I'm new here, and not sure if I'm even in the right place. I am so twisted and torn ...I don't know which way is up. Please bear with me, as this post is sure to be more like a novel.

My husband and I have been married for 19 years. It is a second marriage for both of us. Our first marriages both failed due to infidelity on the parts of our former spouses. We both have children from our first marriages, and we have children together. They range in age from 18 to 28. My children were 4 and 3 when my husband and I started dating. My children have had the typical "step" relationship with my husband. The early years were great, the teen years were a struggle. My former husband passed away 5 years ago, and at that time, the relationship between my children and my husband became close again, as he is now the only father figure they have. My oldest daughter, now 25 years old, has really struggled since her dad's death. She got into drugs for about a year, then her "drug of choice" became alcohol about 2 years ago. I will spare you all of the ugly details, but the past 2 years have really been hell for our family. I got to the point where I realized that by trying to help her, I was not helping her - I was enabling her, and I had to stop. I stepped back and knew that she had to hit her rock bottom before she would change. Anyone who has ever dealt with an addict knows exactly what I mean.

My husband, however, felt differently. He continued to bail her out of the situations she got herself into and enable her despite my pleas for him to step back with me and allow her to hit rock bottom. He couldn't do it. He felt that everyone in her life was kicking her when she was down, and he just couldn't do that. He felt that if he could be supportive enough, that she would wake up and realize that she needed help. It was a source of conflict for us for 3 months at the end of last year.

In early December 2014, my daughter was arrested for drunk driving. She called my husband at 2:30am and asked him to pick her up because they had impounded her vehicle. He went, even though I strongly objected. Over the course of the next three weeks everything was normal. My daughter called my husband every day - because she knew that I was upset with her and I had stopped taking her calls at all hours of the day and night. Every time she called me, she was drunk and wouldn't remember talking to me the next day, so I stopped answering my phone when she called - what was the point?

On a Saturday afternoon right before Christmas, my daughter asked me to pick her up from work. I did, and took her back to my house until her boyfriend (whom she has lived with for the past year) got off work and could pick her up at my house. My husband had to go to the store, and my daughter asked if she could go along because she needed to pick up few things. They were gone about 30 minutes. Later, her boyfriend called and said he had to work over and would be really late picking her up, so she asked if I could take her home. I did. As I drove her home, it became apparent to me that she had been drinking, but I didn't know how she got the alcohol because she had been with me for hours. After I dropped her off, I called my husband and asked him if he knew where she would have gotten alcohol and told him that she was trashed. He seemed shocked and said he didn't know, that she was with him the entire time they were at the store, and the store they went to does not sell alcohol. When I got home, I knew something was bothering my husband. Being married to someone for as long as we have been married, you learn when something isn't right with your spouse. I hadn't been home more than twenty minutes when my husband asked to speak with me privately. He told me that he had enabled my daughter and taken her to the liquor store. He apologized repeatedly and said that he just couldn't stand seeing her in the condition she was in - shaking and jittery - and she asked him to please take her to the liquor store. We fought - well, it was more me yelling at him about enabling her, and telling him he had to stop it and step back, that I was no longer going to deal with the nonsense.

The next day, my husband and I left for a week-long trip. While on the road, I got a call from my daughter asking about our plans for Christmas. She then started complaining about her boyfriend getting upset and accusing her of drinking the night before, and how she told him to call me because I could verify that she had not been drinking. I told her that I was not going to lie for her. This caused a fight between us, and I told her that my husband had told me that he had taken her to get alcohol. She continued to deny that she had consumed alcohol the night before. She got very angry. My phone died, and I decided not to charge it until we got to our destination because I was just tired of dealing with her.

When my husband and I got to our hotel, I plugged my phone in and turned it on. Within minutes, I got a text from my daughters boyfriend that shook me to my core. It said "Your husband forced himself on (daughter) the night she got her DUI!!" I immediately sent a text to my daughter asking her what the hell was going on. My husband also sent her a text asking her why her boyfriend was saying this because other than to hug her, he has never touched her. Her response to him was "Yes you did and you know it. I won't lie for you." Her response to me was just as short. It said "He picked me up, pulled over, put his hands down my pants and his tongue down my throat and when I pushed him away he apologized and said that he had developed feelings for me that he should not have. Blah blah blah. Not that you believe me." I told my husband not to respond to her text to him. I spent the next hour texting with my daughters boyfriend - with him saying my husband raped my daughter, and telling me what a worthless mother I am.

My husband and I ended up turning our phones off for the night. We sat and talked for hours about my daughters accusations. He steadfastly denies my daughters allegations. He told me his version of what happened that night, and says that the only time he touched her was when she started beating her fists on the dashboard and saying that she wished she was dead because everyone would be better off if she was not alive. He said he took her hands and held them so she couldn't pound on the dashboard anymore, and then he hugged her and she cried on his shoulder - he said she was still drunk when he picked her up, and this is also something he told me the night she got her DUI.

At first I thought that she was just angry and lashing out because my husband had "told on her" ... and also because her boyfriend has said repeatedly that she has to find somewhere else to live because he does not want her living with him anymore because he can't handle her drinking. This has been going on for 6+ months, and she tells him that she has nowhere else to go. She lost her job because of the DUI (she also got charged with having drug paraphernalia - she smokes marijuana in addition to drinking). The night my husband took her to the liquor store, she fought with her boyfriend again and he told her to get out. The next day, when she made this accusation, her boyfriend had told her that he was taking her to my house because she couldn't live with him anymore. That's when she made the accusations against my husband.

I made the decision to stand by my husband and believe him. I believed that everything my daughter said was due to her addictions and the fact that she doesn't want to lose her boyfriend or the house they bought last year and that she was so angry with my husband for telling me that she had been drinking.

But now...now I'm not so sure I made the right decision. After things calmed down, I really started to think ... and things just aren't adding up for me now. But I don't know if I'm overreacting.

Back in October, my husband was diagnosed with high blood pressure and was put on meds. Within a week of being on the meds, my husband was unable to maintain an erection. This was a major issue with my husband, as we have always had a very active sex life and in all of our years together, he had never had a problem getting or maintaining an erection. Sex has always been at the very top of his needs list - and has even said several times over the years that if his "stuff ever stops working" that he would shoot himself. He always said it jokingly, and has never been suicidal, but that's just how important sex has always been to him. He went back to the doctor and she switched his meds. He continued to have a problem maintaining an erection.

My husband works away from home, and is only home 2-3 days a week. I will admit that for awhile I thought he might be having an affair with a much younger co-worker and that was possibly why he could not maintain an erection. I did some major snooping, and came to the conclusion that there was nothing going on between my husband and his co-worker. But for awhile I still couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. It wasn't anything that my husband was doing or not doing - he didn't act differently or anything, I just felt that something, somewhere, wasn't right. Having six children all together, and being close to all of them, I thought maybe it was my "mom-dar" going off and something might have been wrong with one of my kids. I just couldn't ever put my finger on it.

