Brother-in-Law Pawed Me, and I'M the Bad Guy?!?!

[mandajane]

At this point he has physically assaulted you and other family members, and sexually assaulted you, in public. You are completely in the right wanting to cut off contact with him, for your safety, but I feel you need to take action to prevent him from doing something else. Like other posters have said – You need to contact the police in your husband’s home town, and report the incident. In reality, you might want to have a LONG conversation with an officer, detailing the pattern of behavior, and that it happened to a teenager in the same family. If your SIL will call and talk about the same incidents to the police, it would be good. Lodge formal complaints, because if you don’t, in the end, this is going to go one of three ways:

1. Steve “magically” stops behaving in this manner. Everyone is happy. This is VERY unlikely, as the attempts made by you and your husband to stop him have had no results.
2. Steve assaults someone else in this manner, and THEY go to the police. At which point your silence makes you part of the problem. By not reporting Steve, you’re enabling his behavior, by reinforcing that there are no consequences for his actions.
3. Steve assaults numerous other people in this manner, and no one reports him. Instead he leaves a trail of women who do not feel comfortable with their own family, and feel like THEY are wrong for being uncomfortable with it. They live with their silence, and convince themselves every day how their silence is the right action. And that’s what they teach their daughters and other children. Or worse, one of the young men in the family sees Steve get away with grabbing on women however he wants, and learns that it’s an “ok” behavior.

Not reporting it is how molesters get away with their actions.

 

[Cristiano]

I am a mean person but if I were in the same situation I would visit the family again and once he were to grab me I would empty a can of pepper spray in his face, call the police, mention to the police also the story about the 16 y/o niece and then stay away for the MIL for the rest of her life.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

I am a mean person but if I were in the same situation I would visit the family again and once he were to grab me I would empty a can of pepper spray in his face, call the police, mention to the police also the story about the 16 y/o niece and then stay away for the MIL for the rest of her life.

I think I might choose the same action.

 

[SamH]

You know, I have always wondered about this - - could the husband just deck the oaf brother if he is around when he encounters the brother assaulting his wife - - fraternally, of course, and out of charity b/c the brother is not getting it via the spoken word?

@OP: of course you are right to withdraw from such a situation for your own protection if the boundaries of common decency will not be respected.

He can if he’s bigger or has better skills.

 

[InigoMontoya]

He can if he’s bigger or has better skills.

What does that have to do with defending honor and installing respect? One’s size and skill doesn’t matter, just the willpower to act. The message is sent regardless, of what happens next.

 

[LSK]

I think you are a strong and wonderful woman and I would tell your inlaws that you forgive Steve and will not be around him. I would also tell your sister-in-law that she is playing with fire to let than man around her child.

Frankly, there may be a mental health issue here with Steve but even so a danger is a danger and you need to stay the HECK away from the guy.

He is lucky he was not dealing with me - there would have been jail involved a LONG time ago.

 

[cheezey]

I think I might choose the same action.

yup, me too

 

[SamH]

What does that have to do with defending honor and installing respect? One’s size and skill doesn’t matter, just the willpower to act. The message is sent regardless, of what happens next.

If the brother turns around and decks him does that mean he can continue to paw at his wife?

 

[Kal2012]

OP: I’m glad that you are not going to visit w/Steve anymore.

My uncle is a molester too. He never did anything to me, but that’s because he’s into boys. (I know, too much information…sorry!)

He’s told me that the best thing that happened to him was getting hauled before the judge and put in jail.

I encourage you and the nieces to get your stories documented, maybe notarized. Just start listing out all the incidents, so you have a record.

Records are important when you end up going to court. It’s something you can pull out when the cops ask questions about whether “he’s done this before” - here’s the proof.

Once the cops get called in, they’ll need to see evidence that this isn’t the first time or some kooky lady just making up stories. Be generous with the information that you can provide to the cops or an attorney prosecuting him. Proving things in a court of law is different than proving something to your family members…you need to make sure creepy Steve goes to jail when the opportunity arises.

Make sure you have two copies, just so that if one ‘disappears’ you have another copy around. (Yeah, I know, a little paranoid, but better safe than sorry). Every time you talk about Steve and warn people about him, document the where/when/who - details of the conversation. Obviously, you can’t make your MIL listen/see what’s going on, but you need to do what you can to protect your nieces and other women in the family.

