Hugs WW first. I am going to get my two-cents in on this. Like you, I have gone through this with my daughter. She told me when she was 14 yrs old at a time of great stress in our relationship.

My daughter was having behavior problems with most anyone that was an authority figure, especially men. I left my first husband (father to oldest 2 children) when they were 7 and 3. I did everything I could to stop his visitation because of his alcoholism and not his behaviour to our daughter. I had no idea at that time that he would EVER do this to our daughter.

When she was 14, we did a lot of fighting over everything. I never understood her anger, until one night during a huge arguement between us. I told her she could go live with her father because she did not respect me anymore and I was not going to tolerate that. That's when I hit the cement wall! She told me that she was molested by him and would never go there. My heart sank so low...I was in pain for weeks. She has never told me what happened completely, she doesn't want me to hurt more. I took her to counseling, tried to get her all the help I could, but she would not cooperate.

Now she is 28, and finally ready to deal with the pain, even though she hurts. All this happened when she was 7 yrs old. She did tell me that she would hide her brother so nothing would happen to him.

Why should a child of 7yrs old have to be put through something like that? She was robbed of her childhood and a lot of her life so far. It has scarred her severely, but she is taking the steps for dealing with it finally.

My daughter was recently dx with bi-polar manic depressive, PTSD, depression and social anxiety. I wonder how much of these was caused by her pain?

I relate to you WW, with your pain and sorry. I don't go there as much as I used to, but it does creep up.

Oh, and by the way, her biological father was never confronted with what he did. He went out of state to run from the law (no child support EVER) and lived homeless in Georgia. He died this last Christmas from being beat up. It gave the kids some very emotional turmoil.

But I can say that I did the best I could at the time. And WW, I am quite sure you have done the best you could, at the time. Please don't beat yourself up over this.

((((((((((((((((((((((Wisewoman)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))