Dear Prudence,
Growing up, our family was considered upper middle class; we always had what we wanted and needed and took nice vacations, went to private schools, etc. When I was 13, my father began sexually abusing me, until I had the courage to report him at 15. My life was turned upside down into shambles, and I was accused of breaking up a family and ruining his life. He and his “new wife” convinced a naive 15-year-old me to drop all charges, and I moved out of state a year later with the man who would become my husband of 15 years now. After 10 years of not speaking, in an attempt to “forgive and forget, and move on” as advised by some therapists, I reached out to him to let him know we had had a baby and that I was safe, happy, and in a better place. Things seemed fine and normal, with random text exchanges, and he always sent birthday cards and gift cards for holidays.
Well, after some rocky issues in my marriage cropped up, I returned to therapy and found the deep-rooted cause of some of them was this abuse that happened to me as a teen. When I realized this, I immediately cut off all communication, with no explanation to him, as I became angry again that this was now affecting my marriage. Was I too dramatic? Am I not dramatic enough? Is writing him a letter telling him all the ways he’s ruined my life too much? I feel the need to get it off my chest, but I kind of feel like it would be an unnecessary letter to send? My therapist (a male) suggested he should be paying for my therapy and I should be extorting him, since this is ruining my life and he got off 100 percent scot-free, to happily go on and live his life. Clearly that is not the correct way to go, but it does enrage me that 15 years later, I am left to deal with it.
—Abused but Maybe Dramatic