Definitely get a restraining order. Sadly, a lot of moms are in denial when their kids are obviously doing bad things to other people. I’ve only been a mom for a few years, but moms are really protective of their kids and sometimes just overly so - even when the kid, really is in the wrong.

It’s a really tough situation for everyone; however, you are doing the right thing. Hopefully, creepy Steve will end up in jail sooner rather than later. Peace be with you and your family.

 

[EasterJoy]

What does that have to do with defending honor and installing respect? One’s size and skill doesn’t matter, just the willpower to act. The message is sent regardless, of what happens next.

We are not in an age where it is legal to go around assaulting other people in order to demand respect. We are also not in a religious culture that approves of hitting people to achieve aims that could have been achieved just as well without violence. Furthermore, most of us, by the time we are married, do not use decking our own brother right in front of our widowed mother as “Plan A”. Using violence to protect victims of assault can be a moral option, but only when it cannot be avoided. It is ardently to be avoided.

The OP and her husband handled this in keeping with 21st century law, the custom of civilized people, the charity to entertain the possibility that the brother may not have the self-mastery to do better than he does, and the desire to draw the necessary boundary clearly and yet with as little familial strife as possible. They are getting flak and ruffling feathers, but no more than was necessary. That is the better choice.

 

[SamH]

We are not in an age where it is legal to go around assaulting other people in order to demand respect. We are also not in a religious culture that approves of hitting people to achieve aims that could have been achieved just as well without violence. Furthermore, most of us, by the time we are married, do not use decking our own brother right in front of our widowed mother as “Plan A”. Using violence to protect victims of assault can be a moral option, but only when it cannot be avoided. It is ardently to be avoided…

I have to disagree.

The OP and her husband handled this in keeping with 21st century law, the custom of civilized people, the charity to entertain the possibility that the brother may not have the self-mastery to do better than he does, and the desire to draw the necessary boundary clearly and yet with as little familial strife as possible. They are getting flak and ruffling feathers, but no more than was necessary. That is the better choice.

I’ve seen how 21st century law works first hand, the rapist goes free and the victim is told to get over it. As for family strife - there should be strife (and a lot of it) if that’s how a brother is going to act.

 

[Guernica]

Unfortunately, it would be difficult to press charges re: his sexual harassment due to jurisdiction issues. My husband and I live in one state, Steve lives in another, and the latest instances of offensive touching were perpetrated in a third state. Also, even if we all lived in the same city and the harassment occurred in my own living room, law enforcement isn’t going to bother unless Steve actually raped me and I can provide DNA evidence, or he did me a severe, medically documented bodily injury. (HEAVEN forfend.) If he was an employer or co-worker I could sue for sexual harassment, but as he’s just an in-law, no such luck.

If I went into a police station complaining about my grabby BIL’s harassment and tell the cops that I’ve decided to stay away from him forever – as far as they’ll be concerned, I’ve solved my own problem, and they don’t need to get involved. My situation truly is small potatoes compared to all the murders, rapes, assaults, and grand theft already on your average cop’s mind, I’m sure.

Believe me, my husband is furious with ol’ Steve at this point, but he’s not a violent man, and he’s not comfortable with the idea of laying hands on a family member, especially when he knows how much it would wreck his mother. He’s told me that he doesn’t want Steve anywhere near me ever again, and he absolutely supports my decision to refuse to associate with him. He says not getting to ever see me again is pain enough for anyone. (Yeah, that felt pretty good.)

Honestly though, even if Mr. Guernica did punch Steve’s lights out for groping his wife, it would be such an unfair fight that he would probably end up making Steve look like the poor widdle victim and getting more sympathy for him than not. My husband is about five inches taller and 150 pounds lighter, and he’s a talented athlete who exercises daily, and loves to go on long bike rides. Steve on the other hand is about 5’5” and 300+ pounds, and recently underwent surgery for an abdominal hernia. Apparently his abdominal wall actually split open a few inches not that long ago, and he had to have them sutured. Twice.

He’s also got bad knees, fallen arches, and what he claims is “asthma”, which allegedly prevents him from ever working out. One of my sisters actually does have medically documented asthma, so some time ago I asked Steve if he’d had a lung function test to determine whether he needed medication for it. He looked mystified. It came out that he’d never actually been tested or even been to a doctor for his “asthma,” he just assumed he had it because he gets “real tired and out of breath easily.” To me it sounds like he’s just out of shape, but no no no, most of his family has accepted his self-diagnosed “asthma” as God’s own truth.