We were having an issue with our youngest child at the same time all of this was going on, and I had become very stressed. At one point, I kind of snapped, and I turned my phone off for three days and pretty much stayed in my bedroom - I didn't eat, I didn't shower, I just cried, slept, and cried some more ...and I prayed a lot. Of course, when my husband could not reach me, he called our kids and had them check on me. When they came knocking on the door, I sent them away, assuring each of them that I was fine, I just needed some time away. In the snooping I had done, I had noticed that my husband and my daughter were spending an hour on the phone every day, plus texting a lot. I had seen the text messages between them when I would look through his phone when I thought he was having an affair, and every single text message was typical dad/daughter stuff. Nothing that sent up any red flags. It did, however, upset me that he was spending so much time on the phone with her every day...he didn't spend an hour on the phone with me every day when he was away from home. He talked about letting her move back home so that we could help her get sober and get her life back on track. I told him that I would NOT live with an alcoholic, and that I didn't want her to move back home. She is very needy and always has been - always wanting me to make her decisions for her, never wanting to do anything alone - she drained me when she was still living in our home, and I knew it would be worse if we allowed her to move back home due to her issues with alcohol. I also confronted him about the amount of time he was spending on the phone with my daughter every day. He got a little defensive, and started to say "She doesn't have anyone else..." I looked at him and asked "Do you also spend an hour a day on the phone with each of our other children?" He looked ashamed for a minute as he shook his head and said "No, no I don't. You're right." I told him that all of our children have issues - the oldest (who got married right out of high school) was going through a divorce...another one of our daughters recently miscarried...each one of them needed their dad's support - but my daughter was the only one getting it.

There were some other things that happened in the month leading up to my daughter making her accusations against my husband that looking back on now just don't sit right with me. Because our youngest turned 18 late in 2014, my husband and I were excited about the fact that I could start traveling with him. Because we both had children when we got married, we were also excited about finally being "just us" and starting a new chapter in our lives. However, during the second week that I spent traveling with my husband a few things happened that upset me at the time, and I was really hurt by them. He took me to his job site one day - it was completely empty, no one was working there - and we were waiting for an inspector to show up. He made the comment that he hoped I wasn't too bored just sitting there in the car waiting for him ... I leaned over and rubbed his arm and said "You wanna make out?" it was kind of a joke, just me trying to be flirty, and he said "I would, but I'm at work." This was not what his normal reaction would have been. Normally, he would have kissed me passionately, or flirted back. Then, I just got the feeling that he was distancing himself. When I asked what was bothering him, he said that he was just stressed out about his job, and that he wasn't used to me being around all the time (he has been working away from home for over two years), and that it kind of felt like I was smothering him. I looked at things, and thought he was probably right - after only spending 48-72 hours a week together for the past 2+ years, maybe it was just something that he had to adjust to with me being with him 24/7. So I stopped going to the job site with him which gave us time away from each other every day. There are a few other things, but this post is long enough.

I just don't know what to do. It has been two months since I have spoken to my daughter. I miss her(but not all of her drama) ... but I don't know what to say to her. IF what she is saying is true, then I abandoned her when she needed me the most. What kind of mother does that make me?

I don't know how to get to the bottom of what really happened that night. My husband was devastated by my daughters accusations. My other daughter from my former marriage has a young daughter - my husband and I are both very close to our granddaughter and we have her overnight several times a week. The weekend after all of this happened, my husband sat down with my other daughter and told her what her sister had accused him of (my two daughters from my former marriage are not close at all, and never have been, so she had not spoken to her sister and had no idea what was going on) ... my husband told her that he wanted to make sure she knew what was going on before she left her daughter with us again - he didn't want her to hear it from someone else (mainly my daughter or her boyfriend) ... my other daughter hugged him and said she knew he wouldn't do something like that, and that she would never have a problem leaving her daughter with him. He told all of our children what my daughter had accused him of - and each time, he cried. At one point he put his head in his hands and just sobbed and said "This is so hard." On one hand, he is not acting like he is guilty of any wrong-doing ... but on the other hand, I can't shake the feeling that something just isn't right with the entire situation.

If I admit that something might have happened...that my husband *could* have developed feelings for my 25 year old daughter...then I have to admit that he betrayed not only me, but my daughter - and our 5 other children, and our 4 grandchildren, and our marriage. I want the truth ... but what if I don't want the truth? If he *did* develop feelings for my daughter, could I ever forgive him? God, this is so hard.

Will your husband take a polygraph?

Hi Wounded, welcome to Marriage Builders. I am sorry for the reasons that have brought you here. I knew before you got to the punchline that your husband was sexually pursuing your daughter. I knew it because his supposed enabling just didn't make sense unless there was an ulterior motive. Drunk women are prime sexual targets. I say this as a recovering alcoholic with 30 years sobriety. Alcoholic women are prime targets for this type of behavior because they are easy to pursue and are not reliable sources of truth. They are easy sex targets when drunk. Of course everything she says will be questioned, but how much sense does it make for her to burn her prime enabler? But the things you describe about your husband are the actions of a man who is pursuing a practicing alcoholic for sexual purposes. Why else would he help her get drunk?

But you shouldn't take anyone's word for it. What you should do is find a polygraph tester and set up an appointment for a polygraph test. Tell your husband he has one last chance to come clean before the test, but that you fully expect him to pass it. I would hand him a list of all of your questions when you tell him about the test and tell him you want those questions answered fully within 24 hours. Typically what happens is the spouse sings like a canary before the test because they don't want to flunk it.

I would set the appt and then tell him 2 days before hand. When you present this idea, I would tell him you are giving him a chance to clear his name and have made an appointment for a polygraph. Tell him you need the full truth in order to go forward. [give him your questions]

An innocent spouse will agree to this and not waver. He/she will be nervous but will go through with it.

A guilty spouse is very different. At first they typically agree in the hopes you will see how willing he is that you drop the idea altogether. When he sees this is not working, he will become morally outraged: "how dare you question my word???" "We don't have a marriage if there is no trust!" "We might as well get divorced!!" blah, blah, blah. If your husband is guilty I expect him to really focus on what a drunk your daughter is.

If all of this angry ranting and raving is not effective in shutting you down, the spouse usually becomes humble and will start throwing out little crumbs of truth in a "confession." "Ok, I will be honest this time." This confession is typically about 1/100th of the truth. It is important to stick to your guns and go to the polygraph test. If he is guilty, you will get more and more confessions on the way there and will probably have the full truth by then.

We have had some amazing success with this procedure. Sometimes it clears the suspect spouse and other times, it results in a full confession.


Yes, you CAN recover from this, but he cannot EVER be around your daughter again. This is why it is so critical that you find out the truth. And if he has sexually assaulted your daughter, you may decide to divorce him. But you cannot make that decision until you have all the facts.

I would love to be proven wrong, but I suspected very early in your story that he had sexually pursued your daughter.

He says he will, no problem, bring it on.

However...my mom talked about the situation with my daughter, and my daughter told my mother that she would take one also, no problem, bring it on.

There are a couple of concerns for me, though with a polygraph ... One - my daughter lived at home until shortly after her 21st birthday. One night, she was out with friends and was not home when my husband and I went to bed. A few hours later, I was awakened by my husband jumping out of bed yelling "What the hell?!" My daughter was laying on the end of our bed, under the covers, and she was naked from the waist down. She had come home drunk and crawled into bed with us. Her bedroom is across the hall from ours. Two- Several months ago, I was in the hospital for a couple of days and my daughters boyfriend called my husband and asked him to pick my daughter up...she was drunk (again!) and she had passed out on their bed and had peed all over herself, and he just could not deal with her anymore. My husband went to their house. He walked in and the boyfriend said "She's in that bedroom." and pointed to where she was. My husband walked in and found my daughter on the bed completely naked. He yelled for the boyfriend to bring in her clothes, and he dressed my daughter in sweats and a t-shirt while her boyfriend stood and watched and refused to help my husband because he was so angry with my daughter. Taking these two instances into consideration, would they affect the outcome of a polygraph if he were asked questions such as, "Have you ever seen her naked?" or "Have you ever touched her while she was naked?" It worries me, but he says he doesn't think it would affect the polygraph.

