Daughter walked in on us

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Tryingmyhardest

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I am writing this with an enormous amount of guilt. I am too embarrased to talk to someone in person about this, so I thought I’d post on the forum.

Last night, my wife and I were making love and our 4 year old girl walked in on us. She had been asleep for a couple hours, in her room on another floor, in another part of the house. It didn’t even occur to us that she would get up, walk through the house and enter the room we were in. From now on we will be in a room that locks.

I feel disgusted and horrible about this. I don’t want to get too graphic, but she didn’t just see two figures under covers, she saw both of us, nude, engaged in foreplay. I know she saw because I looked up and she was staring at us. My wife took her back to bed and asked her what she saw. My daughter said, " you and daddy" and then she asked why Mommy was doing what she was doing to Daddy. So she clearly saw exactly what was going on, though thankfully didn’t understand it. My wife made something up about helping Daddy put on medicine and our daughter seemed to buy it. (After all, we put desitin on her sometimes)

My wife and I are both horrified at ourselves for allowing our daughter to be exposed to this. We are afraid that she will remember this, and it will affect her in some negative way. Obviously we never intended for her to witness this. We both feel extremely guilty.

Today she woke up and didn’t say anything about it. She has been acting normally and hasn’t brought it up. I’ve been praying nonstop that she simply forgets it forever.

Has this happened to anyone else here? Did your child remember? I’m heartbroken at the possibility that this could damage our sweet little girl. 😦
 
Don’t worry. She probably just thinks she had a very strange dream, if she remembers it at all right now.
 
Oh, I pray that is the case. I have done everything in my power to shelter my daughter’s innocence— I won’t even permit her to play with scantly clad Barbies or those wretched Bratz dolls. What she saw last night was infinitly worse and all our fault.😦
 
My husband walked in on his parents once, except he was much older than 4.:eek: There was no explaining away about putting on medicine.

He remembers it as one of those really, really awkward moments you wish you could take back, but carries no baggage because of it.

I think if a child grows up with an age-appropriate knowledge of sex and learns to have a healthy view, whatever she remembers will be within the context of that healthy view, and there will be nothing to worry about.

I think the story about medicine will serve just fine until she is old enough to learn about sex, if she even remembers. I remember a lot from when I was four, but there is also an awful lot I don’t remember. She probably won’t even give it a second thought, since she hasn’t brought it up today.
 
Whoa, calm down!

Your daughter will not be scarred for life, I promise. 🙂 It’s embarrassing, but not worthy of this amount of guilt or mortification.

One hundred years ago families used to sleep in one-room cabins, and in that time parents had more than one child. Yet the human race managed to survive. 🙂

Be honest with your daughter, if she asks again. Tell her that you and Mommy were showing love to each other in a very special way that only mommies and daddies can do with each other. She probably won’t even remember what happened, especially if she was groggy at the time.

Also use this opportunity for a gentle lesson as to why she should KNOCK first before coming into mommy and daddy’s room.

But remember that marital love is *not *dirty or disgusting. It is a beautiful gift between spouses. If you treat it as a dirty or disgusting thing, your daughter will pick up on that.
 
Don’t be so hard on yourselves. After all, you and your wife were not doing anything wrong. 😉

The fact that she is acting normally and going about her business like nothing happened is a good sign. She has no idea what foreplay is, or sex for that matter. She may make the connection when she gets older, but she doesn’t even know to remember it as anything significant because what you were doing didn’t mean anything to her. Does that make sense? :confused:

You might want to give her a lesson on knocking before entering a room. :o 🙂
 
Thanks for the replies. I guess I’d feel a bit better if we weren’t in the middle of something that must have looked very odd to her. I appreciate the reassurance from you all. :o
 
I don’t think she’ll be scarred for life. If she remembers at all, she’ll be grossed out by the memory when she’s in her early teens and by the time she gets to her twenties she’ll probably understand the concept at least…and remember that she walked in…

Mistakes like that happen. I do think locking the door might be a good idea though. 😉

And there’s always the chance that she’ll completely forget it - she is four after all!!
 
I walked in on my parents when I was four. I remember being scared and I also felt guilty like I had done something wrong.

Talk to her.
 
I walked in on my parents when I was 5.

I don’t remember a thing. The only reason I know now is that when I was getting married my mom mentioned it to me.

Apparently my parents thought I was going to be scarred for life.

No idea, and I am still a good Catholic girl.😃
 
Imryl said:
I walked in on my parents when I was four. I remember being scared and I also felt guilty like I had done something wrong.

Talk to her.
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What do you suggest we say? Since it seems like she has forgotten, I am hesitant to bring it up again. She seemed to think it was funny, but she was acting very nervous when she asked me why we were doing that.

I don’t want her to dwell on it, or even think about it anymore at all. I hope she just forgets it.

As far as her feeling guilty, I told her that she didn’t do anything wrong. My wife and I tried to down-play it and act casually. Then my wife told her the fib about the medicine. She seems to be okay with things.