So for my husband to whip some sense into him would be such an unmatched contest it would be ridiculous. Satisfying as that would be, it would make Mr. G just look like a bully picking on the poor feeble fat guy with all the health problems.

That said, I’m sure Steve has the self-mastery to stop himself – he’s a college graduate, and he can behave himself with people in positions of power and influence over him, like his mother, and his employer. No, he just likes to harass women, and he very carefully chooses women who he perceives to be lower in status than himself, and he likes to take advantage of the enforced closeness of family occasions to get his salacious groove on. It’s not that he can’t help himself – he just likes violating women’s personal boundaries and getting away with it.

It’s not that he CAN’T keep his hands off women, he knows very well what he’s doing, but just hasn’t encountered consequences negative enough to make him stop it.

 

[Mrs_Sally]

I think you have solved your own problem, thanks to your distance and your husband’s support. If I were you, I’d turn my attention to what can be done to protect your nieces. Let momma cop know for sure, so that she can watch out for them since she’s likely to be at family events. She’ll also know what is and isn’t possible to do from a legal/restraining order pov in their jurisdiction. The other brother and sister in law agree with you so encourage them strongly to keep their little daughter away from him, and to watch out for their teenage nieces as well.

I’ll be praying for this family.

 

[EasterJoy]

I have to disagree.

I’ve seen how 21st century law works first hand, the rapist goes free and the victim is told to get over it. As for family strife - there should be strife (and a lot of it) if that’s how a brother is going to act.

Crime prevention is always better than the best conviction. And, since we are Catholics, after all, “*Do not repay anyone evil for evil; be concerned for what is noble in the sight of all. If possible, on your part, live at peace with all. Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave room for the wrath; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’” * Rom. 12:17-19

The way that the OP and her husband have elected to go is charitable and requires no attorney fees. It requires no court dates. It does not pretend that nothing intolerable has been going on, and yet it theoretically leaves the door open for the brother and MIL to repent, amend, and be reconciled. That is, after all, what everyone really wants…provided that the repentance and amendment is more than parrot talk, rather than the unveiled counterattacking complaints of “oversensitivity” that they’ve been getting.

 

[Guernica]

Yes, the protection of my teenage nieces, and perhaps finding a way to remind the girls that NOBODY has the right to touch them against their will, even a family member… it’s weighing heavily on my mind these days. Trouble is, I’m not sure how to go about it.

I was never very popular in my husband’s family, in part because quite a few of them are quite vocal about their dislike of Big City Folk. People who live in big cities have no morals in general, naturally, and my particular town is in (GASP!) California, so it’s even worse.

Additionally, my husband’s family rather obviously wanted him to marry his high school sweetheart, who is the daughter of a longtime friend of his mother’s. Part of why he decided to attend college 1000 miles away was because his whole hometown parish pretty much had him married off to this young lady by the time he was 18 – his mother even offered him his late grandmother’s engagement ring if he wanted to propose to her at his high school graduation…! He liked her very much and wishes her well, but didn’t want to marry her, especially not right out of high school.

So I got to hear all the cute stories about how they were in Homecoming Court together and how she’s married now and has all these beautiful children and another on the way, et cetera, et cetera… Yes, yes, you don’t like me because I’m the Big City degenerate who lured him away to live in lib’ral Sodom and Gommorrah and can’t have his babies, I get it. It’s not like they’re real subtle about it or anything. I stopped visiting in my husband’s hometown some years ago, first because of Steve’s overfamiliarity, but in part because of the open hostility that some of the in-laws and various townsfolk have shown to me, based solely on my place of birth.

Indeed, I’m pretty sure that part of why ol’ Steve thought I might be coerced into tolerating his groping is because he’s surely picked up on the “Guernica is the low-rent daughter-in-law” vibe most of their family gives off.

My teenage niece’s mother has never been fond of me. From the beginning, she would give me the silent treatment most of the time, always watching me with a wary frown on her face and greeting my attempts at conversation with monosyllables. Nonetheless she seems to remember how to string sentences together when she’s gossiping about me behind my back, however – what little my husband has repeated back to me has made us both furious.

