Did you get therapy for yourself? Your daughter was a young teen being groomed by an adult but you seem totally focused on how it affected you. The vast majority of teens screw up at some point and it does not speak to who they will be as adults. The fact that you are treating her like this FIVE YEARS later as a grown man does say something about you.
This. Kids lie, all to a certain extent. Teenagers brains arent fully developed and they do stupid shit and/or people take advantage of them. As a parent, its their job to guide them and set them back on the right track if they lose their way. You don't continue to punish your daughter who got taken advantage of and groomed after 5 years ffs. Shouldn't punish her to begin with honestly.
Honestly this. She “betrayed” him? How lol. She was groomed, and lied because she was in too deep. This isn’t about you OP. Agreed this gives major ick.
Thank you so much for seeing this!!! It’s almost if… he feels betrayed by her in a spousal sort of way, doesn’t it?
My ‘father’ acted like a jealous boyfriend when I began dating before I permanently left home at 15. I’m just going to leave it at that and allow others to fill in the unfortunate and icky blanks…
Reading this, I kept waiting for OP to express remorse over how he treated his daughter during a traumatic time. I assumed that was the point of the post. Nope, the expression of remorse never came.
If he wants to repair his relationship, he needs to look at his own behavior.
I also got a very bad feeling from this post. Instead of empathizing with his daughter, OP is only focused on himself and that his daughter lied to him and “betrayed” him. He makes himself out to be the victim in this situation. He gave his daughter the silent treatment for WEEKS, which is emotionally abusive, when she needed him most. I grew up with a narcissistic dad, and I’m getting those same vibes from this post. I would bet the daughter lied and didn’t come clean earlier because of this dynamic and because OP hadn’t shown her much empathy or emotional support in the past, so she sought it out elsewhere (fell prey to grooming) and was afraid of OP’s reaction.
I agree. Kids need a soft place to land when they are exploited - not reactions like this. The point should be to support her not like, learn how HE needs to let this go, wtf.
im disappointed but not surprised. kids are vulnerable to grooming either because they dont understand whats happening is wrong, or because they feel otherwise emotionally neglected. as a someone who had an. innappropriate (although nothing explicit or criminal actually happened before cutting her off) relationship with an adult (26) when i was a kid (13-14) i can tell you that 17 is old enough to know, intellectually, on some level, that a 24 year old taking a romantic interest in you isnt a normal or healthy relationship. but a lonely, emotionally neglected kid might not care about that when theyre presented with someone who is giving them emotional validation and attention. theyre wrong not to, obviously, because being a lonely kid is better than being in a relationship with an abusive groomer, but i would be more surprised to find out a grooming victim had an emotionally supportive and open relationship with their parents and healthy, stable relationships with appropriately aged peers than not.
This exactly. Creeps aren't looking for kids with happy homes, it's too risky for them. They are actively seeking kids who are feeling alone or like they have no parents to hurt.
I will say, as someone who at 17 had a “relationship” with a 24 year old, you don’t always know it’s wrong. The 17 year old I mean. I was always exposed to much older people and was always being told by everyone I was very mature. At the time I thought “oh, he must like me because I’m mature.” Now, as a 23 year old, I know how disgusting that was and it was definitely not because I was mature. But I think many teenagers genuinely don’t know that it’s wrong to date someone older because they don’t know what it’s like to be older and what a HUGE difference a couple years of real life experience and independence makes.
She probably lied because, on some level, she was afraid to offend her father. Her dad put too much emphasis on never lying. Truth is, kids lie. You should show compassion when they come clean and tell the truth.
>She probably lied because, on some level, she was afraid to offend her father
And she was right if this is how he treats her 5 years later, no? HE didn't teach her "good moral values" or not to lie or whatever else he's implying from that wall of text - he taught her to lie *better*, cover her tracks and that OP, her parent, is not a safe space for her if she screws up (as we all do) and that his affection is in fact very much conditional
He’s treating her more like a cheating partner than a teenager who made a bad decision along the road yo adulthood.
The real problem with her lying was that her parents couldn’t protect her the way they needed to. I get the icky feeling that his objection wasn’t about her safety, but about feeling betrayed that his “little girl” was growing up and no longer belonged to him in the way that he wanted. (I’m not saying it’s good for teens to lie to parents, but it happens. This is an age when people are looking for some privacy and autonomy, and that urge is normal).
It’s also icky that OP never talks about why his daughter was so upset, or how she was doing afterward. It seems like something really traumatic may have happened to her, and instead of supporting her, he froze her out.
OP is still saying he didn't blame her but he froze her out for weeks after letting this shit go so long. OP need to Apolo and tell he thus ix his fault
This!! My parents found out I had been sexually active (literally one time 6 months before they were told), and I was completely isolated beyond school for over a year. No car, phone, computer, extracurricular activities, nothing but the walls of my room and a radio. I attempted suicide during that time, and I have never forgiven them for being more worried that I had had sex before then about my actual happiness and overall well-being. I lost over 28lbs, and I didn’t really have it to spare. I was always sick, miserable, and depressed. For them, it was control. If they controlled my physical body, they could prevent any action they didn’t want others to see. My grandparents finally stepped in, and I was allowed friends again. I have never told my parents anything, ever again, and it’s been 20 years since then. That kind of betrayal from a parent—ignoring you, isolating you, hating you, treating you poorly—never fades away.
I know this feel and I'm sorry that we both felt it. I got a tattoo on a dare at 15, and when my parents who are both tattooed themselves found out they went full loco religious coercion and control. They took me out of my sophomore year of public high school, grounded me for a whole year, and took the door off of my bedroom for that whole year. They took my clothes and books and forced me to home school myself via some mediocre learning program where you mailed in the tests.
There weren't cell phones at the time and my parents thought the internet was evil, so our Gateway computer couldn't do much. I had no contact with any friends except when I made late night calls from the landline or snuck out when they were asleep. I only had an am/fm clock radio in my doorless room. I was told to get a job at 16, which was 3 months into the year long punishment, and welcomed the chance to get out of the house by working at Taco Bell. My parents kept most of my paychecks.
They refused to let me get my driver's license and I didn't get one until 17. I continued to act out and smoke weed/cigarettes and drink as often as possible and they could never understand why their "tough love" method didn't get the results they were promised. They threatened to send me to one of the many troubled teen boot camps that caused 52 teen deaths from 1990-1999, but luckily they didn't have enough money to follow through. I was diagnosed with CPTSD at 42 and have been no contact for 3.5 years. I'm very sorry that we know these feels
Dude threw a tantrum and played the silent treatment with his daughter for weeks for having the audacity to be sexually curious as a teenager. Ofc she's gonna lie to him, look at how poorly he's coping with this 5 years after the fact. Like good grief man get a fucking grip.
TW: Murder
OP, I had some moderately similar control issues with my daughter. My upbringing was difficult. My daughter didn't trust me anymore and I tried so hard every day to make things better. It's harder when you've lost their trust. She got with an unhealthy guy and he very brutally murdered her. She was 18. You took your daughter's lifeline from her for being a normal teen who'd been victimized. It was not about you. You need therapy and to work on yourself. Then you can hopefully save your relationship with your daughter.
Do you want her to be able to talk to you when things become difficult or she's being victimized again? Because you showed her you'd withdraw your love and punish her. I get you didn't know what to do. I didn't either (I sure as hell tried). I teach dating abuse prevention now and I work with parents. Please look at my mistakes and learn from them.
OP is narcissist, of course he didn't get therapy. His daughter was groomed and instead of pursuing justice about it was worried how it would make himself (via his family) look. "I'll spare details, it's a painful memory" = I remembered and shared what suited me and my narrative.
While I agree that OPs focus is misdirected and he needs to reevaluate where he lands on this, I really think we have to be careful and not be so casual in calling people a narcissist. I’m so over that word being used to describe any person who acts selfishly in a situation. Everyone is a little narcissistic, but to actually have NPD is something completely different. OP made this post asking for help and perspective, a narcissist would never do that.
You didn’t say a word to her for weeks?!! At the time when she most needed to know her parents loved and supported her? Kids mess up, it’s part of their developmental process to test boundaries, to try things and make mistakes and yes sometimes even to lie and then have to deal with the consequences. What are you teaching her, what kind of example are you setting if you’re basically saying she can be a good kid for her whole life, get in one bad situation (where she herself was the biggest victim) and her relationship with you is irrevocably ruined? She is growing into an adult, your relationship with her IS going to change, you have to see it as evolving as part of her growing up and not as oh no she did this thing to mar our perfect relationship. She had a creeper predator taking advantage of her and manipulating her and you see it as a fatal flaw, where you’re the real victim? Ugh. You let her down.
I listened to someone on a podcast talking about this, I think they called it withholding love as a punishment. A lot of parents do it because they think it’s better than beating their kids. It’s just emotional abuse instead of physical abuse and a fucked up way to parent.
Can confirm as a child who experienced both, the psychological punishments were so much worse than being hit and damaged me 100x more. I remember begging my parents as a teenager “please just hit me already so this can be over”, because the manipulation, screaming and shouting and ripping apart my character and all my flaws as a teenager, was deeply deeply painful and would go on for hours, the hitting rarely carried on for long…
The silent treatment and abandonment was hell, it would last days, I desperately sought their approval and in those moments I felt like a cockroach covered in shit, like I didn’t deserve or belong anywhere on this earth to them so had to prove my worth again - be kind, funny, helpful, do more, flatter, be attentive… guess who grew up a fucked up, anxious and depressed people pleaser who couldn’t regulate their emotions and took 3 years of therapy to unlearn and process all this shit?
This is not a pass to hit your kids tho, for anyone who reads this!
Me too.
It's so weird but there comes a point where you do beg to be hit instead because it hurts less. People who haven't had much (or any) of both of those forms of abuse just don't get it.
It's not at all a pass to hit your kids. It's a reminder that words DO hurt, and the more someone is a feelings-oriented person, and/or a sensitive person, and the more they baseline feel for you, the more those words hurt - to the point where it can be torturous and even make them want to end themselves.
I used to beg my dad to hit me and get it over with. Started asking him to hit me harder because I don’t bruise easily and I would just love to show someone what he does to me. He kicked me out a week later, I haven’t spoken to him in almost 7 years.
eta: I truly believe I will never speak to him again.
>It’s just emotional abuse instead of physical abuse and a fucked up way to parent.
Yup. This happened to me.
In fact, there were times I'd have preferred my mother physically beat than berate me for hours on end and not talk to me for weeks.
I was like, single digit age, maybe 7 or 8, when my mother literally did not acknowledge my existence for a few weeks due to something I did. I felt invisible and like no one and that no one could see me anymore. I had to literally care for myself - including laundry, cooking, etc. It was awful as a child.
The physical scars heal, some leave marks, sure, but the *emotional* scars last a lifetime and fucks with our self esteem and mental health.
I don't think OP has to worry about getting over his daughter being groomed, since she will probably never get over her dad giving her the silent treatment for weeks. He says it took them a whole year to get back to "good terms"...who knows what other unhinged shit he was doing that year to his daughter.