My daughter saying she would take one...well...I'm not sure what to think about that. There were several times when she was a teenager that I suspected she was high on something, and I asked her if she would take a drug test. She always said "Bring it on! No problem! Let's do it right now!" ... and because I really wanted to trust her, and she was so willing to take a drug test, I didn't give her one the first three times she said she would. The one time I did make her take one, it came back positive for marijuana, even though she strongly denied smoking it and said the test must be wrong.

Also...where would we go to get polygraphs done? Aren't they terribly expensive?

Everything you wrote in the last post adds more fuel to the fire against your husband. Since he has seen her naked so many times, he may have cultivated a sexual interest in her. And you can ask him specifically if he sexually assaulted her on XX-XX-XXXX and if he has ever had sexual relations with her. Those can be asked on the polygraph test too.

He probably just decided to take what was being thrown in his face over and over again.

Call your local police station and ask if they can recommend a reliable tester. And check out this link: http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2473858#Post2473858

An alcoholic's word is always doubted. That is another reason they are prime targets.

MelodyLane - thank you for your response, even though it's not at all what I wanted to hear.

I just can't wrap my brain around this. As far as him being her "primary enabler" ... he's not. My parents have enabled her for years, much more so than my husband. They have given her close to $10,000 for various reasons. Also, I wholeheartedly believe that the night before she made her accusations was the first time he took her to the liquor store. The reason I say this is because he works out of the state, is never home, and she is rarely around when he is home - she was always working or out with her boyfriend on the weekends when my husband was home. Also, as I said in my first post, we were having issues with our youngest son - after he got pulled over and charged with OVI (he was high on marijuana), I asked him where he was getting his pot, he came clean and told me that he would go to the liquor store with his friend (who is 22 years old) and buy vodka for his sister (my daughter) and in exchange she would give him and his friend pot. That way, her boyfriend wouldn't see that she had money missing (because she wasn't paying for the alcohol) - it was a win/win for both of them. Her boyfriend gets large quantities of pot from some other state, and then sells it to his friends - he had my daughter doing some of his deals while he was at work, and she would skim out of his "product" to pay her brother for the vodka.

You saying that you knew he was sexually pursuing my daughter...maybe it's because I'm so close to the situation, but I really just can't wrap my head around it. He has been like a father to her since she was 4 years old. He started coming to church with me 4 years ago. We were baptized together. He is a trustee in our church. How? How could he be sexually attracted to her? And knowing how he acts when he is guilty of something - like the night he took her to the liquor store. His reactions have been hurt and devastation, not guilt. He says that he tried to be supportive of her and help her because he has been where she is - being a young adult struggling with an alcohol problem and feeling like the whole world has turned their backs on you.

I asked her "If this happened, why did you continue to call him and text him every day? Why did you ask to go with him to the store knowing you would be alone in a vehicle with him like you were the night this allegedly happened? Why did you hug him the night before you told your boyfriend all of this and call him dad and sit in my vehicle the night I took you home and tell me how wonderful he is and how lucky you are to have him as your step-dad? Why did you post of facebook two weeks after this allegedly happened 'Happy Birthday to my awesome dad who didn't have to be. Love you so much!!" She couldn't answer me.

I'm just sick to my stomach ...

Nothing you added changes my perspective. Saying he is not a "primary" enabler does not change my point.


How could a pastor be sexually attracted to his own biological daughter? How could any father be attracted to his daughter? Being baptized, being a trustee in a church does not protect any man from sexual temptations. Your husband has been exposed to your naked, drunk daughter many times. I don't understand how that wouldn't set off alarm bells for anyone? It is not hard to see how that would be tempting for him.

Even so, your best avenue is ask him to take a polygraph. Don't speculate and wonder anymore. Just have him take a polygraph.

As did I.
A polygraph will prove his innocence if he is indeed innocent.

I guess it's because I have been with this man for 21 years, I have known him since high school, his oldest daughter was molested at age 12 by her mom's boyfriend and my husband got custody of both of his children from his first marriage because of that - and I saw the outrage in him when we were dealing with his daughter being molested, and her molester going virtually unpunished. It's just so far from the person he is.

And I just keep thinking, he wouldn't do something like this - he has too much to lose. He would lose me, he would lose his relationships with at least 3 of our other children, he would lose his grandkids - his daughter that was molested would never forgive him for doing something that horrible to her sister after she had been through it. He would lose his job if his employer ever found out that he had done something so unspeakable. He would lose his position in the church. I just can't see him risking all of that. He's not the type to take risks like that.


I will tell him tomorrow that I want them both to take a polygraph. I have to know one way or the other.

MelodyLane - Just finished reading the link you gave me about polygraph testing. In one post, someone mentioned Voice Stress Analysis, and someone else said that was unreliable. My step daughter and her molester both took the VSA ... she passed with flying colors, her molester didn't. That's something else to consider doing instead of the polygraph. I just did some reading on the VSA and it seems to be more reliable than a polygraph.

Anyway... I wanted to run something else by you - again, it may end up being long, but I want to give as many details as possible.

The night of my daughters DUI - She called my husband and asked him to pick her up at the hospital - he asked if she was ok. She said "Yeah, can't explain it right now but can you just come get me?" I heard that entire conversation as my husband was laying in bed beside me when the call came in. He called me 15-20 minutes after he left the house and said that he was at the gas station getting her a Mt. Dew and a pack of cigarettes - she was waiting for him in the car. He said that she didn't know where her vehicle was, and that she didn't know how she got to the hospital, and she didn't appear to have any injuries. He got back into the car while still on the phone with me and I heard her ask him if they could go look for her vehicle. He said "Where would we start looking?" she said "I don't know." and started crying. I told him I would make some calls. I called the hospital, and they told me they could not give me any information, but I might want to try the Sherriff's department, as they could probably help me. I called the Sherriff's department, and they said that they had, indeed, taken her to the hospital. I asked if she had wrecked her vehicle, the officer said she hadn't, that they had gotten an anonymous call about a vehicle running sitting on a back road. They found her passed out in her vehicle, with it still running. When they tried to wake her up, she got belligerent and refused to take the Breathalyzer, so they took her to the hospital and impounded her vehicle. I thanked the officer and called my husband and asked him to ask my daughter the last thing she remembered. She was quiet for a few moments, then said that she remembered her boyfriend and his friend were playing video games and said they wanted Red Bull, but she told them they were out of Red Bull. The next thing she remembered was waking up in the hospital and not knowing how she got there.

As I mentioned in a previous post - her boyfriend has been trying to get rid of her for quite some time. There have been several instances where he has kicked her out because she was drunk (I actually went to pick her up on two of those occasions before I stepped back), and then the next day she would be back at their house and he would agree to give her another chance. Another one of their main issues was his friend "L" - from the day they moved into their new house, "L" was there every evening. Sometimes he would even show up before her boyfriend got home from work. She always felt invaded by him, and asked her boyfriend repeatedly to have a talk with "L" about being there every night.

The boyfriend would text me frequently "Your daughter is drunk again!" "I can't deal with her!" "Please just come get her or I'm calling the cops to have her removed!" But, the next day he would be all lovey-dovey with her - until she drank again, or I would go out to pick her up, and he would tell me he changed his mind once I got there and he didn't really want her to leave. But in the weeks leading up to her DUI, he was texting me almost every day asking me what to do with her. He knew that I didn't want her to move back into my home, and my parents had also told her that she could not live with them again. He told me one day that he would do just about anything to get her out of his house for good.