So if I approach this woman and tell her, “Uh, hey, I saw your brother grabbing your daughter from behind, and laughing at her when she obviously didn’t like it. I think there’s something wrong with a grown man over twice her size pawing at a minor child like that. You’re her mother, and have the authority to put a stop to it.” Honestly, I can’t see her doing anything but telling me I’m seeing evil where there is none and how I’m just picking on poor Steve and making drama, and how his grabbing is just cute and innocent and he doesn’t mean anything by it, and so on and so forth.

Plus this family’s favorite radio show host recently went off on a long spiel about how “sexual harassment is a tool of the left” and they accept everything that fellow says like it was God’s own truth. Steve being Steve, he probably thought said radio personality was giving him permission to grab at women however he likes.

So the precedent with my in-laws is – if you’re Sonny’s city-born wife, you’re wrong, full stop. I was barely tolerated before, but now that I’ve plainly called Steve out for adulterous sexual harassment, I’m pretty much persona non grata. I know the girls’ mother has read my letter describing how Steve harassed me (which actually happened in the middle of her living room during a party she was throwing for her daughter.)

Luckily the nieces live even farther away from Steve than I do, over 2000 miles, and they only see him during family occasions.

I haven’t heard a word from either of the girls’ parents regarding my letter, but it’s pretty safe to assume that they’re in the “Guernica is just making up lies to get attention” camp.

That leaves contacting the girls themselves – they’re 18 and 16, which is old enough to weigh the evidence themselves. Nonetheless if their mom thought that I was spreading lies about their uncle to them, she’d have nothing good to say about me, I’m sure.

I’m not sure what to do.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

Plus this family’s favorite radio show host recently went off on a long spiel about how “sexual harassment is a tool of the left” and they accept everything that fellow says like it was God’s own truth. Steve being Steve, he probably thought said radio personality was giving him permission to grab at women however he likes.

You know, I really don’t know why you felt such a paragraph was necessary in your narrative, but by doing so, you just reduced your own credibility with me. Whatever some radio host said or didn’t say, Steve isn’t going to justify his own behavior - he doesn’t need to. You wanted to take a swipe at some radio talk show host so you bring his program into this discussion?

 

[chevalier]

The behaviour is unacceptable. It is also thoroughly unmanly. It’s not, “how men are,” it is, “how men should not be.” And when you’re 50, you’re not 5.

This said, families tend to suffer from cognitive bias and disregard or even refuse to believe flaws in their members. To some extent this is necessary or else we wouldn’t be able to put up with each other, which doesn’t make it right to be unfair to other family members.

You are not the bad guy and if there is any bad guy in the story, that is Steve. Who needs treatment and not reassurance or blind eye.

To disregard the gravity of molestation is, unfortunately, a common failure. (Which I say as someone who’s normally opposed to the harassment hysteria.)

And he needs to be kept away from the niece, yeah.

 

[EasterJoy]

Yes, the protection of my teenage nieces, and perhaps finding a way to remind the girls that NOBODY has the right to touch them against their will, even a family member… it’s weighing heavily on my mind these days. Trouble is, I’m not sure how to go about it…

That leaves contacting the girls themselves – they’re 18 and 16, which is old enough to weigh the evidence themselves. Nonetheless if their mom thought that I was spreading lies about their uncle to them, she’d have nothing good to say about me, I’m sure.

I’m not sure what to do.

You took a long time to say you think Steve chooses victims who he thinks won’t report anything at all or who won’t be believed if they do. Welcome to the world of the sexual predator…and a two-bit cheap-grope sexual predator is still a sexual predator, even if his disgusting behavior never escalates past what you have reported. They don’t need validation from talking heads who don’t know what they’re talking about, but it would be a good thing if they didn’t get it, all the same. Oh, well. Whether our take is right or wrong, that issue is out of our sphere of influence, so let’s drop that line of inquiry altogether. Let’s stick with those things and people that perhaps you can influence.

I don’t know about their diocese, but if your nieces attend a Catholic school or have received in-parish catechesis of any kind in the past five years or so, there is barely an American parish not being forced by their bishop to teach the lesson that it is necessary, right, and not uncharitable to stay away from creepy people, even creepy relatives and creepy members of the staff at your church, school, or sports teams, to draw your own boundaries in spite of whatever special status the offender might have, and to speak up against people who take or even seek inappropriate liberties with others.