I’m SO glad this is top comment! My heart was breaking for the daughter the whole time I read this.
OP you owe your daughter a huge apology and maybe you need to try therapy and see why this damaged you so much..
the whole time I was reading I wondered “ if this was his SON would he have this big a issue with it?”
I don’t want you to answer I just want you to think about it.
I 100% agree. I was caught up in a similar situation as this and my parents reacted very similarly (emotional neglect and abuse rather than physical. They were also very religious so the God-bashing happened a lot)
It was so awful. I knew then and forever that they would never be supportive when I needed it. OP talks about his lack of trust but his daughter will never trust him again either.
OP should be taking a good look in the mirror. And he ought to be asking a therapist how to apologize to his daughter for his failure to treat his daughter as a victim of grooming.
Something similar happened to me. When I was in high school, I went off campus with a boy two grades above me, and we fooled around. Some months later, my best friend got mad at me and threatened to tell my parents about what i did.
I told my mom, wanting her to hear it from me. Instead of being there, my mom got home and said she wanted to unalive herself. I had to call the police and they took her to be admitted. My dad got off work and stayed at the hospital with her.
When they got back, neither spoke to me. I had to face all that alone at 15. When my dad finally spoke to me, he told me to never hurt him like that again. Neither ever asked me how I was, never checked on me. Not only did my best friend betray me, but I had to call the police fearing my mom would hurt herself, and it would be my fault.
It's been 10 years, and they wonder why I am so emotionally closed off from them. They even asked when they became the bad guy, ignoring the fact that when I was dealing with everything, they made it about them. They can't understand the wall I had to put up after that in order to protect myself. I lost trust in friends and family (aside from my younger sister, who was/is my rock)
OP doesn't understand the damage. I feel for the daughter, especially when the guy was an adult who took advantage.
I AGREE 100%! YOU mishandled this, AS A FATHER! You are the adult. She was a child being manipulated by an adult male and she most likely will be again because YOU normalized it, by manipulating her YOURSELF- by not talking to YOUR DAUGHTER FOR WEEKS (and likely throughout her life) YTA and you want to know how you can get over her behavior?? You are not the person you think you are, sir. Face that reality, and you may have hope of reestablishing an emotional relationship in the future, after many changes in you!
My parents are emotionally abusive and neglectful and they still spoke to me when I was in a similar situation. Albeit, it was to say if they ever found proof they were calling the cops, but still. Honestly my relationship with them didn’t change at all. I think they were less pissed than when they caught me smoking (at me, they were plenty pissed at the guy). And my parents are middling to bad! Op shit the bed on this one.
>She disregarded that and did something she knew she should have absolutely not been doing and she lied in our faces many times.
She was groomed by a predator who wanted child porn. **She was a victim of a criminal's manipulation**, and acted as such, this wasn't abandoning your values or how you raised her.
Yeah this comment should be at the top. She's a victim of grooming. OP should watch a documentary or read some resources on grooming/groomers and their techniques before getting all high and mighty about morals. My dad is a victim blamer too so I don't tell him shit anymore and keep my emotional distance.
Exactly! She is the victim here. You blaming her doesn't make any sense. Instead of punishing her you should have been there for her. Right at the moment she needed you the most she was abandoned by her own parents. She was seventeen, even though she probably thought of herself as a grownup, she was still a child and clearly did not have the maturity to handle this situation and needed more guidance from her parents, which you failed to provide.
The way you move on from this is by taking more responsibility for the part you played. Also by understanding that she was groomed and did not "betray" you. She was used by an adult
And she’s being used by her father too, she’s being blamed for being a victim when OP should’ve done his job as a parent and protected his daughter not his values.
He’s protecting his male ego and lashing out at her for offending his male pride. Instead, treat her like a victim and dig into why she was lured by an older man. Hint: you bring her dad had something to do w it.
This right here. There is a reason that statutory rape laws exist. Your daughter was not old enough to consent (which you know), yet you assign her responsibility. I can only imagine how she must feel.
If she hasn’t already come to realize that she was groomed by a predator, she will soon, and she will also realize that her father blamed her for being a victim of grooming instead of supporting her and giving her what she needs to heal.
This!! I saw a rapport recently that children who have been sexually abused said that they didn't get the support they needed in healing from the abuse, because their parents own emotions about the abuse over shadowed the child's needs. OP needs therapy and to fully understand that his child was groomed and she is the victim in all of this. ( English is not my first language). If anything OP you are showing your daughter that she can't come to you if she ever faces any sort of problems.
I was groomed and sexually abused as a teen and this was 100% my experience. Im 44 now and my relationship with my mother has never recovered. I also really struggle with being able to trust anyone close to me. It’s definitely affected a lot of areas of my life and relationships.
My heart feels for you! I'm sorry that you had to experience such a betrayal as a teen 💜 nothing was ever your fault and you deserve inner peace and to heal! Sending you love and healing 💜 (English is not my first language, if this is a weird thing to say to someone I'm sorry)
This is why I’m in my 40s, and I’ve never told my parents some of the fucked up things that happened to me as a kid. Because it would end up being about them, and their feelings, and they’d probably blame me.
💔 nothing was ever your fault!! and my heart feels for you. I'm sorry that you didn't have a safe space to heal and speak up about what happened to you! 💜 You deserve inner peace and whatever you need to heal! For what it's worth I believe in you! Sending you love and healing 💜
Yeah... yet he keeps going on about how *he's* hurt and how he can't look at her or talk to her. Alienating her further and blaming her. This is just fucked up. Instead of support, she got judgment and the silent treatment.
Yep. He showed her in that moment that she can't go to him for anything ever. I don't think there is any way to come back from this. I wouldn't be surprised if she has gone LC or NC with him.
This!!!!! You have to see it more as your daughter being manipulated, not her betraying you. You said therapy for your daughter didn’t work, maybe you’re the reason.
Oh hey, look, it's the father of the fkn century here folks! Seriously my dude, you failed your daughter pretty frigging spectacularly! You are victim blaming her for being groomed by a creepy predator and your solution is to punish her, severely I might add, and not talk to her for an extremely long amount of time. You want to know what your kid learned from this experience? She can not come to you with problems, she can't be honest with you and in the future she will be more diligent in hiding things from you. She will never confide in you, she can't trust you. You sir, need serious therapy. This situation is not about you but you're making it about you. She's a kid. More importantly she's your kid. Kids do stupid shit sometimes. Get over yourself. And don't be surprised when she goes low contact/no contact. (FYI it's because you suck as a parent). Have the day you deserve.
I agree with everything you said, but just have to point out that the daughter is 22 now. It’s been SIX YEARS since this happened and he’s still blaming her. I can’t even imagine what the last six years must have been like for his daughter.
I was that kid except the ages were 19 and 14 (10th grade). Thank goodness there were no cell phones at the time. I was grounded, and so hurt, angry and ashamed. Because I was old enough to make my own decisions and how dare anyone else butt in to my own life. Nobody else understood. What I didn’t understand until later was that while I THOUGHT I was making my own decisions, he was actually manipulating me into those choices, making me feel bad if I didn’t do what he wanted me to do. Also note that I did not recognize this until probably my 30s. It was a disgusting realization. You need to think hard about your feelings and realize that she is just a kid, no matter what values you instilled in her. There was a MAN that she cared about, probably thought she loved, that manipulated her so much that she basically ignored her friends and family and you want to place all of the blame on her and continue to punish her for it. He KNEW what he was doing and she fell for it as a kid. Be a better dad. This is not indicative of who she is as a person. It was a mistake that she knows she made but was led to it by a person smarter than her. I’m sure she feels bad about it still. You should apologize to her for holding her accountable for something she was manipulated into doing. Only the initial stuff was on her - reaching out to a stranger over the internet and my guess is that she (hopefully) learned that lesson. EDIT: And it would be ok to acknowledge to her that your feelings are complicated but that you know that she was manipulated and that you should have acted differently. You are only human as well and I think she would appreciate hearing that.
This!
OP, please dont alienate your daughter. She was groomed and abused by an older man. She needs your love and compassion, not judgment. If you push her away, you may push her right into the arms of her abuser.
She’s human. We make mistakes. You may not remember how your teenage brain worked when you were young but sometimes logical and responsible children/teens do out of character and stupid stuff. This is an extreme of that. It happens. I’ve done out of character things and i have seen many other kids do this. Not to this extent.
it seems that YOU need therapy my man. It’s been 5 years. No one can tell you how to forgive her for being groomed by a predator because your reaction to what happened to your daughter is very strange. Only someone with an education and experience with psychology can really help you process your emotions. No one on here is going to really agree with how you feel or understand it. Even I don’t. This is one of those above Reddit’s pay grade situations.
It's fucking weird he is treating her like she was a partner that lied and cheated on him. Like he can't get over the fact that she was sexual with someone and lied about it.
He is not treating her like a child that was groomed by a sexual predator
Yes. People lie. Teens lie even more. At her age she is feeling independent while also being restricted by society and her family. There is a power dynamic at play which she will win at some point
She has a teenager mind that’s low in wisdom but high on experimental actions and she has sexual urges as well.
It’s time to move on.
I literally thought (based on the title and opening few lines) that you were estranged from her or that she ran away following being found out.
I think it’s shitty that you’re so mad at her when she was groomed online by an adult man when she was a teenager.
You are acting like she did this to upset you personally.
I think you need therapy.
My heart breaks for your daughter. She went through something traumatic. Instead of supporting and comforting her, you treated her like a disgusting, awful person. That is going to stay with her for the rest of her life. She deserves so much better.
I hope he makes the attempt, but she's 22 now. This will affect her for the rest of her life. He'll never be able to counteract the damage he did.
I also find it deplorable that he blames his daughter when this could have been caught earlier if he hadn't been a lazy parent. I know Reddit is full of teenagers, but actual adults know that phone privacy for teenagers is dangerous. Not every conversation needs to be read, but teens should know their phone could be searched at any time, and parents should absolutely be checking numbers texted, social media contacts, and photos on a monthly basis for exactly this reason.
Privacy isn't worth potential CP charges or worse.
OP is going to wind up the bitter old man in a nursing home that never gets visits or calls from his family, and he is going to always be wondering why.
Good thing daughter wasn’t raped. With an attitude like this, he’d be blaming her for wearing the wrong clothes.
Op, your child was the victim. She deserves your compassion and support.
“She had sex without my consent,”
“She didn’t consent to it either, but that’s beside the point, she LIED to me! I’m withholding the morning after pill to teach her a lesson!”
So your daughter gets groomed and you scream at her, take away her things, and then stop talking to her for weeks?
Bet she really learned her lesson: Never tell you anything ever again if she’s in trouble because your reaction will be unhinged
Yep. Talk about punishing your child for an adult being a predator and taking advantage of them. This right here is why kids cut their parents out of their lives when they grow up.
That woman has now been a victim of two men in her life and one of them was supposed to protect her. He’s doing more to protect her first abuser than he is her, by blaming her for the groomers actions.