After she got her DUI, I was talking to my best friend about it. We were trying to figure out why she was on the road she was found on - if she had gone to the store to buy Red Bull, she would have gone in the opposite direction from where she was found. My friend knew about the boyfriend telling me he would do just about anything to get her out of his house, and she presented the idea that maybe the boyfriend had set her up - that he knew she had been drinking so he waited for her to pass out, then he had his friend put her in her vehicle and drive it a few miles from his house, then put her in the drivers seat and make the anonymous call to the cops thinking that they would take her to jail and he would be rid of her for at least the weekend until she could have her court appearance since she would not be able to bail herself out. That scenario makes sense - and it's something I can see her boyfriend doing. He has just always rubbed me the wrong way. It's also possible that if something like that did happen, that "L" could have sexually assaulted her, but in her drunken state, she thought it was my husband.

One of the reasons I think this could be a possibility is that I have heard that women who are sexually assaulted have very vivid memories of it - and that they can recall many details. When I asked my daughter what happened, she responded as I posted above "He picked me up, pulled over, put his hands down my pants and his tongue down my throat and when I pushed him away he apologized and said that he had developed feelings for me that he should not have. Blah blah blah. Not that you believe me." She has told this story to my mother, my best friend, and my cousin whom we are both very close to. When I told those three people what was going on, all I said was that my daughter had accused my husband of touching her inappropriately. At that point, I couldn't go into details - I was sick for weeks, and could not bring myself to repeat what my daughter had said my husband did. Later, I asked all three of them what my daughter had said to them about it. And all three of them said that she was very vague, and when they told me what she said, it was the same thing she said to me, almost verbatim - always ending with "blah blah blah" I find that very odd. My mom asked her where my husband pulled over - and she said "I don't remember." My cousin asked her how he reacted when she pushed him away, and again she said she didn't remember. Now, I know she was drunk - but how can she remember "hands down pants, tongue down throat, developed feelings he should not have" ... but can't remember anything else?

There are just so many things to consider, it makes my head spin.

Wounded, sorry you are going through this.

I see you trying VERY hard to find any miniscule detail that could prove her a drunken liar.

You are right that women can, and do, lie about sexual assault.

That being said, I spent almost 10 years in police services, and drunken fools like her make great targets because they are fish in a barrel - and nobody believes them.

Her story sounds pretty typical of a legit complaint. Sorry, it does. And most men who assault are nice, upstanding men. Believe me on that. You don't see 95% of sexual assaults reported, and the ones with records are just easy to prosecute.

And no, most don't vividly recall. They are either impaired by substances or terrified.

I know it seems that way... but I really don't want my daughter to be a drunken liar. What I really want is to have my daughter back - the sweet 12 year old who called me her best friend and wrote essays at school about me and what an awesome relationship we had.

I just know her so well, and she is doing things that are completely out of character for her. For instance, about a year ago, she felt that I had betrayed her - long story short, her sister starting dating one of her ex-boyfriends. I couldn't stand the guy - never thought he was right for either of my daughters - but I tried to keep the peace so that my daughter wouldn't keep my granddaughter away from me because of my feelings for the boyfriend. Instead of coming to talk to me about it, my daughter automatically assumed that since I hadn't banned the guy from my house and basically posted on facebook what a worthless sack of crap he was for all the world to see, that I supported the relationship and that I had chosen him over her. During the 6 months that my other daughter dated this guy, my oldest daughter would text me on a regular basis telling me how horrible I was, and that I should be ashamed of myself for supporting one of my children dating a drug dealer (kind of ironic that she is now living with a drug dealer) and that I was dead to her and she never wanted to see me ever again, etc. Or she would leave hateful voicemails for me. She has not sent me a text or called my phone once in the past 2 months.

I'm not saying that she is lying - I just have to wonder if her memory is totally correct. She has used drugs for at least 4 years - there was a two year stretch where I really thought I was going to get a call that she had overdosed - she was taking any prescription pain medication she could get her hands on, and stealing her sisters Adderall and snorting it. She has been a full-blown alcoholic for 18-24 months now. She's fried her brain. Before all of this happened, she would call me and tell me the same story three times in a 20 minute conversation. I would say "You already told me that." and she would say "Oh I did?"

I know that nice guys can and do assault - I was sexually assaulted shortly after my oldest daughter was born by someone I trusted and cared for. I also know that my daughter would do anything to keep this fairytale life she has created for herself - good looking, hard working boyfriend - beautiful new home - 6 cars that she can take her pick of to drive every day (or at least she could until she had her license suspended) - vacations twice a year to beautiful beaches. It's the life she always dreamed about having for herself. And she has done some pretty unbelievable things to keep the life she has with her boyfriend, although it's only great on the outside, obviously - she's an alcoholic and he's a jerk behind closed doors. So it is plausible that when he told her that he was bringing her to my house no matter what she said or did because their relationship was over, she said the first thing that popped into her head that would prevent him from bringing her to my house.

I love my daughter and I don't want any of this for her. I have done everything I could to help her - from finding a wonderful drug and alcohol counselor and offering to pay for her counseling (she went once and refused to go back) to offering to go to meetings with her, to helping her pay her bills, and offering to pay for her plane ticket so she could go across the country to stay with my cousin for awhile to get away from everything wrong in her life here and allow my cousin to help her get sober (my cousin is 9 years sober now and has also offered to help my daughter) - and I know now that doing those things wasn't helping her. I had to take that step back and allow her to crash and burn.

So no, I'm really not trying to find ways to prove that she is a drunken liar - she has proven that time and time again all on her own. I do want the truth. It's like a set of balance scales. I keep trying to process all of this and there is his side and her side - and right now, the darn thing is just teetering out of control. In 21 years, I have never felt that my husband was dishonest with me, and I never felt that he had every been unfaithful (up until last year when I thought something was going on with his co-worker, but I think that was just because I had recently had a heart attack and was feeling scared and insecure and needy - which are 3 emotions I'm not familiar with, and it was just my imagination running rampant. I played super sleuth very well for close to 6 weeks and as I said before, he was not involved with her in any way other than professionally).

I'm just so tired.

wounded, I think a big part of your exhaustion is overthinking this. And that is understandable. But it is not a solution. A solution would be to go schedule a polygraph and find out for sure. That way you can move forward from this.

I do believe that your husband has very inappropriate boundaries around your daughter and that should change. But I suspect you already know that.

If I was drunk and being sexually molested, it is doubtful I would remember where I was because my focus would be on the inside of the car. Even a blackout drunk will remember pieces of the night and not remember others. I am sure she is a black out drunk.

But all this is fruitless. I would just settle it with a polygraph. And when you give him the list of questions to be answered BEFORE the test [I am differentiating between the questions that will be asked during the test] I would add some questions about the coworker you suspected. Then after he answers all your questions you and the polygraph tester can decide which 2-3 questions to ask during the test.

Wounded, you MUST listen to ML. She is absolutely right about having him take the poly. I was a skeptic as well about having my H submit to a polygraph yet still followed her advice by following through with the exam. Honestly, in the end the results were irrelevant to me because he finally became open and forthcoming in answering the questions I gave him prior to the exam. The poly will only confirm whether he was being honest with you.

This is how I used to think too, but you can't apply your logic another person's behavior. History is littered with brilliant, successful, powerful men who had everything to lose and were taken down by a sex scandal. Bill Clinton and General Petraeus leap immediately to mind but there are hundreds more.

That doesn't not mean your husband is guilty or innocent. Just that the fact that risk-reward ratio for his taking that action makes absolutely no sense to you is irrelevant.

