The fact that he pled down to statutory rape doesn’t mean that he didn’t commit the act of rape.

The victim has said that she said no numerous times, and he drugged her and gave her wine. The crime that he was allowed to plead down to, in my opinion, doesn’t mean that the act magically became consensual.

I was going to respond to Cindy’s post as well, but you hit what I wanted to say perfectly.

I’m the stepchild, and he’s my dad. My stepdad legally adopted me when my biological father finally stopped being a jerk and fighting giving up his rights—because his lawyer told him that if he gave up his rights, his child support bill (which was in the few thousands) would go away. My dad planned to adopt me from the beginning of the marriage, but he and my mother had to fight for a few years to get my bio father to get out of the way. And by the way, no, my bio father wasn’t holding onto his rights because he wanted to be in my life. He was just being an asshat. He’s proven that many, many times since.

I can’t say that my dad’s whole family treats my brother and me as their own, but most of them do. We really only have one relative on his side who holds to the belief that we’re not true blood, so we don’t deserve to be treated the same as everyone else.

I was deeply offended by Cindy’s statement as well, and I have to say, that’s really rare.

thank you. :)

as the only liberal in a long line of conservatives, I can tell you that I wouldn’t go so far as to call Midland "normal". ;) They do have a George Bush’s childhood home, after all…

but seriously, though, although there are millions of scaries (and I’m not talking political conservatives/liberals here; I’m talking groups such as The Republic of Texas and those scary fringe militia-type groups) here in the state that I just can’t bring myself to leave, Texas also houses some of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet.

I’m just hoping that we’ll get another Ann Richards-type governor soon. ;)

1) of course you’ve had good business dealings with people in Austin. Austin’s the only normal city in Texas. ;) (JUST KIDDING!! i’m a native Texan, and my parents still live in Midland. Granted, I moved to Austin when I moved out of the house, but still…I love and adore all of my non-Austin friends.)

2) Governor Rick "The Hair" Perry is never going to retract any statement ever. The end.

I find it fascinating that there are so many commenters (some of whom have commented numerous times) who "don’t care" about this column.

it’s not that I think the daughter has a mental handicap.

I’m trying to wrap my brain around the fact that an adult has an attitude of that sort. I know people who are ridiculously selfish, but the fact that this person refuses to accept the fact that an ex-wife doesn’t want to be around an ex-husband (never mind the abuse factor) just struck me as much more childish than the usual selfishness.

"Believe it or not, she landed safely with a sprained ankle"

I believe it. the Universe takes care of its (his/her?) own many times, especially the ones who need more help.

You refer to the daughter as "grown", and since you have contact with the LW before these letters are published, I trust you on that one. I’m not knocking your advice or the fact that you’re perturbed with the kid for acting like a selfish jerk—I just find myself wondering how mature the daughter can really be.

the LW says that she’s been divorced for 14 years, which means that the "kid" has to be at least 14, but one thing she doesn’t mention is whether there is a mental handicap involved here.

Please don’t read this as my trying to let an adult off the hook for acting like a complete child, but if there is a handicap involved—which, again, I’m sure you know because of the fact that you’re in contact with the people you publish—that should be considered.

Sans handicap, there is no excuse for an adult to treat her mother this way. It doesn’t matter whether she is familiar with the details of the abuse. Also—frankly, as selfish/manipulated as the kid sounds, I’m not sure she would take any accounts of the abuse the LW experienced at face value anyway.

Nancy, thanks very much.

there are a lot of encouraging posters on these boards (we’re not going to talk about the "others" right now), and you strike me as one of them. I’ve noticed that usually when someone shares a story or an experience, you’re usually there with a bit of encouragment or an anecdote. Thank you for being one of the nice ones :)

and yep. My best friend and I are still best friends. because she’s an Army wife now, we do our keeping-up exclusively through Facebook and phone calls, but I’m hoping to get to visit her husband and her soon. They live in Kansas, which is still pretty far from Austin, TX—but it’s much closer than New York was. ;)

LW1: there is nothing wrong with removing negativity from your life, no matter how positive the source may have been in the past.

however, i do believe that you should take Margo’s advice and have a discussion with her about why you don’t feel right about being a bridesmaid in (or even attending) this wedding.

as a side note: it IS possible for a friend who is in a situation like this to come to and realize that she’s turned into something she never intended to be. i experienced it with my (since junior high) best friend. she’s now married to a man who is as perfect for her as he can be, and he’s a complete sweetheart to boot—and he complements her personality instead of dragging her down to a completely negative level.

your friend may or may not have enough time to wake up before her blessed day, but i’ll be hoping she does.

LW1: children truly are impressionable to labels. one weekend when I was visiting my father’s house, I was very excited about the fact that I was going to have a "new Daddy" (my mom and my stepdad-whom I call Dad, because he is—were about to get married, and I was so excited), and I made the mistake of talking to my father about it. As a 5-year-old, I had no idea that it was such a mistake. He yelled at me about how he was the only daddy I was ever allowed to have, and my stepdad would never be my daddy.

After my father and stepmother went to bed, I called my mom bawling because my father had told me that I wasn’t going to be allowed to call my new stepdad "daddy". My mom comforted me and told me I could call him that if I wanted to.

Now, the joke’s on my father. He was in my life off-and-on (by that, I mean about every 7 years) until I went off to college at 19 and I haven’t seen or heard from him since I attended his mother’s funeral 6 years ago. My dad and I, on the other hand, have a great relationship.

Labels truly are important to young children, and I agree that being so petty is a terrible example for the LW’s daughter.

"I wanted to go back and see if I was getting the information from the right source, but I was afraid that I might lose what I had already written, so I apologized ahead of time. It turns out I was right, too, because I just went back to check something on the previous page and guess what? Yep, I lost it all and had to start over!"

Roniphooh:

i avoid this issue by either 1) copying what i’ve already written and going back to the original post, or 2) hitting Control-N to open my comment in a second window and going back to the original message. i’m a professional Alt-Tabber. i know that not everyone uses Windows or IE since they are pretty much of the devil, but i think that FireFox has a similar "open the same webpage in a different tab/window" option.

oh, and….express away, i say. that’s what this forum is supposed to be for.

wouldn’t it be silly to have a site that allows comments but not the ability to respond to specific posters? are you suggesting that wowOwow shut off the commenting ability entirely?

i’m already a (former) member of a discussion board that went all Big Brother when they "upgraded" their software, and taking away the ability to comment would really detract from the value of this site.

the fact that someone calls a specific person out for posting untrue information does not a personal attack make.

while i agree that Teary made a commitment, i believe that there are reasons to allow for this commitment to be broken. abuse is one of them. i also believe that marriage counseling could possibly help, but she needs to physically remove herself and her children from the situation. if and when he goes to counseling and his current practices stop, they can move back in.

even if her husband is depressed, keeping her children in an abusive situation is putting them in danger, period. even the 6 months that you have proposed is much too long to keep your children in an abusive situation. even if he’s not abusing them directly, it’s a small, small step to that point. they’re also going to be traumatized just witnessing it.

before any of you tells me they’re too young to be able to remember traumatic things, i’ll be 28 in a month, and i have very vivid memories from when my mother was married to my biological father. they divorced when i was almost 3.