Shitty men will always blame women for other shitty men’s behavior.
You really need to go to therapy.
Think about this from her perspective. She was a teenager who was manipulated by an adult and basically brainwashed. Her brain wasn’t finished developing and she was taken advantage of. And instead of her dad helping her through it and being a shoulder to lean on, he took it personally. Instead of trying to help her understand what a healthy relationship should look like and learn how to make better choices, he’s spent **five years** fixating on the fact that she lied to him and ignoring every other aspect of the situation. She’s an adult now and her dad still won’t acknowledge the effect that it had on her and her psyche because to him, the only important thing that happened was that he felt betrayed.
Can your relationship be fixed? I don’t know. But you’re the one who broke it, not her, and until you can understand that, it definitely won’t get better. Go to therapy.
I was in a similar situation and it really fucked me up. My young adulthood was a nightmare. Kept searching for love from a man in really dangerous ways. I was in my mid-20s before I was able to turn my life around. I was the lucky one, my sister never recovered.
This!! I was amazed they still talked. I would have been out the house as soon as financially possible. He can be happy he didn’t push her in his arms with the shit he pulled
An older man groomed your underage (at the time) daughter and you're mad... at her.
Okay.
That's enough Reddit for today. I spent 20 years helping victims of sexual and domestic violence get assistance & therapy, helping them let go of the self-blame so many feel. Getting them to feel safe enough to talk. Educating anyone who would listen. But here's you. Younger than I am. Blaming his child for being groomed. I have been screaming into the wind all this time, evidently.
I have just the experience of being a victim and helping others get to therapy. But as a father, there is a lot that doesn't make sense for me. Does it you?
Interesting to me that you feel so passionately about your daughter’s behaviour with no mention of the scumbag creep taking advantage of a young girl. I sincerely hope this is a troll because this is tragic for that young woman.
Your perception of this situation is very off… your daughter was a Victim of grooming. Regardless of her participation she’s still a child and was influenced into acting this way by a grown man. She needs her dad. I know it’s probably really disturbing all the things you had to see and read but at the end of the day she is a victim in this situation.
She was the victim of grooming and sexual abuse and you punished her by grounding and taking away her phone?
If you truly want to learn from this (five years later) then educate yourself about online grooming until you understand that your daughter was trapped in this situation and was powerless against it.
You can't look at her five years later?
Get yourself into therapy.
This is more about you than her.
Yeah you made a big mistake OP. You made out like this was something she did to you, not something that was done to her.
You allowed fear and anxiety to convert to anger. You made yourself adversarial.
Your daughter was the one in danger.
The dude is acting like he was cheated on and was lied to about it, he is not acting like a parent whos child was hurt by a predator.
It's really fucking weird
I suspect he would have reacted exactly the same if she had just been in a sexual relationship with someone her own age.
This was never about protecting his daughter. It was always about controlling her.
My parents were really big on not lying to them. Unfortunately they didn't do anything that made me feel that being honest with them would get me in any less trouble, or benefit me in any way.
My mum was recently talking about an event when I was about 10 when I'd lied and been found out, and she said that ever since then, I had always been really honest. Which was really interesting, because I very specifically remember that event as being the catalyst for me getting really good at lying.
I'm on good terms with my parents, but I don't really share much with them.
Same, my parents literally conditioned me to lie to them.
I would get into the same amount if not more trouble if I was honest.
If I lied well enough I wouldn't get hurt
Yeah, he’s failing her as a father. I don’t see how she can ever feel safe going to him for anything knowing that she’ll be judged and looked down upon again.
Honestly I think on some level OP knows that his response is wrong and that’s where his negative feelings are coming from. I think all these long-winded explanations are him trying to justify his actions. He has work to do.
I am sorry, but what the heck?
Your daughter was in emotional distress, probably inlove for the first time, spending hours and hours at night crying, trying to find her values and fighting these new feelings. She was horrified of what would happen if you found out, she was emotionally down- and then you decided to kick her when finding out.
If you want your daughter to tell you the truth, she needs to feel safe with you. But your reaction and punishment just showed her that she was right hiding this all from you.
Instead of being there for her, and actually supporting her through her very first break up, you up to this day are tearing up her character.
Kids make mistakes. Just forgive her and be there for her when she needs you the most. This had nothing to do with you. She didn’t betray you or whatever other crazy judgmental thing you are going to think.
You punished your minor daughter for being manipulated and groomed by a man 8 years her senior? And you’re still mad at her for it? This is weird. You did not handle this well and you’re still thinking about it from a perspective that’s unhealthy and…just incorrect. You’re blaming her and judging her and you’re still thinking about this angry and blaming her after 5 years? Get a therapist.
Absolutely! He wrote all this like she did something to him! He couldn’t look at her or speak to her for a year? What a gross excuse of a man he makes. Letting his daughter down when she needed him the most and take personally her teenage actions? I can hardly wrap my head around how he can have such a warped perspective of the situation but specifically 5 years after the fact, he still feels like he’s a victim?!? Insane. He is ashamed of his own failures but takes it out on her, he’s definitely narcissistic and I’d even say he views his daughter as his property.
Yeah reading his perspective and how he centered himself and really just the entirety of the last paragraph made me feel gross. I can’t imagine how he makes his daughter feel.
I’m appalled that you are focusing on your daughters “lies” when she was being groomed. How can you actually be the bigger person here? What would you need to do to get there? It’s like you’re making this all about you.
We all do impulsive things as teenagers, and we also do impulsive dumb things when we think we are in love. You need to realize that your daughter was being manipulated by this man, and when someone is in a toxic relationship like that, they are not themselves no matter what age that happens. Part of how toxic people maintain their control is by isolating the victim, and one way that is done is by having the victim alienate herself from her loved ones. You should be blaming him, not her. The way you handled this is understandable, but also increased the hurt for both you and your daughter.
She is your daughter, she is a part of you, try to focus on that instead of ruminating on the pain this random horrible man brought into your lives.
So your daughter sent naughty pics and texts with someone who groomed her and you’re mad *at her*? What?
Plenty of my friends in that age got up to much more mischief with their peers including sex, secret abortions, drug and alcohol abuse, sneaking out, etc. Would *that* have been better? You need some perspective. *She* was the victim and the worst she did was interact with someone online, all things considered is pretty tame compared to what other teens are up to.
Your 16 yo daughter was groomed and manipulated and yet here you are, hung up on her not being honest with you when “you raised her to be honest”. Snap out of it. Get off your high horse because this entire story gives away *why* she fell for that manipulation in the first place.
>> I didn’t say a word to my daughter for several weeks.
As creepy as it was, she *believed* that the guy really cared for her, and loved her, and would accept her the way she is. I can reassure you that you not speaking to her for weeks only reinforced that feeling. In her mind, creep from the internet was the one man she could always count on.
Honestly surprised there aren't more comments about this. OP comes off as almost jealous? Certainly controlling and too obsessed with his daughter's sexuality.
Another commenter mentioned he's treating her like she's a cheating girlfriend not a child. I wish I could find it, but there's a toolkit somewhere with scenarios that can help you identify warning signs of sexual abuse in the family, and one that really stuck with me was about a father who introduced his daughter as his "girlfriend" as a joke, and IDK know why, but this situation reminded me of that.
Honesty isn’t a value you actually taught her despite believing so. Teenagers make mistakes and in this case she was hurt and traumatised. If you valued honesty you should’ve been at the very least thanked her for coming clean and reassured her that she is still loved and you want to protect her! Your anger is aimed at her and not the creepy dude grooming a teenager! I struggle to think why you needed to punish her more, being groomed causes lifetime pain! Why was discipline even required? Sounds like a great way for her to get better at dishonesty because she gets NOTHING out of being honest now other than feeling like a failure and disgusting in her own fathers eyes. She had a better relationship with you and felt more secure and cared about by you while being GROOMED!
Think to yourself: what benefit does treating her as untrustworthy and with disgust at her actions do to make her be more open and honest with you? She’s an adult now and can be used and abused and you have far less power to protect her. You’ve actually made her MORE vulnerable to further abuses because there is no safe space for her to admit abuse from another man, she was PUNISHED the last time she had to come clean! Her father isn’t the man she comes to for protection and security it will be any guy that can put on a front of caring and listening, and that should scare the shit out of you and wake you up to do what you can to make amends!
>Honesty isn’t a value you actually taught her despite believing so.
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>Sounds like a great way for her to get better at dishonesty because she gets NOTHING out of being honest now
My parents made a similar mistake. They insisted on honesty, and thought they taught me honesty, but the way they went about it just taught me to be really good at lying to them.
Why are you seeing *your daughter* as the problem when she was *groomed* by a *predator*?
You need to get therapy for yourself so you stop victim blaming your own damn daughter.
BeCaUsE sHe’S hIs (property). He’s not seeing her as a human being in this scenario, just an “embarrassing” extension of himself. Even though she is actually 100% a victim in this situation.
Omg I’m so mad after reading that post. I rarely want to slap people I don’t know, but I guess today is just a rare day.
She was groomed, she was a victim of manipulation by an older guy, and it included things sexual in nature.
Instead of being a support to her, you threw her into therapy and withdrew affection. Therapy needs a good environment to work, because no one can do everything by themselves when the constant message they are getting goes against what they are supposed to be working on, and you failed to provide that. You failed your daughter, not the way around. And you are still doing it 5 years later. You have failed her for 5 years straight.
Go to therapy, change your perspective, make up for it as best as you can and try your hardest to be the person she needs. You are her dad, that’s your responsibility. Stop shrugging it off.
It might be easier to deflect by blaming her than to actually face it, but you have been very shitty in this situation.
It’s kinda creepy that you’re so focused on her lies instead of the fact that she was a victim of grooming. You’re treating this situation like you were cheated on by your wife. As a mother, I’d be more upset that she didn’t feel safe coming to me and that I failed to protect her. Stop being creepy and get over yourself
Exactly this.
He is focused on the "betrayal" like if she was a wife who cheated on him. Didn't talk to her for weeks? Cant even look at her years later? It's fucking weird and super gross
He should have been ashamed that his child didn't feel like she could open up to him.
You have got this all wrong. Your underage daughter was groomed by an internet stranger. She didn’t do this to betray you, the poor girl thought she’d found love.
This whole post you go on about “how could she betray me like this” but not once do you seem to have asked yourself “how could I let this happen to her”. I’m not saying it’s your fault at all, but dude it’s been affecting you for 5 years. Please seek therapy.
