My Mom Let Her Boyfriend Molest Me for 5 Years
Tags: Child Abuse, Trauma, Children, This Happened To Me, Mental Health

Image by Sandra Koschel

I used to think that perhaps that’s how every child lives. I did not know that it was not at all normal. But somehow I knew that I was not supposed to tell this to anyone.

I was ten years old and he was 25. My mother was not divorced or something but she had a way with men that always used to leave a very strange and bitter taste in my mouth. It was 1995 and in Pakistan children, my age did not know anything about adult relationships.

I never saw my father and mother talk to each other. My mother was beautiful and she used to mock him all the time. He was not so close to us children too. He had a bookshop and he used to leave very early in the morning and come back very late. Ever since I remember, my mom used to have relationships with other men without ever trying to hide it from anyone. Most of our neighbors used to have an idea about it.

This man, we used to call him Uncle came into her life when we shifted into a new neighborhood and he was living next door. My mother was very social, so within a week she got to know that one of the bachelors living next door, was her distant relative. She invited him for dinner and they became very close very fast.

Uncle’s family was in another province and he was living there because of his job. My mother started going to his place more and more frequently. He also started spending all day at our home. He would only go home to sleep. He was nice to us children at first. He used to buy us fruits and candies and cakes, so my younger siblings got quite attached to him. Being the eldest, I knew that something was fishy. I started being irritated all the time and I got beaten for that too by my mom.

She used to beat us for anything at all. After a few days, Uncle too started beating us for small mistakes. I became more and more bitter. I did not know what sex was or how it was done or even the word ‘sex’. One day when my mom was going to Uncle’s place, I asked her not to go. She got very angry and slapping me said, “He is not waiting there for me with his pants down”. It was so vulgar to hear that I felt like something very nasty and ugly had suddenly revealed itself to me. After that, I started imagining their meetings.

That’s when Uncle started touching me and my sister. We were extremely afraid of mom because she used to beat us without mercy. And she was so fond of Uncle that we could not imagine telling her about it. We somehow believed that it was our own fault. We used to be so convinced of being wrong all the time that I remember one day I accidentally dropped a heavy scissor and it broke. I was 100% sure that it was my mistake and I will be beaten. So, I went into the bathroom and ate face cream to die. But still, I was right because mom did beat me till my skin was raw and bleeding. That was the justice system. So Uncle kept touching us and we kept silent about it.

My father knew about Uncle but never talked to him ever. So one-day mom decided that we needed to move to another house where we could share it with Uncle. My father never took any interest in such matters. Mom and Uncle found a house and we shifted there. It had just two rooms so we started living in one room and Uncle took the other one.

After shifting together, mom became bolder than ever and started kissing Uncle in front of us kids. I was 10, my sister was 8, the other sister 5 and my youngest brother was only 3 years old. I tried to find escape in books and studies but it was very hard to not see what was going on.

We kids used to go to school before Uncle left for office. And we used to play outdoors till dusk so mom and Uncle had the house to themselves a lot. One day there was a woman on TV who had big boobs and Uncle said to my mother, “I want yours to be this big”. They both really thought that we will not understand it. Uncle had a single bed in his room and he had bought a TV too so we used to watch TV there sitting on chairs or carpet while mom used to be under his blanket with him in his single bed.

That’s the house where Uncle molested us more and more because we were getting flesh on our bones and we were getting bigger too. I was once sitting in the kitchen when Uncle pulled my trousers back to my thighs and caressing my thighs he said oh my god you are so ready. I did not know what I was ready for, but I somehow never forgot it. He used to touch me all the time. Mom would send me to his room to massage his feet and legs. I don’t know why she would do that. I don’t know how could she let her daughters be molested at such a young age. Perhaps she was blind in love. We had no one to share this with. Once my sister threatened mom that she will tell our granny (mom’s mother) about it. My mother called her a whore and beat the crap out of her. After that, we never tried to rebel. Uncle would force us to touch him too. He forced himself on us in more ways than I can tell.

Uncle started beating us a lot those days. He used to even beat my youngest brother who was just a small child. It pains me even now. Uncle used to beat him in front of his office friends. Uncle would ask him to do circus tricks in front of his mates and if my brother failed to perform, then Uncle would beat him. Mom and uncle used to beat us with everything. Plastic pipes, wires, hangers, sticks, slippers, everything.

This nightmare went on for five years. My father left the house and moved with his older brother. It was in 1998 and I have not met him since then. When Uncle’s family heard the rumors of this affair, they started asking questions. That’s when my mother came up with a scheme to keep Uncle near her forever.

She made her sixteen years old sister fall in love with Uncle and then got them married. My aunt had no idea about anything at all. Now we were all living together and finally, Uncle stopped molesting us. I don’t know if his and my mom’s affair stopped too or not.

My father divorced my mother. Uncle is still married to my aunt and they have four daughters and a son. He has become extremely religious now. unfortunately for me, it was not the end of my bad luck. I had so many more pains in store for me in the future. My life kept kicking me in the guts, but I think I will write about that in another article.