Did you dwell on it? I told my daughter today that she should never ever feel afraid to ask us questions about anything. That whatever she wants to talk to us about, it’s okay to come to us.
 
this has happened to us, too. child witnessed some intense moment. i was devastated, husband was crushed.

i have 2 suggestions to do together: the first is the face it/ bring it up. the explanation above is a good one. special mommy daddy married love. God said we should, nobody else should. then leave it alone. don’t belabor. don’t try and wrest satisfaction of your guilty feelings by over explaining.

second, when she is sleeping or silently during family prayer, you, the spiritual leader of your family should bless her with holy water and ask the Holy Spirit for healing of her memories. not so much that she might forget, instead that any fear, guilt and other un-truths are healed in her memory.

make a novena of this blessing.

then trust God she is well.

and good for you to prohibit the sexkitten dolls.

a caveat: from your description it sounds like your house is big. your girl may be too far away from you at night. maybe you should still employ a baby monitor.
 
Binging it up again may make a forgettable moment too important. I’d just watch and see how she behaves. If she asks questions I’d answer them truthfully in language she can understand, but I wouldn’t bring it up unless she does.

DH walked in on his parents when he was a teenager – or rather I should say he walked by their open door to go to the bathroom when both they and he thought they were the only ones at home. His dad was quick to kick the door shut.
 
My daughter had walked in on my exhusband and I when she was 6, and she asked what was daddy doing naked??? :eek: It was dark and all the lights were off except the outside light that crept in so of course you could see a little…:o

My exhusband just rolled off slowly as if he was just rolling over…and he told her he was just rolling over trying to get comfortable… 😊

She was like noooo he was doing something??? I was like no honey he was just trying to roll over… and then she was like well where are his clothes? And he told her that he had just gotten out of the shower and just had his robe on and it slipped while he was sleeping, and rolling over!!! 🤷

She was like uhm :confused: :confused: :confused: so…
So I asked her to turn around and go back to bed and that she knew to knock on the door then she told me she had a bad dream and that she was scared…so my exhusband wrapped himself in the blanket and I stayed with the sheet wrapped over me, he took her to bed came back to the room got dressed and it was over and done for us…😦

Is she traumatized??? She’s 10 now and has never brought it up again…

Is it still in her mind, I don’t know…she hasn’t brought it up nor talked about it ever…So I am hoping that it is a thing of the past…
 
Tryingmyhardest said:
What do you suggest we say? Since it seems like she has forgotten, I am hesitant to bring it up again. She seemed to think it was funny, but she was acting very nervous when she asked me why we were doing that.

I don’t want her to dwell on it, or even think about it anymore at all. I hope she just forgets it.

As far as her feeling guilty, I told her that she didn’t do anything wrong. My wife and I tried to down-play it and act casually. Then my wife told her the fib about the medicine. She seems to be okay with things.

Did you dwell on it? I told my daughter today that she should never ever feel afraid to ask us questions about anything. That whatever she wants to talk to us about, it’s okay to come to us.
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I wouldn’t say anything else to her. If you keep dwelling on it and make a big deal out of something that shouldn’t be, then she WILL start dwelling on it. She’s four. If kids that age are curious about something, virtually nothing besides the end of the world can make them stop asking before their curiosity is satisfied. I suspect she took the explanation at face value and moved on with her life.
 
I wouldn’t say anything… I am guessing she’ll forget.

I believe our 10 yr. old may have peeked into our room and caught an eye full recently. Not positive - except our door was cracked open and I thought I heard footsteps. When i went to check on kiddos, she was moving around under her covers. I would bet money she saw something.

I was :eek: at first - but she’s said nothing - I’ve said nothing… and all seems well. I’m going with the people who lived in 1 room cabins… their children must’ve seen/heard things and they turned out ok. It is what it is. God made it - nothing wrong with it.

BUT, I did tell my husband to purchase a lock for our door.
 
Thanks, guys for the responses!

We have decided not to bring it up again. She has been acting completely normal toward both of us. I really don’t think she remembers, or she just doesn’t think it was a big deal.

Both my wife and I are a little nervous about attempting anything intimate again… we know we didn’t do anything wrong, quite the contrary. But just the image of her standing there is burned in my mind. I think we are more traumatized than she!
 
Tryingmyhardest said:
Thanks, guys for the responses!

We have decided not to bring it up again. She has been acting completely normal toward both of us. I really don’t think she remembers, or she just doesn’t think it was a big deal.

Both my wife and I are a little nervous about attempting anything intimate again… we know we didn’t do anything wrong, quite the contrary. But just the image of her standing there is burned in my mind. I think we are more traumatized than she!
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Put a lock on your door.
 
Tryingmyhardest said:
I think we are more traumatized than she!
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That is probably the case.

My husband and I were actually talking about this last night, because both of us remember either hearing “strange noises” or walking in on our parents when we were young. Neither of us was scarred for life, and it didn’t affect us. When we were old enough to understand what was happening, we knew that it was a normal “mommy & daddy” activity.
 
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