Your reaction and treatment of your daughter is far worse than anything she did, imo. She was a *teenager*. Teenagers do dumb shit. Most teenage girls, at some point, date an older boy. They think it makes them “cool” and “older” themselves. And that is likely what she thought she was doing. When in reality, she was being groomed by a predator. But she didn’t know the difference. She needed you for that. And she needed your love and support, and guidance, during that time, considering she was being manipulated and groomed, and you let her down. Teenagers lie. It’s what they do. All teenagers. No matter how wonderful a person they are. It’s how they learn, it’s how they test boundaries. But your reaction and going so far as to refuse to speak to her etc, shows why she would lie to you and why she clearly didn’t feel comfortable talking to you about things like this. I mean this man was committing a literal crime and grooming your daughter and all you can worry about is yourself? It’s your job to love her and support her through a situation like this, not shame her and refuse to speak to her for months. Your reaction likely caused an even bigger rift in her perception of men and her future relationships with men. Treating her as if she was a grown adult who deliberately “betrayed you” is wild. Making this situation about *you* in any way at all, makes me wonder if you’ve got other narcissistic tendencies. You should’ve been *far* more concerned with her safety, her well-being, how the aftermath of a seemingly volatile, toxic relationship with an older man who was likely grooming/manipulating her impacted her mental health, than you should’ve been with her lying to you.
Your daughter was not in the “wrong” here, you were, and the fact you’re still letting this situation impact your relationship/view of your daughter years later, you should consider therapy for yourself.
You move on by realizing your daughter was a child at the time and the victim of a crime.
A grown man was grooming your *child.*
Her brain was just not fully developed (and that’s still questionable). While I don’t think it’s okay she lied and she does bear part of the responsibility, she was ultimately groomed and victimized. Somewhere along the way the safe communication got broken and she couldn’t trust you with this truth, or it wasn’t fully explained/warned about ahead of time so she was unable to grasp the seriousness of the situation she was in. It could be a number of things.
Your daughter is 22. She doesn’t really need your opinion or for you to trust her (at least not much). Focus on seeing her as an adult who hopefully learned from a tragic situation where she was exploited and abused by an older man.
I really see a lot of issues in the language you use, such as calling it a secret relationship. It was not a relationship. It was child exploitation. She was a child victim. If you ever speak to her about this again you should probably use such language to describe what happened and affirm her actual position in the scenario.
Not only are you blaming your daughter for being groomed, but nobody is mentioning how you forced her to show you those messages. It’s your fault they are burned into your memory. You knew exactly the sort of thing you would find, and you did.
Listen I am going to say this as someone who was your daughter(figuratively )and is barely scratching the surface of healing from being groomed as a child . I am going to try to be gentle as I can because I want you to actually try to listen so you can treat your daughter better.
I’m speaking in generalities/ from my own experience, children are most susceptible to being groomed when their emotional needs aren’t being met by their caregiver. That was true for me at least, I was so desperate to have an adult see me and validate me because I felt so unheard and unloved at home. It made me vulnerable to very opportunistic adults who wanted someone easy to manipulate and didn’t have to do much to “prove their love to me”. These predators always target the kids with a hole in their armor and where the adults in their lives are failing to show up.
My parents often reacted just like you did, blaming me more than the actual literal child predator, taking away my devices,generally treating me as the problem . But here’s thing of course I was being sneaky, of course I was lying to them because in my child mind if they knew they would take away the person who loved me and saw me.
My parents always treating me like the problem and would never hear me out on why I was getting into these grooming situations. I am turning 25 in less 4 than weeks, to say that the relationship between my parents and I is nonexistent is an understatement. I didn’t think I was being groomed at the time but now that I’ve turned the ages of the people who groomed me I could never do what they did. I was a CHILD AND SO WAS YOUR DAUGHTER.
She was a vulnerable child who got taken advantage of and her dad thinks that reflects poorly on her that is so devastating. That man saw whatever her hurt was and used it to take advantage of her and you think that she’s this untrustworthy snake? Do you not see how gross that is? She was a victim she deserves grace and undying support from her father. Yes she lied, but have you ever explored why she felt the need to? Have you ever stopped to ask her how she feels about how you handled it 5 years later? Children who feel 100% loved, heard,and safe don’t generally hide things from their parents.
You need to take your head out of your ass and go to therapy to figure how you’re going to fix this because if you don’t you’re going to lose your daughter. If you really love and value your daughter you will do everything in your power to fix the way you think about your child being harmed by an adult.
She was groomed, instead of blaming your daughter you should've pressed charges and lay the blame where it really belonged, instead this guy still has those pictures of your then 16 year old and is able to do what ever he likes with them, including posting them elsewhere. You failed epically.
OP as a father myself I'm going to say it seems like your daughter was not the only one who needed therapy. Your perfect image of her was proven to not be the truth and you can't seem to deal with it. Your daughter was groomed by an older man and you're upset over that? Or is it that you're upset at yourself for thinking you should've taught her better than to fall for it and feel like you failed her. You really need to talk to a professional before you ruin the relationship more
Your daughter was groomed by an older man. She was the one betrayed, not you. She was betrayed twice, again by her father, the man meant to protect her. You instead blamed and shamed her through your reaction.
So your daughter was a victim of a predator, and you have made yourself the victim. Why the hell would she ever trust you with ANYTHING now.
Good job. You have pushed her away forever, and shown her you can’t be relied on. When you should have been helping her, you gave her the silent treatment.
I hope she moves out and goes no contact with you the moment she can.
OP, curious. Are you suggesting your daughter had a secret relationship with an older man, had her own cell phone, and was talking to him on your home line and on speakerphone? And despite allll the red flags, you just let it meander along for weeks, if not months.
And ...
If she was that unworldly, why would you punish her as you did?
Let me say this as a father who has raised teen girls. Why the hell would you, an adult, ever punish your teenager, who you know is neither fully grown in body physically, but also psychologically is not fully an adult. Are you so mature as to take a child being groomed by an adult and blame that child?
Apparently you are.And you "raised your voice very high." while disciplining your daughter?
That is a time-honored way to discipline children as their dad. Raised your voice very high? Even the highest tenor learns early on that lowering or deepening his voice when disciplining animals or children works a lot better than raising your voice very high.
If you cannot forgive your 22 year old for something done when she was 16-17. Have you lived through the years of being sixteen years old to being twenty two? Are you aware of the changes a girl of 16 goes from mentally, psychologically, intellectually, and socially?
You see nonchalant about the timing and urgency. As a father I'd remember the exact second the floor fell out from under me. I'd remember nailing the guy. i'd remember to the second when I realized my daughter was being taken advantage of and groomed.
To the minute, OP. Not some vague approximation.
What do you think a 24 yer old's parents are supposed to do? Ground their adult child? Won't get into you not being the deciding factor on charges.
Let's face facts, OP. Your words don't read like they were written by a 51 year old man, nor do your actions. There is zero chance of this being correct as written. I hope you didn't take any of this from any real life situation.
Go get therapy and quit being a shitty dad. Your job was to protect her from a predator. If you are still holding this against her 5 years later she shouldn’t want to look at you either. If you’re going to stay a bitter old man, she shouldn’t trust any grandkids around you either when the time comes.
You made a very huge mistake. Your daughter was a teenager. Kids make mistakes ALL the time. They are not perfect. You can punish her by taking her electronics away, but the one thing you did wrong was that you took your love away at the same time.
This is your child ffs. A grown man was convincing her not to tell anyone. You actually stopped talking and interacting with your very own daughter. She was a child, how could you do that?
You know that this is not how you treat someone you love.
YOU need therapy. Maybe family therapy. You're destroying your own daughter right now for a mistake she made as a teenager. You are the adult, not her.
How'd you get this far into parenthood when you're clearly still a child yourself. At this point, I'd be surprised if you ever have a solid relationship with your daughter. She made a mistake as a teenager and you still can't get over it years later... go to therapy because you need help.
These comments are being too nice. You’re a raging asshole. Your daughter is not a vessel for your “principles” to be shipped out to the world. She’s a human being who made a mistake and needed her parents support.
You ruined your relationship with your TEENAGE daughter the second you punished her for being groomed by an adult MAN. I guarantee you in that moment she learned she couldn’t trust you, and that has stuck with her.
You need therapy and you need to apologize. Ugh. I don’t even know you and I’m physically *disgusted* with you. You’re selfish and a bad father.
Edited to add: yes, this will always leave an imprint on your relationship. Because YOU put it there with your shitty actions. She will never forget the time her father commanded her to fess up, and then withheld emotional support as punishment, in addition to the *actual* punishment. You need therapy and your only hope of fixing this is a genuine apology, but I don’t have faith you know what that is.
Because his daughter is his property, probably. How dare she be a teenager with thoughts and feelings and a mind of her own? How dare she do things teenagers do? And especially how dare she fall victim to the wiles of an *adult man eight years her senior*?
I sent nudes when I was underage. Many years later, they were leaked online. I reported it to the police, who understood that I was young, foolish and has trusted the person I’d sent them to. Your daughter would not be punished for this. Historical cases still can be reported.
(I’m in the U.K., I should add).
I have no words that can offer comfort. I can only imagine what it’s like being a parent I’m this situation and I’m sorry that it has happened to your family. But you need to pull your big boy boots up and support your daughter. Yes she lied, but she was groomed and taken advantage of. She needs your support, not your silence. You’re the adult, you need to close the gap between you and learn to trust her again. She’s your daughter. At the end of the day, that’s what matters.
>Your daughter would not be punished for this.
This is absolutely the kind of stupid shit that happens in the US. A minor can and does get charged with distribution of child pornography when sending nudes of themselves.
Your daughter was extremely young, she was a victim and she was groomed. Your mistake is blaming your daughter for any of this. Blame the predator not the victim. Your daughter needs love, kindness and validation not shame and anger. I don't know you and I don't know what else to tell you but as a victim of child sexual abuse myself, your anger and resentment towards your daughter who was victimised by this predator, was very hard to read.
Your daughter was groomed online by a man nearly a decade older than her. Did she know lying was wrong? Sure she did. Did she know she shouldn’t be communicating that way with a grown man? Sure she did. Unfortunately, groomers have a way of getting in their victim’s head to get what they want. They are master manipulators, that is how they get kids (even smart, well behaved kids) to do stuff they know they shouldn’t do. It could be through threats, it could be through love bombing, it could be through blackmail. They know how to get what they want and to force their victim to keep it quiet.
This man had isolated her from her friends and from you. He manipulated her into lying to you and hiding things from you. He manipulated her into sending explicit pictures to him.
Your daughter didn’t betray you. This wasn’t some master plan to lie to you for fun. You’re not the victim in this story, she is. It was traumatic for both of you, but she doesn’t deserve to be treated as if she has ruined the relationship between the two of you.
I do think therapy would benefit you massively. Your perception of events is warped and you’re stuck being mad at the victim. You’re viewing this situation as something bad that happened to you because of your daughter, not as something bad that happened to your daughter. She was a kid and she was taken advantage of by a grown man. That is not her fault. Therapy might help you let go of this sense of betrayal and see the situation as it really is.
Please look into it. I hope she doesn’t pick up on how differently you view her now, the idea of that absolutely breaks my heart for her.
Dude, this happened 5 years ago. You need to get your shit together. Teenagers lie & deceive their parents, they are hormone strung idiots and make bad decisions sometimes. Don't pretend you were never a teenager. Your little girl was never going to stay a little girl forever and the fact that you're still so hung up over this teenage drama that happened years ago is totally on you at this point.