A polygraph will get you answers. Be sure to follow through with it. Like Melodylane (or someone) said - the guilty person will initially say "no problem!" trying to call your bluff.

When will you be scheduling the polygraph?

Have you ever been to AlAnon?

Regardless of their morals, people find reasons to do the things they come to want to do.

If this happened, your husband did not think about you and not about your daughter and how devastated his own daughter's molestation was for her. People in this mindset think something like: it doesn't do her any harm, because she will not remember it while she is drunk, nobody needs to know, only this once to get it out of my system, etc.

Just schedule the polygraph. Voice analysis is less reliable and the whole procedure is intimidating for the examinee, which will lead to preliminary confessions.

My opinion about the truthfulness of either your Husband or Daughter does not count and neither should anyone else's opinion.

Have them both take the polygraph, but have your Husband go first.

After reading your entire thread, that is the only way to gain clarity.

I have personally witnessed active alcoholic women make similar statements. I have read about 100's of liars swear on a stack of Bible's. I have several decades in AA and ALL alcoholics are liars.

Talk is irrelevant.

Schedule the py and post the questions you will be asking both of them before the test.

And..... For godness sake, Quit talking or accepting texts from the drug dealer POS.

How come you have not alerted the Police to this scumbags dealings? That's outrageous.

LTL

Wounded,

Have you made progress in finding the truth?

happyheart,

Actually, I'm not sure - a lot has happened in the past month, I just have not had time to sit down and post about everything. I believe I know who is telling the truth now, but I welcome the opinions of those on this board.

I made a list of questions for my husband and told him I was scheduling the polygraph. He answered all of the questions, and gave me a list of six days over a two week period that he could be home from work (as I said, he works away from home) and asked that I schedule the test on any of those six days.

I emailed my daughter and told her that I was scheduling a polygraph for her, and that I would pay for it - and that I was also scheduling one for my husband. I told her that his would be first, and hers would be after his - probably the following day. I also included a list of questions for her that I asked her to answer for me, and told her that two or three of those questions would be asked during the polygraph.

I got an email back from her saying that she had changed her mind and would not take the polygraph, and that I could forget her ever answering the questions I had emailed her. She said that she should not have to take a polygraph to prove that she is telling the truth - that she is my daughter, and I should believe her and stand by her no matter what. She said that she is leaving the state, and that she never wants to see or hear from me again, and that I no longer should consider myself her mother.

I took a step back from insisting that my husband take the polygraph ... it seems to me that the reactions of both of them have answered my question as to who is telling the truth.

Go through with it anyways with your Husband as long as he stated he is willing.

For the rest of your life, you may always have a "What If" period of doubt. Remove that possibility.

You may be right, but follow through for the peace of mind that both of you will gain.

Your daughter, unfortunately still has A Lot of growing up and maturing to do.

When/If your Husband passes his Poly, then you know for sure how much of a selfish, self absorbed daughter does not mind breaking up your marriage. Until she grows up, it actually is best for her not to be involved, especially when her boyfriend is a scumbag drug dealer. Have you ever contacted the Police and spoke with the Drug Enforcement Department?

LTL

BIG mistake.

Prisca,

I didn't say I had totally abandoned the polygraph. I just took a step back for the immediate future. I told my husband I still want him to take it, and he has repeatedly said "Name the time and place, and I'm there." I do want him to take it, if for no other reason than to be able to tell friends and family that my daughter has spoken to about this that my husband is innocent, because I do believe that he is. Of course, I still get those "what if" thoughts, and I know I will until he passes the poly. But right now, I've got so much other crap on my plate - I have had two very recent deaths in my family and we are moving into a new home.

I'm thinking I will schedule the poly within the next 3 weeks...my health is really suffering because of the stress, and I need to know one way or the other who is telling the truth. If he passes, I know she was lying and I don't need her to take one.

LTL,

My cousin is a cop, and I talked to him about it. He said he would talk to his friend who is in narcotics ...I have not heard anything else.

And that's a big mistake. The longer this hangs over your marriage, the more damage it will do.

Exactly!! Why wait 3 weeks to schedule the polygraph? Why not do it as soon as possible so your health doesn't suffer anymore?

I'm so stupid. So so so stupid. I'm so embarrassed, and to be honest I hate coming back here and admitting how utterly stupid I am...but I just don't have anyone else to talk to.

My daughter and I started communicating again last week. It's a really long story, and a lot of it is insignificant to the situation, so I won't go into it. But she decided to answer my questions. I had asked the questions in such a way that she would not feel that I was leading her towards a specific answer, and I didn't give her any indication of what my husband told me. Some of the answers were "I don't remember, I was drunk, but I know it happened." I also asked her to write it all out for me...everything she remembered from the time my husband picked her up until she got out of the vehicle at her house.

His time line does not add up AT ALL. I think the only thing he was honest about was after he picked her up and went to get Mt Dew and cigarettes. After that, it's a bunch of crap in his story. And I verified that by looking at his cell phone records from that night and the morning after (he also lied about how long it took to get her vehicle out of impound). It might sound strange, but the kicker for me on that one was in her version of what happened the next morning. She had called him and asked if he would take her to get her car out of impound. She also asked if she could borrow the money until her boyfriend got off work and could give him the money back. She told me that after she picked up her truck, she had to go out to her boyfriends work and drop something off to him that he had forgotten, and that my husband followed her out and asked if they could talk. She drove to the gas station beside where her boyfriend works. My husband told her he was sorry for what had happened the night before, that he had developed feelings for her that he should not have, and begged her not to tell me. She said he drove away, and then called her and told her that he was going to tell me it took forever to get her car out of impound and that's what took him so long to get home. That's exactly what he told me...but how would she know that unless he did, indeed, make that call to her? She said he called her twice more to again beg her not to tell me what had happened. I went back through the cell phone calls from that morning, and was able to verify that he did call her 3 times that morning.

My daughter also says she has texts from him, ones he told her to delete. I asked her to forward them to me so I could have them when I confront him. She says she doesn't want to read them again, but if I come to her house, she will show me all of them. Another thing that bothers me is that my daughter told me that my husband told her I wanted a divorce and accused him of having an affair with a woman he works with. I have never told him I wanted a divorce. In 21 years together, I have never, not once, said the word divorce to him. I know that there have been times that he felt like I wanted a divorce, but I have never spoken that word to him. Also, I didn't accuse him of having an affair - I told him that I felt the way he spoke to this woman he works with was bordering on inappropriate, and it bothered me.

Of course, my daughter never came to me with any of this because our relationship has been so strained for the past three years, and she honestly believed that I hated her.

So now comes the hard part. Confronting him. And what really stinks is that I can't do that for another week. We are away from home for his job - the company has us staying in an apartment and there are 3 other contractors staying here also. So I have no time alone or anywhere private to go to have the talk we need to have. I feel this is something that needs to happen in the privacy of our own home, where there will be no interruptions, and we will have an unlimited amount of time to talk without worry of one of the others overhearing us.

So now I have a week...seven days....to figure out how to approach him with this.

