Hello All

This is the first time posting, in fact this is the first time ever coming to a site like this. I was a male victim of sexual abuse by my father in my childhood. I am 31 years old now, I am engaged and my first child is on the way. My father has been in prison for 14 years now for molesting another boy, he is up for parole again this month, he was denied twice before.

I’m not exactly sure where to start since I really haven’t talked much about this before. Yes, I have told my fiancée and previous girlfriends but these conversations were always short.

I guess I will start by saying how I tried to deal with things over the years so here it goes. I am a person that tries to find reason and understanding behind everything so I guess my first mission over the years was to try to find understanding on why things happened. I’ve actually read notes posted on forums and such places by molesters trying to explain why they are the way they are. The short answer I got from some posts on why molesters molest is an “uncontrollable urge to do so”. Having a history of mental illness in the family I’ve consider that perhaps my father was somewhat mentally ill because really what sane person would molest their kids? Because of this point of view, I never really considered myself a victim and I never really felt much rage towards my father because I never really held him accountable in my mind, if that makes sense to anyone…

As parole is possibly near, I am questioning myself if made the right choice by trying to define reason by what happened. Currently I find myself uncomfortable with the idea of his parole. I find myself wondering if people can change, can a successful adult relationship be built with a parent that molested you? Should i continue to void him out of my life and so on...

I think this is enough for now, my fiancée will be home soon and I’m not sure if I should talk about my posts with her just yet…

NA77

NA77,

Welcome to MS. I empathize with your predicament and all I can offer you is to suggest that you keep reading the posts on the site so as to gain as broad a perspective as you can into male CSA as well as incest issues.

From experience I can tell you that you will find the support and understanding that you need and I can assure you that we will all do our level best to answer any questions that you may have.

Hello NA77,

Welcome to MS. I hope you will find this place to be a great source of information and understanding. For myself, I have learned so much about myself by being able to understand the stories of others, what they have been through, and the parallels to my own experiences. I think I have grown quite a bit because of this and I am not sure without it that I could have made those same gains. Take a look around and feel free to post whatever and whenever you feel comfortable.

Eric

Hi NA77'

Welcome to MS. Welcome to where you will find compassion, understanding and love. Take our hand and we will try and help you. Here you are with true brothers (fraternal), friends (in pain). We have bared our very souls to each other. We are not thearapists, but take what ever information that is right for you, we do not judge anyone.

So again welcome aboard. NA77. Heal well my brother/friend.

Pete (Irishmoose)

NA77:
If your father is paroled, he will likely have a parole officer who will provide supervision and a lot of "do's and don'ts". Generally, offenders are either court ordered or told by the PO that they cannot have contact with victims (or minors, etc.)

If you are not listed as a victim in his case, there would not likely be any restriction on his contact with you once he is released. There is also the question of whether or not he had sex offense-specific treatment in prison;



Offenders generally need to be in this kind of treatment to change. If he has been in treatment for offending and really integrated it, he should acknowledge what he had done to you and possibly attempt some resolution through a therapist, if YOU are willing to have some sort of relationship with him in the future.

Regardless of whether he has been in treatment, you may be interested in reading "Disclosure and Confrontation" (http://www.malesurvivor.org/ArchivedPages/singer3.html) which may give you some direction on where to go with this. Should he wish a relationship with you, you have the right to insist that he be in sex offense-specific therapy when he gets out. Under no circumstances should you allow the old dynamics to continue from the time of the abuse.

You can contact the state parole board to give written input if you'd like. That can be to tell them what he did to you (the "disclosure" part of the above article,) and perhaps insist that they require him to be in offender treatment once he is paroled.

Welcome to MS. My feeling is that if you still want to have some kind of relationship with your father you should be fairly far along in your own recovery before you attempt such a relationship and your father should have had quite a bit of help for his problem as well.

Attempting to connect with him again before you are ready or before he is ready could be disaster for both of you.