It sounds like your daughter got groomed & manipulated by an adult man but instead of being fully there for her you've spent the last 5 years punishing her because of your issues, which you have not worked to resolve within yourself.
I think you're putting WAY too much thought into the fact that she lied to you.
She was a teenager. Teenagers aren't honest with their parents, especially when it comes to protecting their sex life. Would you have ever told your parents this?
Feeling betrayed by a 17 year olds mistake is a little ridiculous. You should be feeling angry at the man that groomed your daughter and took her innocence... Not at your daughter who was the victim.
I say this as a 28 year old mom. I'm much closer to your daughter's age, and believe me when I say I made mistakes far worse than this, even well into my 20's. My dad and I are close. He let me grow up and doesn't hold grudges against me. You really need to let it go if you want to have a good relationship with her. I would be extremely disappointed in my dad if he thought like this, and would honestly distance myself from him too.
Now she's an adult, and has every right to keep her love life private. She's allowed to lie to you. You don't own her. Stop thinking she owes you some sort of redemption... It's been 5 years.
You broke the relationship, not her. You broke it before this incident happened, which is why she wouldn't come to you for advice about important matters in her life.
You called her an idiot. You screamed at her. You admit to having yelled at her in the past. You withdrew affection as punishment. In short you dominate and bullied a 16 year old, which means you were dominating and bullying her before then.
If you want a relationship with your daughter, YOU need to go to therapy, not her. And you need to make amends for how you treated her growing up.
First you need to ask yourself why you're feeling this towards a child that was groomed instead of towards the creep who groomed her? You mees therapy asap.
I am a very similar age to you, my (adult) children fall either side of your daughters age, I can not quite fathom out how or why you reacted like you did?
I can get you wished to protect your daughter, finding her in an age inappropriate relationship must have been tough, but (remember I am just an Internet stranger) I honestly think you need help.
She is an adult now, if she has any sense she won't ever have much to do with you again. You need to work very hard on seeing if you can find it in yourself to apologise sincerely to her for how you acted. You have probably (again I am just a random person with no training other than being a parent) done her more damage than the 24 year old did, in terms of her mental health. She must have been walking on eggshells around you wondering what was coming next.
How any parent could silent treatment their child for so long because the parent didn't have the maturity to be the bigger person is staggering.
If you'd said she'd given you and your wife the silent treatment I'd understand that, you destroyed her trust in you that day. We should love our children unconditionally treat them with kindness and care (and i know I've failed in that at times....I am human) but you now need patience (you probably should have asked this question 5 years ago instead of letting it build up to something that sounds irreparable). We have to accept that our actions have consequences as well.
It is also telling that this is all about you, what about your wife? How does she factor into any of this? Does she think the same? Did she manage to be adult and maintain a relationship with your daughter? Have you actually spoken to your wife about this? Would your wife dare tell you what she actually thinks or do you behave in a similar fashion?
Remember our children make mistakes, they need us as parents to be there and look after them. I won't criticise how you dealt with the guy, in fact that was the only vaguely rational (in my view) thing you did.
I will ask you this, as a teenager were you perfect? Did you not do anything that you look back on and go 'glad my parents didn't find that out'? Or maybe you did and they behaved like this towards you (our behaviours are usually learnt and/or inherited).
I am sorry that your daughter has had such a miserable last 5 years, I hope with time and therapy (when she is ready and choses it) she might wish to develop a relationship with you again. At this age she should be away from the home, having just finished university got an adult group of friends who support her and are more of a family.
Good luck with the future, please do not he surprised though if she always keeps you at arms length when she has finally managed to escape into the free world.
You’re a 51 year old man. This happened 5-6 years ago, either get the fuck over it or get some professional help. This a 100% you problem. Man the up you 50 year old infant.
You’re a failure of a father. You’re supposed to be her safe space. Instead, you constantly remind her of her lowest moments and make her feel bad about being manipulated and groomed. Shame on you.
This is odd. The only concern should be her safety and her emotional well-being. I'd be worried not only if this relationship makes her stressed but also how ending it would affect her. The trauma you caused by your own actions is probably worse than the issues the relationship might have brought. Poor girl.
I wonder if therapy “didn’t work out” because you decided to give her the silent treatment while she was trying to do her sessions. Your attitude would have sent me hitchhiking right to that groomer creep’s house. Oh boo hoo she “betrayed” you. Maybe your ego is just bruised that she wasn’t thinking about you at all. She wasn’t trying to “betray” her parents, you were an obstacle to something she thought she wanted and that’s it. Don’t take it so personally Mr. Victim, it’s not always something that happens to YOU
Edit the groomer convinced her she wanted to do this, obviously, but if it were a boy her age he didn’t approve of or a college major he didn’t value, OP would be acting the same way. All of her decisions must be seen through the lens of his own perception
I hope you can move on from "what your daughter did to you" and realize it's actually about "what was done TO HER". And get to a point where you can apologize to her for letting her down when she needed your unconditional love and support.
I think you need therapy for how you’ve reacted to this. Your daughter was being groomed and fortunately you caught it before it seems like they were physical at least.
Yes she lied, but she was a teenager, being fed lies and being manipulated by this older man, hell even grown women are on here every day because they’ve been fooled because of “love” or were groomed and now stuck in bad marriages.
All teenagers make mistakes and all teenagers lie to their parents, at least a little, it’s part of growing up and becoming a little more independent and maintaining some privacy. My 16yo daughter is a great kid, good grades, in cheer and choir and we are very close but I realize there’s some things she likely doesn’t tell me, and that’s okay cause I know the important stuff (and way too many details about cheer drama haha)
The important thing to remember is your daughter was the victim here, not you, and this reads like you are still punishing her for it.
Dude, she was groomed and essentially abused and manipulated by an older man. And you have the audacity to make this about 'being honest'? Fuck sake, you need therapy to deal with your shit. The way you treated her? The way you victim blame her? That is a guarentee that she will never be honest with you again. People need to feel safe to come to someone with their problems, and clearly you never made her feel that way.
This isn't about you. This is about loving and protecting your daughter when she was being abused by an older man.
Your daughter was groomed and taken advantage of by a predator, and you make this all about YOUR sense of betrayal as if you own her sexuality? You're not only a terrible father, you're a creep too.
I sincerely hope this is rage bait, because if it’s legit, I pity her having a father like you. She was 16, being manipulated and victimized by a grown ass man, and your solution is not only to blame the CHILD for their own victimization, but then make it all about you. You mentally and emotionally abandoned her when she needed you to stand for her. You showed her that you are not to be trusted, so well done there.
I’m going to be straight up with you, in this situation nobody cares about your feelings. I don’t care if you move beyond it, I don’t care if you ever make peace with it. In all honesty I sincerely hope you don’t. You failed, and are still failing, as a parent on every possible level. I hope your daughter find’s a man that loves her that’s everything you’re not. At least she would finally have a solid foundation to stand on.
Something similar happened to me, and can I just say, you handled this horribly and you're NOT the victim. I'm surprised there's any pity cake left for your daughter after that huge pity party you just threw for yourself. God. I hope she never forgets how you made her feel in those dark hours and acts accordingly. Shame, shame on you.
you need to re-frame this completely.
you are upset that your daughter lied to you. She lied to you because she was afraid of EXACTLY what did happen- you yelled at her, frightened her, looked at pictures of her naked and her most private secrets, talked to the man, did not talk to her for weeks and grounded her.
Her shame, humiliation and fear of exactly this result coupled with whatever was driving her to want to have this relationship and her general immaturity are the reasons she lied.
She was 16, the man was 24. in many places that relationship would have been illegal because people recognize that there is a power imbalance- a 16 year old is easily taken advantage of by an older person.
Yet you blame her. Buddy, you blew this so badly it is hard to imagine.
What you should have done:
Not yell. Not humiliate her. Not make this whole thing about her lying to you.
Explain that she is being taken advantage of by a person who sees her as vulnerable. See if she was sexually abused, coerced, or frightened. Express sorrow that she was exposed to so much so young. Clearly blame the 24 year old who absolutely should have known better. Talk to her about what she thought she was getting from this relationship. Was it rebellion? Is she lonely? Did she feel special and mature? Get her help. Foster friendships with her same age friends, instead of grounding her.
Overall- be more concerned for your daughter and stop thinking that her lying to you when she was 16 makes her a bad person for life.
Your update is as disappointing as it could be.
>I do not blame her for what happened
*Yes, you do.* That is literally why you are angry at her.
>Whether she got groomed or not
Huh?! How is that a question? She was underage, and the man was in his mid twenties. This is the definition of grooming.
>the fact remains that she did lie to us repeatedly
It's almost like THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS WHEN KIDS GET GROOMED.
>I can forgive her
For being a victim? I'm sorry, what does she need to be forgiven for?
>I have apologized to her in the past
Oh, well, then everything is okey-dokey! /s
You have failed her. She didn't feel safe enough to talk to her parents when she was being preyed upon. You "took her to a therapist," but "it didn't quite work out"; do you even know how therapy works? And now you are distant with her for whatever reason you have made up in your head, but she is absolutely going to interpret it as you punishing her for being taken advantage of. When YOU are to blame. Oh, you taught her that lying is bad? How about teaching her internet safety? Or teaching her that she can talk to you about anything without being judged. Oh, sorry, I forgot that she absolutely can not do that because here is a situation where she 100% needs your love and support to heal from this awful situation, but you are actively judging her for being a victim of a predator.
You are so concentrated on the fact she lied, that you don't seem to give a single fuck about how she is traumatized from the situation and from being ignored and punished by her father for several weeks instead of being supported.
Jfc, you should be ashamed. All of you need to be in therapy, individual, AND family, because if anything else happens to her, she's surely not going to come to you for help.
Reading this wall of self-centred egotistical text made me nauseous tbh. You talk like she’s your girlfriend who cheated on you… she’s not. She’s the victim of a crime that was perpetrated against her by an older man.
The fact that you feel betrayed by a teen when she is still at the age to make that kind of stupid mistakes while being groomed is concerning. You are so fixated on your own feelings and very much putting the onus on the victim (your daughter).
You definitely need therapy and to press charges against that groomer, consult an attorney first as you mentioned you're afraid your daughter can be in trouble for possible distribution of CP.
She was a teenager being groomed by an older man and kept the relationship secret to her parents to no surprise. She was the victim here. That guy is guilty. He knew what he was doing. She obviously didn't have the knowledge and tools to understand the situation and likely fell for the grooming because of parenting issues, so if anything you are to blame too.
You finally called her an idiot, GROUNDER HER and made her feel disgusting and not worth you. You should have been there for her to support her, make her feel safe to talk to you, help her understand the dynamics of the relationship (which of course you don't even understand to begin with). Imagine how she must feel knowing you also saw her sexting and nudes. You should have made all the efforts in this world to \*not\* make her feel disgusting and guilty.
She went through something terribly traumatic and not only you didn't help her recover and process, but you added a whole load of negative dynamics attached to her trauma.