I told my daughter that I still love him. I have been with this man for 21 years. I can't just turn love on and off. She said "Then you don't really believe me, because a true mom would hate the man who destroyed her daughter." I told her that she is not destroyed. She is hurt, and betrayed, and angry, and she hates him, and she has EVERY right to - but she is only destroyed if she allows herself to be. She wants to see me - I have not laid eyes on my child since December 21st, 2014. But I don't know how to face her. I feel so ashamed of myself for the way I have handled all of this. She wants me to leave him, she says if I stay with him, then I am turning my back on her, and she can never forgive me if I do that. I talked to my cousin about all of this, and she said my daughter is right, and that as wonderful as my husband is, that once a cheater always a cheater, and that he can never be trusted again and I should leave him right now and never look back. I told my cousin that either way - whether I stay with him or not - I lose. I either lose my husband, or I lose my daughter. She said "It's not all about you." I don't want to sound like a selfish b*tch or anything, but it's not all about my daughter, either. I hate what he did to her, and that fact that he was so emotionally attached to her and sexually attracted to her - the thought makes me sick. But at this point, I honestly don't know what I'm going to do. Part of me wants to believe that I can forgive him and that we can work through this ... but another part of me wants to walk away and never look back. But there are so many other things to consider other than just me, my daughter, and my husband. We have other children and grandchildren to think about.

God, help me. Where do I even start?

Did you ever schedule the polygraph for him?

No. I don't need to. I think deep down I've known the truth all along. I'm really good at denial.

You don't need to confront him at all. Just casually mention you've booked the polygraph in less than two days time- as he agreed - so this matter can be finally put to bed.

I know this is phenomenally hard, but you must do all this with a poker face. Everything is at stake here and you only have to get through a few more days.

I'm sorry but the man's a liar. Even going behind your back to enable her is a deal breaker. You can't have a marriage with a man who lies.

He's been lying to you so as to have an enabling relationship with your drunk daughter. He should be glad of the chance to prove himself after such deceit, if that's all it was.

Find out via a poly what really happened. If he passes the sexual assault question then ask him about the inconsistencies and tackle the honesty in your marriage.

If he doesn't pass and he has targeted her then you need to know.

This 'privacy' stuff sounds highly suspicious. It sounds like you're not going to go the police about this.

That's another reason to go through with the polygraph.
You should call the police if he fails it.





No one expects you to turn love off overnight, but are you kidding? You're talking about silencing your own daughter about her sexual assault and covering up a crime against her.

She trusted him like a father and he's been drugging her with alcohol to get sex. That's not a 'cheater' that's criminal sexual assault.



That's why you need to know. They need to know too.

Wounded, this isn't really news to us. It was pretty obvious in your first post that your husband had secrets. There are other people in your world who think so too because they aren't blinded by love.

Show them that you are a mother and grandmother who can be trusted with this stuff. That you will find out the truth and protect them if they have a complaint against any man. Even one you love.

Your decision to make, I suppose. If you were my mother, I would have to remove you from my life too. Logically, if you are willing to forgive a man who has such horrible boundary issues, it means you couldn't be trusted either. Is he worth losing your children and grandchildren? This man could be dangerous to anyone vulnerable.

I do hope you face the real music with a polygraph. I suspect the truth will come out and hopefully that will rbe the push you need to see this for what it is... Good luck.

Scratch that, I see your daughter has text message evidence. Just use that instead of the polygraph. Both of you go to see the police together.

There's absolutely no point in confronting him if you've already got evidence. Just deal with it together while he is away.

Your daughter would probably feel more comfortable outing her attacker while he is gone.

At what age did your daughter's behaviour change?

indiegirl,

Thanks for your response. You said
I've given this a lot of thought over the past week. As angry and hurt as I am with him, I honestly don't believe he targeted her. I think that a series of really sh*tty events happened over the course of the past year and that a LOT of mistakes were made that shouldn't have been. I will try to explain. And please don't think that I am in any way trying to defend him - this is just how I am seeing things in hindsight.

I think things must have started going to hell in February of last year. As I mentioned in a previous post, we were having some problems with our youngest son. He had started experimenting with drugs - hard stuff - acid, cocaine, meth. My husband had gotten a promotion in 2013. He was away from home a lot. Looking back on things now, I know that I made some huge mistakes during that time. I hid a lot of what was going on from my husband because I didn't want to cause him additional stress. He hated being away from home, but we felt that it was worth it because he was finally doing what he has worked his whole life to do. He was supporting the family financially, but all other support went down the drain because he was never home. I let things get completely out of control with our son. I tried everything I knew to try, but nothing helped. Everything came to a head last April when our son spun completely out of control and I felt I had no other choice but to call the cops on him. He was arrested and spent ten days in juvenile detention. My husband came home right away and stayed home for a couple of days while we tried to figure things out with our son. He was very upset with me for keeping how bad things had gotten from him, and he had every right to be upset. I had never before felt the need to keep anything from him, but I really felt at the time that I was I was "protecting" him from worry and stress - and I thought I could handle things on my own.

The next five months were hell. Our son was in and out of detention, in and out of juvenile court, in counseling. Nothing seemed to get through to him, and every time he was released from detention, he did something even worse than the previous time. It really took a toll on my husband and I. My husband questioned me constantly about if I was being honest about what was going on with our son - and it started to annoy me, even though he had every right to question me based on my previous actions. I was under a huge amount of stress. In mid-August, things came crashing down again. I was to be in court with my son again that day. He was in detention and was scheduled for an on-camera hearing at 2:00 that day. Around noon, I started feeling really strange. I thought it was an anxiety attack, so I laid down and waited for it to pass. For reasons I can only describe as a miracle, my daughter came to my house (the same daughter who had an alcohol problem) She could tell something was really wrong, and despite my protests, she finally bullied me into getting into her car and she took me to the hospital. As I laid in the ER hooked up to monitors and IV's, I repeatedly told her "DO NOT call (my husband) until we know for sure what is wrong!" Again, I didn't want to worry him. I didn't want him to jump in his vehicle and break all of the speed limits trying to get home to me and risking being in an accident (I know that's what I would do if someone I loved was in the hospital) ... five hours later, they determined that I had had a heart attack and admitted me to ICU. At that point, I told my daughter to go ahead and call my husband. He was not a bit happy with me. And he gave my daughter all kinds of hell for listening to me and not calling him anyway. Then I told my daughter it was ok for her to leave that night. She kept asking me if I was sure - and I kept telling her to go home and get some rest, that I was fine. She finally left the hospital...and promptly got drunk. I touched on that in an earlier post. Again, looking back, I should have let her stay. She had already lost her father at such a young age, and now her mom has a heart attack. She needed to be there with me to make sure I was ok, but I pretty much pushed her out the door because I didn't want anyone to fuss over me.

She has said in the past week that when I was in the hospital, that's when my husband started to act strange with her. She said he would hold her hand, and it made her uncomfortable, but she didn't want to think it meant anything. She just thought that he was afraid of losing me. She said after I got released and they all knew I was going to be ok, he stopped acting strange. I got released from the hospital, and I told my husband the next morning to go back to work - I was fine. He said he didn't feel good about leaving me so soon, but I convinced him to go back to work - I had our kids, and my mom there to take care of me, and I was fine. Again, looking back, that was a mistake on my part. Before my heart attack, I had never really been sick - a cold here and there, maybe a case of the flu every four or five years. But I am, and have always been, the caregiver, the strong one, "super mom" "super wife" fixer of all problems. I don't find it easy to rely or depend on others - that's just who I am and everyone knows it. I thought I was thinking about my husband and what was best for him, but I was being selfish in my thoughts that I was strong enough to take care of myself, and everyone just needed to go back to normal as soon as possible so that *I* could feel better. I wasn't thinking about how all of it affected my husband or my kids. They were scared and worried, but I didn't want to talk about it - I didn't want to appear weak and scared.

I've since learned that people who have heart attacks often go through a period of depression. And boy did I ever! Of course, I was in denial about it. I continued to put myself on the back burner and deal with my unruly son and his issues, and my other kids problems ...anything to keep myself from admitting that I was suffering from some depression and admitting that for once, I needed help and support.