I think if anyone ought to talk to the girls and a parent of the girls, your husband ought to talk man-to-man to the girls’ father and tell him what he has witnessed Steve doing at family events with his own eyes. Your husband can then say something like this, “You can put whatever stock you want into what Guernica is saying, or not, that is up to you, but I’ve seen enough of Steve with my own eyes that I wouldn’t allow him alone with any woman or child under my protection. If you haven’t, then you and your DW are falling down on the job, because I’ve seen him up to his tricks both at your house and at Mom’s. He’s a lecher.”

“Consider this, too: Guernica isn’t the only woman who cuts people out of her life because some guy in their social circle was allowed to take liberties without consequences, and these days it isn’t just the liberal girls who do that. The conservative girls aren’t about to let their dirty-minded uncle grope them, either, or anyone else. Girls now know they don’t have to take that kind of stuff, and they’re learning it from Holy Mother Church. If you and your DW don’t protect those girls, Steve is going to take a grope of them eventually, you and I both know it, and after that you might find those girls not too keen on coming home for Christmas after no one believes them, if you get my drift. So just tell the girls to stay far clear of him, show them that you’re not making it their job to hold Steve off by watching him yourself, or else the next registered letter that the whole family gets could have your daughter’s name on the return address. None of us want that.”

IOW, let him use his authority in the family, and let him divorce it from your testimony altogether. That is the best way to avoid the issue of whether or not you are believed.

 

[EasterJoy]

You took a long time to say you think Steve chooses victims who he thinks won’t report anything at all or who won’t be believed if they do. Welcome to the world of the sexual predator…and a two-bit cheap-grope sexual predator is still a sexual predator, even if his disgusting behavior never escalates past what you have reported. They don’t need validation from talking heads who don’t know what they’re talking about, but it would be a good thing if they didn’t get it, all the same. Oh, well. Whether our take is right or wrong, that issue is out of our sphere of influence, so let’s drop that line of inquiry altogether. Let’s stick with those things and people that perhaps you can influence.

I don’t know about their diocese, but if your nieces attend a Catholic school or have received in-parish catechesis of any kind in the past five years or so, there is barely an American parish not being forced by their bishop to teach the lesson that it is necessary, right, and not uncharitable to stay away from creepy people, even creepy relatives and creepy members of the staff at your church, school, or sports teams, to draw your own boundaries in spite of whatever special status the offender might have, and to speak up against people who take or even seek inappropriate liberties with others.

I think if anyone ought to talk to the girls and a parent of the girls, your husband ought to talk man-to-man to the girls’ father and tell him what he has witnessed Steve doing at family events with his own eyes. Your husband can then say something like this, “You can put whatever stock you want into what Guernica is saying, or not, that is up to you, but I’ve seen enough of Steve with my own eyes that I wouldn’t allow him alone with any woman or child under my protection. If you haven’t, then you and your DW are falling down on the job, because I’ve seen him up to his tricks both at your house and at Mom’s. He’s a lecher.”

“Consider this, too: Guernica isn’t the only woman who cuts people out of her life because some guy in their social circle was allowed to take liberties without consequences, and these days it isn’t just the liberal girls who do that. The conservative girls aren’t about to let their dirty-minded uncle grope them, either, or anyone else. Girls now know they don’t have to take that kind of stuff, and they’re learning it from Holy Mother Church. If you and your DW don’t protect those girls, Steve is going to take a grope of them eventually, you and I both know it, and after that you might find those girls not too keen on coming home for Christmas after no one believes them, if you get my drift. So just tell the girls to stay far clear of him, show them that you’re not making it their job to hold Steve off by watching him yourself, and if he does try something, you refuse to let Mom take him off the hook for what he did, or else the next registered letter that the whole family gets could have your daughter’s name on the return address. None of us want that.”

IOW, let him use his authority in the family, and let him divorce it from your testimony altogether. That is the best way to avoid the issue of whether or not you are believed.

 

[EasterJoy]

…I think if anyone ought to talk to the girls and a parent of the girls, your husband ought to talk man-to-man to the girls’ father and tell him what he has witnessed Steve doing at family events with his own eyes…

He also ought to warn his brother or brother-in-law not to let Mom help Steve off the hook if he manages to get a hand on someone in the family again, and to warn Steve that he ought to consider this husband and father to be the town sheriff and hanging judge all in one. “Promise me, Bro, that if that lecher ever so much as touches one of the women in your family, you won’t let Mom cover for him. I hope that never happens, but if it does, you believe your girls, and you go to bat for those girls, and for your wife. OK? And you tell Steve that, too. You tell him that his mulligans are all used up.”