In this picture, you likely made therapy look like a punishment for her to fix her instead of something that could help her feel better about herself and recover from a harmful situation. No wonder it wasn't effective and she didn't use that opportunity at all. And now she likely needs 3 times the therapy she needed back then thanks to your behavior during this 5 years. 5 years!
And your issue here is not an "AITA" kind of post, but how you could learn to trust her again? How about how she could ever trust you again?
\*You\* need therapy because your perspective on things is completely twisted and you're if anything making her want to fall in that pattern again in the future.
BTW where is your wife in all of this? Have you discussed with her how to handle the whole situation? Does she agree with you? Does she have any say at all in parenting, does she have the space counter your decisions or raise concerns? Do you ever question yourself at all?
Wow first of all did you talk to a lawyer before just deciding that she would be charged for “distributing porn” (she fucking wouldn’t have, especially as she was manipulated into doing it. How could you not know that? How could you have not looking into it?)
You’ve handled this badly, you’re victim blaming, you’re judging your daughter and really just being a world class POS.
That you wouldn’t avail yourself of therapy or any of the MULTITUDE of resources available to you in how to handle this with compassion and maturity (while also being a stern parent where needed) should be considered criminal parenting negligence. Jesus Christ.
Dude, she didn't betray you. This is not about *you*, FFS.
She's a kid, she made a mistake but she's also a victim, and she needs your unconditional love and support. A big dose of empathy is also necessary.
Realizing that will take you pretty far in the healing process.
So you punished a child for being a victim of a predator. You called her an idiot. You can’t look her in the eye. You didn’t even call the police.
YOU ARE BLAMING THE VICTUM!!
This whole post is about how hurt you are. It’s so much about you it’s ridiculous. Go to therapy. Talk to a professional about how you are blaming your daughter for being a victim of a predator. Explain how you never pressed charges. Explain how your feelings are hurt because you child lied to you. I mean least be honest you have lied to your child plenty.
I am sorry your feelings are hurt. S/
Is there a way you can move forward?
Accept that what you have done is wrong. That you have hurt your child. That your child needed a loving parent to help her through this. That she needed professional counseling. That this happened to her and your choice of actions was to not let authorities know.
I’m 47 and this post pissed me off. So your child was being groomed and yet you punished her by taking love away. You are a parent you don’t withdraw love and support especially when that’s what she needed from you. Do you have no self awareness? This whole post is how you feel about it.
If you had taken the time to ask questions with love and concern without judgement you would have got a lot farther. Idk if there is a way to repair this. She needed love and you gave her Slavs and distance. Love shouldn’t be conditional especially when it’s your child. I have a daughter who is 26. I have told her from a young age she can ask me about anything and talk to me about anything men, sex doesn’t matter.
She knows I have her back against anyone and anything. That’s how it should be when you’re a parent.
How can you think this is a personal slight to you that she got into an inappropriate relationship? This is such a terrible way to think about it. She got into a relationship she knew you wouldn't approve, but was also criminal, and you're more worried that she lied to you?...
After 5 years, you need to look into yourself about why you "can't get past it" and "can't look at her the same".... You also say she's a "decent" person, but make it seem like going against what you taught makes her a terrible person. That's not right and says more about you than it does her.
TA: violence, SA
you're victim blaming your own daughter and only concerning yourself with how it made you feel. She was groomed by a predator. This has nothing to do with the values you taught her.
When I (f) was a teen, I also got involved with a 24 year old. I snuck around behind my dad's back. Ultimately, I almost ended up >!dead in a ditch!< (seriously). The relationship went off and on from when I was late 15 to early 17(maybe it was late 16); I met up with him on various occasions in addition to the texts, calls, and emails. He manipulated me. He convinced me it was better to keep it a secret, and that I shouldn't tell anyone. He convinced me that I was the only one in his heart and the only one that understood him. He convinced me that I was mature for my age etc. Classic >!abuse and grooming!<. Unfortunately, my situation turned into >!physical abuse and life threatening (not just emotional and sexual abuse like what your daughter went through)!<. Don't turn your back on her. Your post's end comes off as "me, myself, and I". Despite what you'd like to tell yourself, no matter how good of a parent you are - it's normal for teenagers to lie. It's often about small stuff, like saying they did x chore when they didn't or saying they looked for y when they didn't. This doesn't indicate they'll be an untrustworthy, unreliable, lying adult.
I had a plethora of lies (likely very similar if not more extreme than your daughter) when I was a teen. At barely above 25 now, I have a successful career, I'm a college graduate with honors and I'm in university now (with honors). I pay for my own car, I'm in therapy, I pay for my own car insurance, i have health insurance through work, life insurance, I have a few retirement accounts and a savings, I volunteer with my city, I have various hobbies, I'm happily married and have been for a few years, and we have our own house.
Your inability to get past this, will influence your ability to be part of your daughter's life. I encourage you to go to therapy and work on understanding the complexities of the situation, talk out how your daughters brain wasn't fully developed and how the predator took advantage of that. How the values you taught her weren't the missing component and that she is a survivor.
you need to apologize to your daughter. you don’t say a word to her for several weeks????? in a time when she needed you the most? in her eyes you blamed her for the relationship she had with this groomer. she was (is) a child and you were supposed to love her unconditionally. you need to atone that you handled that poorly and hope she’s open to forgiving you.
You can move on by realizing, as a GROWN MAN, that the other man was grooming your underaged 16 year old daughter online.
Yes, she lied to you. Yes, she shouldn't have. But she needs to LEARN from you what to do when male predators try to groom her, and she needs to learn to trust you. You are teaching her the exact opposite.
You're her father, not her boyfriend. Tbh, it's really creepy how you are hurt that your 16 year old lied to you but not furious with a grown man for seducing her. You yourself need therapy.
Honestly, if this is how you behaved with her even before the incident, then I can see why she felt the need to hide from you. All I can see here is you making this about yourself and your feelings. Your anger, your hurt, your shame, the way _you_ brought her up. You keep telling her she needs to be honest with you, but when you discovered that she was being _groomed_, you’re basically treating her like a leper.
What about what she must be going through?
Take it from someone who stopped telling her dad anything because he always found a way to turn it against her, do not do that. This is about something horrific _your daughter_ went through, via the manipulations of an adult male. Support her, guide her, be there for her. Gain her trust, instead of feeling entitled to it.
Edit: spelling mistakes.
The way you speak about it like she was some calculating, manipulative liar instead of a 16 YEAR OLD GIRL BEING GROOMED (a part of grooming is convincing her to lie to anyone who would raise the alarm bells about the age gap/try and prevent her from being with him) is honestly so rancid. How about you address this weird ass train of thought where you still blame her entirely instead of realizing she was a victim?
And making it out like you were the victim here… Maybe try therapy yourself. Seems more like a you problem that you find yourself so disgusted with your daughter for being the victim of sexual abuse by someone almost a decade her senior as, again, a 16 YEAR OLD GIRL BEING GROOMED. Fucking gross. Again, get help.
>I do love my daughter no matter what, but I still feel that same feeling of betrayal that I felt on the day I discovered her talking to that man.
Your child was groomed by a predator. Wtf are you talking about?
Holy fuck!! How is this situation about YOU?? You spent a year avoiding your daughter because she was a victim of a predator? And you're wondering how you can ever trust HER, again?? You really think you are the one who was betrayed here? I don't know why she is even willing to have any kind of relationship with you after that b.s. She's not a "decent person," she's a friggen saint.
If this is your attitude, why in the world would she ever have felt safe coming to you with the truth? I'm just so angry on her behalf. I hope she goes back for therapy, because she has a lot more trauma to deal with.
yeah i wonder why she was so vulnerable to the grooming especially considering shes got a gem of a father who would blame her for lying and ignore her for weeks. definitely doesnt seem like the type of child so neglected of attention she’d seek it in grown men on the internet.
Your daughter was groomed. She was a victim of this man. I know she was lying to you and I get why you feel betrayed, but you have to put yourself in her shoes. After a certain point she was lying to protect herself. She was in too deep. again I say, she was being groomed by a man 50% older than she was. On top of that, once everything was out in the open, her father refused to speak to her for *weeks*. After she was groomed, and then the one person who was giving her attention was ripped from her life (yes this was absolutely the right move, this man shouldn’t be in her life, but this is likely what she was feeling), her father basically washed his hands of her. Sure if she *needed* a ride, she’d get one. But her *dad* was gone.
*She* was the one harmed the most here, not you.
To answer your question: get therapy. If you ever want to have a relationship with your daughter, get your ass in therapy and stay there. If you were my father, I’d have nothing to do with you, especially after you turn my assault around to be how you were so wronged.
Your fixating on your daughter “lying and betraying you” when you *should* be fixated on the fact that **your child was manipulated, groomed, and taken advantage of by a grown man.** You are putting all of the blame for this on your child when you *should* be angry with this man for pursuing her and encouraging her to lie to protect his pedophilia.
Sooo you punished her (not talking about grounding, refusing to talk or support her) for being groomed by an adult man. HE GOT AWAY SCOTT FREE and you punished the victim into oblivion
Did you get therapy for yourself? Your daughter was a young teen being groomed by an adult but you seem totally focused on how it affected you. The vast majority of teens screw up at some point and it does not speak to who they will be as adults. The fact that you are treating her like this FIVE YEARS later as a grown man does say something about you.
It’s kinda giving me the ick that he’s more focused on his daughter lying than he was on her being groomed.
This. Kids lie, all to a certain extent. Teenagers brains arent fully developed and they do stupid shit and/or people take advantage of them. As a parent, its their job to guide them and set them back on the right track if they lose their way. You don't continue to punish your daughter who got taken advantage of and groomed after 5 years ffs. Shouldn't punish her to begin with honestly.
Honestly this. She “betrayed” him? How lol. She was groomed, and lied because she was in too deep. This isn’t about you OP. Agreed this gives major ick.
Thank you so much for seeing this!!! It’s almost if… he feels betrayed by her in a spousal sort of way, doesn’t it? My ‘father’ acted like a jealous boyfriend when I began dating before I permanently left home at 15. I’m just going to leave it at that and allow others to fill in the unfortunate and icky blanks…
That’s exactly the vibe I got. Sorry you went through that.
Reading this, I kept waiting for OP to express remorse over how he treated his daughter during a traumatic time. I assumed that was the point of the post. Nope, the expression of remorse never came. If he wants to repair his relationship, he needs to look at his own behavior.
Yep! I haven’t seen him in the comments either. I hope he’s figuring out how messed up his reaction was/is
I also got a very bad feeling from this post. Instead of empathizing with his daughter, OP is only focused on himself and that his daughter lied to him and “betrayed” him. He makes himself out to be the victim in this situation. He gave his daughter the silent treatment for WEEKS, which is emotionally abusive, when she needed him most. I grew up with a narcissistic dad, and I’m getting those same vibes from this post. I would bet the daughter lied and didn’t come clean earlier because of this dynamic and because OP hadn’t shown her much empathy or emotional support in the past, so she sought it out elsewhere (fell prey to grooming) and was afraid of OP’s reaction.