I believe that's probably how things started with my husband getting emotionally attached to my daughter in an unhealthy way. And she unknowingly added fuel to that fire, because she really started to depend on him and need him. I don't think that as he bought her alcohol he was thinking "I'm going to get her drunk and take advantage of her." ... I think he was thinking "Someone needs me, and it makes her happy that I can give her something she needs (the alcohol)" ... and things just escalated from there.

Maybe I'm way off base here...but this is really what I feel happened. It doesn't make it ok, not even in the slightest, but if this is how it all happened, then I can understand it, and maybe even forgive it. It will take a TON of counseling, and even more prayers - but I know that God will guide me through this.

All the valid reasons and explanations in the world do not excuse criminal behavior choices. Your "super-fixer" is not fixing anything right now and is about to make you a participant in that criminal behavior via enabling and sheltering.

She was around 12 years old when her behavior started to drastically change. That's when her dad got sick. She watched him get sicker and sicker, until he passed away when she was 18. After his death, things really went downhill. She started smoking marijuana to deal with her stress. She claimed she could not eat or sleep unless she was high. That went on until she was around 20. She lived at home until right before her 21st birthday, when she had a physical altercation with my son, who was 13 at the time. Long story, but I was at work and they were at home along with one of my other daughters, and my son was playing the piano and it was annoying my daughter - she later admitted that she hadn't been able to get high that day because she was broke and couldn't afford it - and she picked a fight with him that ended in her punching him in the face. He fought back, it got ugly, she left the house in a fit of anger and moved her belongings out a few days later. Around that time she added prescription drugs to the mix. She would crush and snort anything she could get her hands on - Xanax, Percocet, Adderall. Then she discovered pot tea. I had never heard of this before, but apparently you can brew marijuana through a coffee pot and it changes the effects of the drug.

She totaled 3 vehicles over the course of the next 2 years. Then she went to my parents and asked for their help (financially) ... they loaned her the money to get out of debt (she had over $5000 in credit card debt and some medical bills that were seriously past due) my parents loaned her the money, and offered to let her move in with them. She did, and she decided to go to school to become a veterinary assistant. She started dating a guy who turned out to be a real winner - and days after she finished her vet assistant course her boyfriend was driving her car (she was in the passenger seat) - he had drugs in the car (he was a dealer) and the cops tried to pull him over. A high speed chase ensued, and the officer suspended the chase because it was too dangerous to continue. I got a call a few hours later that her car had been found abandoned. I didn't hear from her for 26 days, she was on the run with her boyfriend. They finally turned themselves in - he went to jail, but the judge let her go free. Then she started dating another jerk who abused her physically. She was constantly bruised. We all tried to help her. Me, my parents, her siblings, her other grandparents. I have set up counseling for her, offered to pay for it, offered to pay for an in-patient treatment center. She has never been ready to get help. She doesn't think she has a problem.

This is just the tip of the iceberg really....but all of her problems started when her dad got sick. And yes, we tried counseling to help her deal with that - she would sit in the chair for an hour and refuse to talk, and when the counselor would press her to say something she would tell him "There is nothing wrong with me except that you annoy me." So that did no good either.

Super mom!

You call yourself super mom in one breath, and then apologize for him sexually assaulting your daughter.

You might be the foggiest person I've ever seen on here.

Wake up! God will guide you? What does He have to do? You've learned all this and still bed with evil. I will pray for you, and your grandchildren for when they become the next target. Good heavens, I can't even.

oh well, as long as he began to target her when you were seriously ill and she more vulnerable than ever that's all OK then.

Counselling for who? Up to your daughter surely to decide how to treat her trauma. You don't need it and I can't seriously think you are talking about your husband.

When are you calling the cops?

Your husband's quite an accomplished liar isn't he?

This isn't someone who just wandered into inappropriate feelings.

Look into the health story covering up his lack of erections and the co-worker story too.

I believe God is guiding you through this. He sent you here where experienced, knowledgeable people see your situation with clarity you do not have right now.

The question is - will you muster the strength to follow the advise you know to be correct or will you roll over for evil and betray your daughter because you feel weak and it's easier to rationalize and make excuses than confront reality?

and this may be why he was so nonchalant about a polygraph.

Wounded, you prayed for guidance weeks ago and have been guided straight to the truth of the matter when you could have easily been duped and betrayed yet again and subsequently betrayed your daughter again as well. you have the truth now. What guidance more do you need before you stand up and stop the cycle of wounding and start healing?

He was going to let you think this forever.

Schedule the danged polygraph already for goodness sake!!!

I still don't believe your alcoholic/addict daughter, but YOU can get the truth from your Husband, so DO IT, Once And For All.

Just because your daughter "Says" she has texts does not mean she actually has them.

I call BS on her not wanting to forward them to you. Anybody can create a fake Contact Name in their phone and "Say" the text is from So And So.

Also, it's pretty easy to send Spoof Texts.

Do the danged Polygraph and quit beating yourself up.

Your daughter previously REFUSED to take a polygraph when you asked her to.

Go look at her phone and YOU Forward those supposed texts to yourself..... IF she hasn't accidentally deleted them when you want to finally see them.

I DO NOT believe alcoholic addicts on ANYTHING!!!

LTL

Which is why they are the perfect targets for sexual assault.

So what is your plan?

You continue to guess and speculate without actually taking the steps to find out the truth. You know if he takes the polygraph you won't be able to maintain the denial.

Having him take a polygraph would be much less effort than all the denying, spinning and rationalizing. All of the mental masturbation in these posts could be spent facing the truth. And just think, he might even pass the test and save you the trouble of spinning, rationalizing and endless demonizing of your daughter.

I understand your daughter is satan incarnate, as described by you, but what if she is telling the truth? You aren't going to get that answer from spinning and rationalizing. You may very well settle this issue by having your husband go through a polygraph.

Also, you can retrieve your husbands text messages from his phone. You don't have to rely upon "Satana" for them.

All the more reason to actually FOLLOW THROUGH this time and actually have him TAKE the polygraph, Not Just SAY He will.

LTL

Exactly. A polygraph is the only way to remove all doubt.

First of all, I am in no way demonizing my daughter. I'm sorry if it is coming across that way - I'm just stating facts. My daughter has had serious issues for a LONG time. For YEARS her father and I tried to get help for her, but it's damn near impossible when she has never felt that she had problems. We did what we could. One therapist agreed that she had some anxiety and depression based on the questionnaire that she did agree to fill out, and what her father and I told him. He wanted to put her on some medication, she refused. Even as a minor, we could not force her take medication. The therapist told her father and I that legally we could not force her to take the medication, and we couldn't force her to talk to the therapist either. I love my daughter - she is my first-born, and more than anything in this world I want to see her happy and healthy - physically, mentally, and emotionally. But until SHE is ready to do what she needs to do and admit she has issues with drugs, alcohol, and depression, there is not a damn thing I can do for her. She watched her father battle the WORST, most EVIL disease on earth for 5 years, then she watched him give up even though she and her sister begged and pleaded for him not to, and a year later, he died while she and her sister ate lunch in the hospital cafeteria - it's no wonder she has issues. I'm not saying she's a horrible person - she's not - the drugs and alcohol she pumps into her system on a daily basis are the demons that have a hold of my daughter.

But all of you are right...I need to DO something about this. I'm a processor - it's something I learned in my first marriage. I had the horrible habit of reacting badly to every and any situation that made me angry, uncomfortable, hurt, etc. So I started processing...every scenario, every possible reaction that I could have, how people would react to my reactions. It's exhausting. But for some reason I can't stop doing it.

