while this is all old news, since she’s started seeing this therapist, she’s gotten worse. We had a fight the other day, because my food on the kitchen table came within 1 foot of her underwear (the problem here CLEARLY being that the underwear were on the table… but she did not see it this way), she has decided to start name calling, and she barricaded me in the kitchen the other day because I told her she wasn’t allowed to call me names. While she is terrible to everyone in the house, she is the worst with me because even though I am 22 years old, she has decided that I am in need of guidance and that she should be the one to do it. Between her checking my outfits and throwing fits if she does not approve, and her observing my eating habits, I am obviously at the end of my rope (I should point out I don’t dress provocatively and I am a personal trainer and my eating habits are beyond healthy)

Something is obviously wrong with her. While I cannot do anything to change that, life is terrible in this house. My mother has given up and she sleeps a lot. The house is filthy and no one bothers to clean it because there is no point… my sister just dirties it up again within the hour. I have started getting stomachaches and headaches whenever she is home, which is always. I cry a lot, and am starting to get mean because I feel like a bear in a cage. I tried talking to my mother about this but she just cried and told me if she knew we would all be this unhappy, she would never have had us. It is interfering with my social life, my work, and my relationships…

I have no idea what to do anymore, or whom I can call for this. Shouldn’t her Therapist know what’s happening? What does someone do when they are terrorizing the household?

Thank you for your time.

I do not know what is wrong with your sister, but one thing is certain. She doesn’t realize that whatever the therapist is saying to her is equally true for others in the household. Of course she is entitled to an opinion, but so are you. The difficulty is with your sister’s interpretation, not the advice she is getting. Think about it. She misinterprets everyone and everything in the home and twists it to her advantage. Doesn’t it make sense she will simply do the same with information she gets from the therapist? She is the cause of the turmoil in her life, not anyone else. But to get her to understand that may take a long time, if ever.

I would recommend two things. First, each time she does something “off” and uses her self-aggrandized interpretation, be clear with her that you have the same rights, and don’t see it the same way, and that you have as much right to your opinion /perspective as she does. Do not let her bully you into anything. Confront her at every turn, every event, and every inappropriate comment. Reclaim your personal power with her. Don’t let her pathology usurp your individuality.

It is also time for you to develop a personal plan to move out of the house. It might take a year, but you need a concrete plan for moving out and on with your life.

You indicated you were a personal trainer. What would you suggest to a client who wanted to be healthy, but everyone they lived with smoked in the house every day and they were complaining that their clothes and hair smelled bad and they had started developing a cough? You would encourage them not to allow smoke to be blown in their face, but to make plans to live somewhere else. No matter how healthy you are, if you go back into that kind of environment it isn’t going to be okay. This is the emotional equivalent.

Wishing you patience and peace,
Dr. Dan

Bra

Inappropriate Behavior between Daughter, Stepdad

My Sister is Ruining the House