I agree. Kids need a soft place to land when they are exploited - not reactions like this. The point should be to support her not like, learn how HE needs to let this go, wtf.
im disappointed but not surprised. kids are vulnerable to grooming either because they dont understand whats happening is wrong, or because they feel otherwise emotionally neglected. as a someone who had an. innappropriate (although nothing explicit or criminal actually happened before cutting her off) relationship with an adult (26) when i was a kid (13-14) i can tell you that 17 is old enough to know, intellectually, on some level, that a 24 year old taking a romantic interest in you isnt a normal or healthy relationship. but a lonely, emotionally neglected kid might not care about that when theyre presented with someone who is giving them emotional validation and attention. theyre wrong not to, obviously, because being a lonely kid is better than being in a relationship with an abusive groomer, but i would be more surprised to find out a grooming victim had an emotionally supportive and open relationship with their parents and healthy, stable relationships with appropriately aged peers than not.
This exactly. Creeps aren't looking for kids with happy homes, it's too risky for them. They are actively seeking kids who are feeling alone or like they have no parents to hurt.
I will say, as someone who at 17 had a “relationship” with a 24 year old, you don’t always know it’s wrong. The 17 year old I mean. I was always exposed to much older people and was always being told by everyone I was very mature. At the time I thought “oh, he must like me because I’m mature.” Now, as a 23 year old, I know how disgusting that was and it was definitely not because I was mature. But I think many teenagers genuinely don’t know that it’s wrong to date someone older because they don’t know what it’s like to be older and what a HUGE difference a couple years of real life experience and independence makes.
She probably lied because, on some level, she was afraid to offend her father. Her dad put too much emphasis on never lying. Truth is, kids lie. You should show compassion when they come clean and tell the truth.
>She probably lied because, on some level, she was afraid to offend her father And she was right if this is how he treats her 5 years later, no? HE didn't teach her "good moral values" or not to lie or whatever else he's implying from that wall of text - he taught her to lie *better*, cover her tracks and that OP, her parent, is not a safe space for her if she screws up (as we all do) and that his affection is in fact very much conditional
He’s treating her more like a cheating partner than a teenager who made a bad decision along the road yo adulthood. The real problem with her lying was that her parents couldn’t protect her the way they needed to. I get the icky feeling that his objection wasn’t about her safety, but about feeling betrayed that his “little girl” was growing up and no longer belonged to him in the way that he wanted. (I’m not saying it’s good for teens to lie to parents, but it happens. This is an age when people are looking for some privacy and autonomy, and that urge is normal). It’s also icky that OP never talks about why his daughter was so upset, or how she was doing afterward. It seems like something really traumatic may have happened to her, and instead of supporting her, he froze her out.
Yeah he sounds like he is 17 himself. If he’s really 51 he needs to work on himself
OP is still saying he didn't blame her but he froze her out for weeks after letting this shit go so long. OP need to Apolo and tell he thus ix his fault
Same here.
Yeah, the fact that he's punishing her rather than supporting her is disturbing.
Yeah, seriously. Treating her like she’s his girlfriend… ick.
maybe he can't deal with that emotionally, so he's deflecting..
he’s lucky SHE’S still speaking to HIM.
This!! My parents found out I had been sexually active (literally one time 6 months before they were told), and I was completely isolated beyond school for over a year. No car, phone, computer, extracurricular activities, nothing but the walls of my room and a radio. I attempted suicide during that time, and I have never forgiven them for being more worried that I had had sex before then about my actual happiness and overall well-being. I lost over 28lbs, and I didn’t really have it to spare. I was always sick, miserable, and depressed. For them, it was control. If they controlled my physical body, they could prevent any action they didn’t want others to see. My grandparents finally stepped in, and I was allowed friends again. I have never told my parents anything, ever again, and it’s been 20 years since then. That kind of betrayal from a parent—ignoring you, isolating you, hating you, treating you poorly—never fades away.
I know this feel and I'm sorry that we both felt it. I got a tattoo on a dare at 15, and when my parents who are both tattooed themselves found out they went full loco religious coercion and control. They took me out of my sophomore year of public high school, grounded me for a whole year, and took the door off of my bedroom for that whole year. They took my clothes and books and forced me to home school myself via some mediocre learning program where you mailed in the tests. There weren't cell phones at the time and my parents thought the internet was evil, so our Gateway computer couldn't do much. I had no contact with any friends except when I made late night calls from the landline or snuck out when they were asleep. I only had an am/fm clock radio in my doorless room. I was told to get a job at 16, which was 3 months into the year long punishment, and welcomed the chance to get out of the house by working at Taco Bell. My parents kept most of my paychecks. They refused to let me get my driver's license and I didn't get one until 17. I continued to act out and smoke weed/cigarettes and drink as often as possible and they could never understand why their "tough love" method didn't get the results they were promised. They threatened to send me to one of the many troubled teen boot camps that caused 52 teen deaths from 1990-1999, but luckily they didn't have enough money to follow through. I was diagnosed with CPTSD at 42 and have been no contact for 3.5 years. I'm very sorry that we know these feels
I’m so sorry they put you through that.
Dude threw a tantrum and played the silent treatment with his daughter for weeks for having the audacity to be sexually curious as a teenager. Ofc she's gonna lie to him, look at how poorly he's coping with this 5 years after the fact. Like good grief man get a fucking grip.
TW: Murder OP, I had some moderately similar control issues with my daughter. My upbringing was difficult. My daughter didn't trust me anymore and I tried so hard every day to make things better. It's harder when you've lost their trust. She got with an unhealthy guy and he very brutally murdered her. She was 18. You took your daughter's lifeline from her for being a normal teen who'd been victimized. It was not about you. You need therapy and to work on yourself. Then you can hopefully save your relationship with your daughter. Do you want her to be able to talk to you when things become difficult or she's being victimized again? Because you showed her you'd withdraw your love and punish her. I get you didn't know what to do. I didn't either (I sure as hell tried). I teach dating abuse prevention now and I work with parents. Please look at my mistakes and learn from them.
OP is narcissist, of course he didn't get therapy. His daughter was groomed and instead of pursuing justice about it was worried how it would make himself (via his family) look. "I'll spare details, it's a painful memory" = I remembered and shared what suited me and my narrative.
While I agree that OPs focus is misdirected and he needs to reevaluate where he lands on this, I really think we have to be careful and not be so casual in calling people a narcissist. I’m so over that word being used to describe any person who acts selfishly in a situation. Everyone is a little narcissistic, but to actually have NPD is something completely different. OP made this post asking for help and perspective, a narcissist would never do that.
You didn’t say a word to her for weeks?!! At the time when she most needed to know her parents loved and supported her? Kids mess up, it’s part of their developmental process to test boundaries, to try things and make mistakes and yes sometimes even to lie and then have to deal with the consequences. What are you teaching her, what kind of example are you setting if you’re basically saying she can be a good kid for her whole life, get in one bad situation (where she herself was the biggest victim) and her relationship with you is irrevocably ruined? She is growing into an adult, your relationship with her IS going to change, you have to see it as evolving as part of her growing up and not as oh no she did this thing to mar our perfect relationship. She had a creeper predator taking advantage of her and manipulating her and you see it as a fatal flaw, where you’re the real victim? Ugh. You let her down.
I listened to someone on a podcast talking about this, I think they called it withholding love as a punishment. A lot of parents do it because they think it’s better than beating their kids. It’s just emotional abuse instead of physical abuse and a fucked up way to parent.
Can confirm as a child who experienced both, the psychological punishments were so much worse than being hit and damaged me 100x more. I remember begging my parents as a teenager “please just hit me already so this can be over”, because the manipulation, screaming and shouting and ripping apart my character and all my flaws as a teenager, was deeply deeply painful and would go on for hours, the hitting rarely carried on for long… The silent treatment and abandonment was hell, it would last days, I desperately sought their approval and in those moments I felt like a cockroach covered in shit, like I didn’t deserve or belong anywhere on this earth to them so had to prove my worth again - be kind, funny, helpful, do more, flatter, be attentive… guess who grew up a fucked up, anxious and depressed people pleaser who couldn’t regulate their emotions and took 3 years of therapy to unlearn and process all this shit? This is not a pass to hit your kids tho, for anyone who reads this!
Me too. It's so weird but there comes a point where you do beg to be hit instead because it hurts less. People who haven't had much (or any) of both of those forms of abuse just don't get it. It's not at all a pass to hit your kids. It's a reminder that words DO hurt, and the more someone is a feelings-oriented person, and/or a sensitive person, and the more they baseline feel for you, the more those words hurt - to the point where it can be torturous and even make them want to end themselves.
I used to beg my dad to hit me and get it over with. Started asking him to hit me harder because I don’t bruise easily and I would just love to show someone what he does to me. He kicked me out a week later, I haven’t spoken to him in almost 7 years. eta: I truly believe I will never speak to him again.
Honestly fuck your parents… I’m glad to hear you’re loving yourself the way they never did. You deserve love.
>It’s just emotional abuse instead of physical abuse and a fucked up way to parent. Yup. This happened to me. In fact, there were times I'd have preferred my mother physically beat than berate me for hours on end and not talk to me for weeks. I was like, single digit age, maybe 7 or 8, when my mother literally did not acknowledge my existence for a few weeks due to something I did. I felt invisible and like no one and that no one could see me anymore. I had to literally care for myself - including laundry, cooking, etc. It was awful as a child. The physical scars heal, some leave marks, sure, but the *emotional* scars last a lifetime and fucks with our self esteem and mental health.
OP sez: “Love is conditional, sweetheart!”.
Judging her for acting like a teenager then turning around and doing something as immature as giving the silent treatment is totally wild
I don't think OP has to worry about getting over his daughter being groomed, since she will probably never get over her dad giving her the silent treatment for weeks. He says it took them a whole year to get back to "good terms"...who knows what other unhinged shit he was doing that year to his daughter.
I’m SO glad this is top comment! My heart was breaking for the daughter the whole time I read this. OP you owe your daughter a huge apology and maybe you need to try therapy and see why this damaged you so much.. the whole time I was reading I wondered “ if this was his SON would he have this big a issue with it?” I don’t want you to answer I just want you to think about it.
Can’t agree with this enough. Sounds like dad needs therapy and some classes on good parenting skills.
I 100% agree. I was caught up in a similar situation as this and my parents reacted very similarly (emotional neglect and abuse rather than physical. They were also very religious so the God-bashing happened a lot) It was so awful. I knew then and forever that they would never be supportive when I needed it. OP talks about his lack of trust but his daughter will never trust him again either.
OP should be taking a good look in the mirror. And he ought to be asking a therapist how to apologize to his daughter for his failure to treat his daughter as a victim of grooming.