Wounded, Marriage Builders is about making and following a plan to solve your problems. We push people to follow plans here because we want to help them. We would not be your friends if we let you engage in endless hand-wringing about how bad you feel.

The kindest thing my Marriage Builders mentor, HerPapaBear, ever did for me was to repeatedly ask me "So what is your plan?" every time I told him what was happening to me.

So imagine that all of your good friends at Marriage Builders have come over, we are all in your living room, picking you up and insisting that you not sit here paralyzed but that instead you get to work and start solving this problem. You know we are your friends, right? If you will trust us and start ACTING instead of TALKING about how bad it is, soon it will not be that bad.

Let's start by getting the truth. Get on the horn and schedule that polygraph immediately.

We are not going to be enablers for you and let you do the hand-wringing thing. Let's get going, Wounded. You've already admitted you made a mistake. No sense whining about it. You have an opportunity now to repeat the mistake, or to get going on a plan this time. Time for Wounded to make a plan to not repeat being Wounded. Let's roll.

You don't need to know the reason, and you don't need to engage in endless analysis and hand-wringing about it.

Work the plan.

Have you found a polygrapher yet?

I understand your DD is an alcoholic. We already know that. More citations of her crimes will not change the situation. All of these posts citing a laundry list of her crimes are a distraction from the problem and make no sense. The issue at hand is whether or not your H has assaulted her. A polygraph should resolve that question.

What is with the new screen name?

Wounded, don't post about your feelings. Your feelings are going to be "I feel like crap." Instead, post about the PROGRESS you are making following the PLAN. If you will follow the PLAN eventually you will not feel like crap.

If you continue to post about your feelings instead of following the PLAN to get the TRUTH, we will hold your feet to the fire and remind you that you will continue to feel like CRAP until you work the PLAN and get the TRUTH.

This is not complicated and has an easy title:

Very much agree with markos. You are trapped in an endless circle of feelings. The time has come to set aside your feelings and start taking ACTION.

I don't agree with Markos at all. My husband DID NOT rape my daughter. Even she will tell you that. According to her, he engaged in a one time inappropriate advance.

And please don't give me that whole "doesn't really matter what you call it, rape is rape" bullsh*t ... because it DOES matter. There was NO penetration - nothing even CLOSE to penetration.

If it happened...he was WAY out of line...he crossed boundaries that should NEVER be crossed..but to call him a rapist is not accurate.


indiegirl had asked at what age my daughters behavior changed...that's why I posted about her and what she has gone through since her father got sick. I didn't mean for it to be a distraction, I was just answering a question that I was asked.

MelodyLane - As for the change in name...I let the neighbor lady where we have been staying use my computer and told her about this site a couple of weeks ago because she had talked to me about some issues she was having and we have a lot in common (around the same age, married the same length of time, husbands do the same kind of work) She was here tonight and used the computer...apparently she didn't log out and I didn't realize it until I read your post and looked to see what you were talking about. I will be more careful about that in the future.

To answer another question, I don't know what the plan is. Part of me wants to get all of the information I have collected together and confront him. If this happened, I want him to look me in the eye and admit to it. Someone else mentioned that the privacy issue bothered them - if I confront him with everything, I want it to be somewhere and at a time that we aren't going to be interrupted. If it takes ten minutes or ten hours, I just want anything that happens to be in the privacy of my own home, without my husbands co-workers hearing the yelling, screaming, and crying that I might do. I'm not trying to hide anything or cover anything up - I just want to sit down with him and lay it all out on the table. And I think that's what needs to happen. I should schedule the polygraph for when we are back at home. Then I will confront him, and no matter what his answers are (unless he tells me the EXACT same story my daughter has told me) then I will tell him when the poly is scheduled for. I don't know why, but I feel like I need to give him one more chance to come clean with me himself.

Feelings are not truth, and they are not a legitimate substitute for actions. Your plan is one of conflict avoidance and conflict avoidance only creates more conflict and stress.

Your feelings are leading you wrong and will not resolve this problem. It is unrealistic of you to expect your husband to "come clean." Even if your husband did "come clean" you would not know if it was true or not.

And you don't fool me for a minute about the new screen name. You and I both know you made it up so you could avoid talking about the real problem in your marriage: your daughters story. You are in denial and want to sweep it under the rug.

Are you kidding? He's been buying her alcohol for a long time - for a reason. As a black out drunk she has no idea what's happened to her over time. The actions of pulling her over and grabbing forcefully is not an 'advance', those are practiced actions of a man handling a woman too drunk to resist or know what's going on. He misjudged how drunk she was.

You really are in denial. She was assaulted at the very least - don't make out like she was subjected to a bad pick up line. She was drugged with alcohol, and molested by force.

In a car. Somewhere dark and isolated that he drove her to. Before getting on with the task wordlessly.

How you can call that an advance sickens me.

But if you can deny it you don't have to help her. That's why you told her not to expect too much from you as a mother. Because you love him.

It's OK not to enable her but it's not OK to ignore this or 'process' it either. we are talking about a crime not an 'advance'. You are a wife and mother - a grown woman and you don't have the luxury of hand wringing time and trying to find new names for yourself and new names for sexual assault. Get the proof and follow through.

Then I suggest ignoring that post and reading the rest of them that I made for you.


Yes - that is what the polygraph will do.

YOU DON'T KNOW THAT.
Only a polygraph will settle this.

If I had any suspicion, ANY SUSPICION AT ALL, that my husband tried to be sexual with one of my daughters then he would be out of my house until he proved his innocence with a polygraph. Your hand-wringing is disturbing.

If your daughter IS telling the truth, and she is watching you waffle like this, it's got to be really big slap in her face.

The only way you'll know who is telling the truth is to get a polygraph. He's already agreed to do one. So go through with it! If he's innocent, he won't mind taking one to set your mind at ease.

isn't it better to set your mind at ease this is to big of a thing to wonder, to not be a mother first��what can it hurt, he said yes, either way it's a good thing for you, and your husband it will help him you will know one way or the other what you have to deal with��.and do�..

Polygraph Testing

Schedule the polygraph and go through it no matter what.

If he is guilty he will most likely sing like a canary just before the test. He will try to tell you the bare minimum and hide the worst stuff he can, so go through the polygraph no matter what.

If he is not guilty he will most likely pass the polygraph with flying colors.

Wounded45, you may be thinking "Gosh these MBers are so adamant about the Polygraph test! Jeepers!"

You know why? Because they have seen people on this board tread water and do nothing. They want to help and want to see you take concrete action.

You have two issues:

1) Is your DH telling the truth? Well clearly there are many times he hasn't.

2) Your daughter is self destructing

So for your DH, I think you owe it to yourself and your other kids to find out the truth. How can you do that? Taking a polygraph is suggested. That will a) show if he is lying, hopefully and b) make him talk about this in public
Also he should stay away from any of the kids until you are clear. He should also not contact your daughter and give you the passwords to his email and let you see his phone.
Obviously that is not perfect, but is a start.

For your daughter, you have to act as if she is telling the truth. The pain you will feel and your daughter will feel if she is telling the truth and you blew it off is much less than if she is not. Also you can't control her, but you can go to Alanon to get support in dealing with an Alcoholic family member.

I hope you continue to read the MB especially about Emotional Needs...clearly you need to work on Openness and Honesty as you have caused some issues yourself by not sharing.


Yes, the Polygraph is a hard thing to do. I am sure you are putting it off because you don't want to know the answer. But you need to take action.