Betrayed by family

[Guest]

My husband died shortly after our son was born. My late husband also had a son from a previous relationship who is 9 years older than our son.

 

I turned to my in-laws after the death of my husband and trusted them. His exwife created alot of problems in our marriage and at his funeral and she made up alot of lies about me and said things to my in-laws to make me look bad.

 

I trusted my father-in-law one time when my son was 6 and let my son spend the night at his house with his half-brother (I'll refer to him as HB) who was 15.

 

That was the worst mistake of my life. The HB molested my son in the middle of the night. As I had always talked to my son about telling me if anything bad every happened to him he told me immediately the next day and I wasted no time calling police. The police came and took my son aside and spoke to him and they concluded he was telling the truth 100%.

 

Charges were filed and the HB recieved deferred adjudication and is currently listed as a registerd sex offender.

 

During this time my in-laws turned on me and blamed me for making all of this up because I didn't like my husband's ex-wife. They said that the HB was just a typical horny 15 year old who just needed to get laid. I was shocked, horrified and appalled. My sister-in-law turned on me saying she knew I had stolen from people and that I concocted this story.

 

I was brought to my knees during all of this because no one ever once showed concern over my son. They wanted to protect the half-brother (HB). I begged these people to stop talking about me as this didn't have anything whatsover to do with ME - this was a serious issue and I was always going to protect my son at all costs - even if it meant forever cutting ties with these people.

 

I had child advocates, police officers and counselors tell me that my son was 100% truthful and that the HB confessed to molesting my son but the family was all on his side and couldn't be trusted so a restraining order was placed against them.

 

Till this day I've never received an apology from any of them. I know if my husband was alive he'd be sick of all of this. But I will never trust these people and I want no contact at all with them.

 

It's just something that's been very hard for me to deal with. My son has dealt with this like a champ and thanks to so many policemen and advocates who counseled him and told him he was very brave to tell me (most kids never tell because the molester threatens to kill them or their family). He was also counseled to know he did nothing wrong - he was just a 6 year old little boy and that his half-brother should have never done what he did.

 

What hurt me the most is how none of these people had any concern for my son - they all accused me of making this up to get back at his ex-wife. The lies and mean things they said to me were awful and not once did anyone ask me if my son was ok, etc.

 

I was totally betrayed by people I thought were family. I've had no contact with any of them since. I did nothing wrong - I just protected my son. If I didn't protect my son and notify police I would have broken the law. So why did they make me out to be the scapegoat?

 

I don't understand how these people could have betrayed me - especially after my husband died (he died at his grandmother's house from an accidental fall off a ladder). If my husband had died in our home with me there I'm sure these people would have blamed me for that!

 

It's the betrayal that's been so hard to overcome and the fact this family is big and they all turned on me and my son.