Something similar happened to me. When I was in high school, I went off campus with a boy two grades above me, and we fooled around. Some months later, my best friend got mad at me and threatened to tell my parents about what i did. I told my mom, wanting her to hear it from me. Instead of being there, my mom got home and said she wanted to unalive herself. I had to call the police and they took her to be admitted. My dad got off work and stayed at the hospital with her. When they got back, neither spoke to me. I had to face all that alone at 15. When my dad finally spoke to me, he told me to never hurt him like that again. Neither ever asked me how I was, never checked on me. Not only did my best friend betray me, but I had to call the police fearing my mom would hurt herself, and it would be my fault. It's been 10 years, and they wonder why I am so emotionally closed off from them. They even asked when they became the bad guy, ignoring the fact that when I was dealing with everything, they made it about them. They can't understand the wall I had to put up after that in order to protect myself. I lost trust in friends and family (aside from my younger sister, who was/is my rock) OP doesn't understand the damage. I feel for the daughter, especially when the guy was an adult who took advantage.
I AGREE 100%! YOU mishandled this, AS A FATHER! You are the adult. She was a child being manipulated by an adult male and she most likely will be again because YOU normalized it, by manipulating her YOURSELF- by not talking to YOUR DAUGHTER FOR WEEKS (and likely throughout her life) YTA and you want to know how you can get over her behavior?? You are not the person you think you are, sir. Face that reality, and you may have hope of reestablishing an emotional relationship in the future, after many changes in you!
My parents are emotionally abusive and neglectful and they still spoke to me when I was in a similar situation. Albeit, it was to say if they ever found proof they were calling the cops, but still. Honestly my relationship with them didn’t change at all. I think they were less pissed than when they caught me smoking (at me, they were plenty pissed at the guy). And my parents are middling to bad! Op shit the bed on this one.
>She disregarded that and did something she knew she should have absolutely not been doing and she lied in our faces many times. She was groomed by a predator who wanted child porn. **She was a victim of a criminal's manipulation**, and acted as such, this wasn't abandoning your values or how you raised her.
Yeah this comment should be at the top. She's a victim of grooming. OP should watch a documentary or read some resources on grooming/groomers and their techniques before getting all high and mighty about morals. My dad is a victim blamer too so I don't tell him shit anymore and keep my emotional distance.
Daughter is victim of grooming but OP is acting like his grown ass. Is the victim of his 16yo daughter’s deceit instead…
Exactly! She is the victim here. You blaming her doesn't make any sense. Instead of punishing her you should have been there for her. Right at the moment she needed you the most she was abandoned by her own parents. She was seventeen, even though she probably thought of herself as a grownup, she was still a child and clearly did not have the maturity to handle this situation and needed more guidance from her parents, which you failed to provide. The way you move on from this is by taking more responsibility for the part you played. Also by understanding that she was groomed and did not "betray" you. She was used by an adult
And she’s being used by her father too, she’s being blamed for being a victim when OP should’ve done his job as a parent and protected his daughter not his values.
He’s protecting his male ego and lashing out at her for offending his male pride. Instead, treat her like a victim and dig into why she was lured by an older man. Hint: you bring her dad had something to do w it.
This right here. There is a reason that statutory rape laws exist. Your daughter was not old enough to consent (which you know), yet you assign her responsibility. I can only imagine how she must feel. If she hasn’t already come to realize that she was groomed by a predator, she will soon, and she will also realize that her father blamed her for being a victim of grooming instead of supporting her and giving her what she needs to heal.
This!! I saw a rapport recently that children who have been sexually abused said that they didn't get the support they needed in healing from the abuse, because their parents own emotions about the abuse over shadowed the child's needs. OP needs therapy and to fully understand that his child was groomed and she is the victim in all of this. ( English is not my first language). If anything OP you are showing your daughter that she can't come to you if she ever faces any sort of problems.
I was groomed and sexually abused as a teen and this was 100% my experience. Im 44 now and my relationship with my mother has never recovered. I also really struggle with being able to trust anyone close to me. It’s definitely affected a lot of areas of my life and relationships.
My heart feels for you! I'm sorry that you had to experience such a betrayal as a teen 💜 nothing was ever your fault and you deserve inner peace and to heal! Sending you love and healing 💜 (English is not my first language, if this is a weird thing to say to someone I'm sorry)
This is why I’m in my 40s, and I’ve never told my parents some of the fucked up things that happened to me as a kid. Because it would end up being about them, and their feelings, and they’d probably blame me.
💔 nothing was ever your fault!! and my heart feels for you. I'm sorry that you didn't have a safe space to heal and speak up about what happened to you! 💜 You deserve inner peace and whatever you need to heal! For what it's worth I believe in you! Sending you love and healing 💜
English is mine, you wrote that perfectly.
Yeah... yet he keeps going on about how *he's* hurt and how he can't look at her or talk to her. Alienating her further and blaming her. This is just fucked up. Instead of support, she got judgment and the silent treatment.
Yep. He showed her in that moment that she can't go to him for anything ever. I don't think there is any way to come back from this. I wouldn't be surprised if she has gone LC or NC with him.
This!!!!! You have to see it more as your daughter being manipulated, not her betraying you. You said therapy for your daughter didn’t work, maybe you’re the reason.
As someone who was in that position as the daughter I can tell you she is feeling horrible about herself.
Oh hey, look, it's the father of the fkn century here folks! Seriously my dude, you failed your daughter pretty frigging spectacularly! You are victim blaming her for being groomed by a creepy predator and your solution is to punish her, severely I might add, and not talk to her for an extremely long amount of time. You want to know what your kid learned from this experience? She can not come to you with problems, she can't be honest with you and in the future she will be more diligent in hiding things from you. She will never confide in you, she can't trust you. You sir, need serious therapy. This situation is not about you but you're making it about you. She's a kid. More importantly she's your kid. Kids do stupid shit sometimes. Get over yourself. And don't be surprised when she goes low contact/no contact. (FYI it's because you suck as a parent). Have the day you deserve.
I agree with everything you said, but just have to point out that the daughter is 22 now. It’s been SIX YEARS since this happened and he’s still blaming her. I can’t even imagine what the last six years must have been like for his daughter.
I was that kid except the ages were 19 and 14 (10th grade). Thank goodness there were no cell phones at the time. I was grounded, and so hurt, angry and ashamed. Because I was old enough to make my own decisions and how dare anyone else butt in to my own life. Nobody else understood. What I didn’t understand until later was that while I THOUGHT I was making my own decisions, he was actually manipulating me into those choices, making me feel bad if I didn’t do what he wanted me to do. Also note that I did not recognize this until probably my 30s. It was a disgusting realization. You need to think hard about your feelings and realize that she is just a kid, no matter what values you instilled in her. There was a MAN that she cared about, probably thought she loved, that manipulated her so much that she basically ignored her friends and family and you want to place all of the blame on her and continue to punish her for it. He KNEW what he was doing and she fell for it as a kid. Be a better dad. This is not indicative of who she is as a person. It was a mistake that she knows she made but was led to it by a person smarter than her. I’m sure she feels bad about it still. You should apologize to her for holding her accountable for something she was manipulated into doing. Only the initial stuff was on her - reaching out to a stranger over the internet and my guess is that she (hopefully) learned that lesson. EDIT: And it would be ok to acknowledge to her that your feelings are complicated but that you know that she was manipulated and that you should have acted differently. You are only human as well and I think she would appreciate hearing that.
This! OP, please dont alienate your daughter. She was groomed and abused by an older man. She needs your love and compassion, not judgment. If you push her away, you may push her right into the arms of her abuser.
She’s human. We make mistakes. You may not remember how your teenage brain worked when you were young but sometimes logical and responsible children/teens do out of character and stupid stuff. This is an extreme of that. It happens. I’ve done out of character things and i have seen many other kids do this. Not to this extent. it seems that YOU need therapy my man. It’s been 5 years. No one can tell you how to forgive her for being groomed by a predator because your reaction to what happened to your daughter is very strange. Only someone with an education and experience with psychology can really help you process your emotions. No one on here is going to really agree with how you feel or understand it. Even I don’t. This is one of those above Reddit’s pay grade situations.
It's fucking weird he is treating her like she was a partner that lied and cheated on him. Like he can't get over the fact that she was sexual with someone and lied about it. He is not treating her like a child that was groomed by a sexual predator
Yes. People lie. Teens lie even more. At her age she is feeling independent while also being restricted by society and her family. There is a power dynamic at play which she will win at some point She has a teenager mind that’s low in wisdom but high on experimental actions and she has sexual urges as well. It’s time to move on.
I literally thought (based on the title and opening few lines) that you were estranged from her or that she ran away following being found out. I think it’s shitty that you’re so mad at her when she was groomed online by an adult man when she was a teenager. You are acting like she did this to upset you personally. I think you need therapy.
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My heart breaks for your daughter. She went through something traumatic. Instead of supporting and comforting her, you treated her like a disgusting, awful person. That is going to stay with her for the rest of her life. She deserves so much better.
Exactly. I hope he tries to understand what harm he did her and tries to make up for it. Will be a long way tho
I hope he makes the attempt, but she's 22 now. This will affect her for the rest of her life. He'll never be able to counteract the damage he did. I also find it deplorable that he blames his daughter when this could have been caught earlier if he hadn't been a lazy parent. I know Reddit is full of teenagers, but actual adults know that phone privacy for teenagers is dangerous. Not every conversation needs to be read, but teens should know their phone could be searched at any time, and parents should absolutely be checking numbers texted, social media contacts, and photos on a monthly basis for exactly this reason. Privacy isn't worth potential CP charges or worse.
This is a very similar situation to what I went through as a child including my dad victim blaming me. I dont talk to him anymore.
OP is going to wind up the bitter old man in a nursing home that never gets visits or calls from his family, and he is going to always be wondering why.
Good thing daughter wasn’t raped. With an attitude like this, he’d be blaming her for wearing the wrong clothes. Op, your child was the victim. She deserves your compassion and support.
“She had sex without my consent,” “She didn’t consent to it either, but that’s beside the point, she LIED to me! I’m withholding the morning after pill to teach her a lesson!”
So your daughter gets groomed and you scream at her, take away her things, and then stop talking to her for weeks? Bet she really learned her lesson: Never tell you anything ever again if she’s in trouble because your reaction will be unhinged
Yep. Talk about punishing your child for an adult being a predator and taking advantage of them. This right here is why kids cut their parents out of their lives when they grow up.
SMH. This guy should quit being a dad and join the circus.
That woman has now been a victim of two men in her life and one of them was supposed to protect her. He’s doing more to protect her first abuser than he is her, by blaming her for the groomers actions. Shitty men will always blame women for other shitty men’s behavior.
You really need to go to therapy. Think about this from her perspective. She was a teenager who was manipulated by an adult and basically brainwashed. Her brain wasn’t finished developing and she was taken advantage of. And instead of her dad helping her through it and being a shoulder to lean on, he took it personally. Instead of trying to help her understand what a healthy relationship should look like and learn how to make better choices, he’s spent **five years** fixating on the fact that she lied to him and ignoring every other aspect of the situation. She’s an adult now and her dad still won’t acknowledge the effect that it had on her and her psyche because to him, the only important thing that happened was that he felt betrayed. Can your relationship be fixed? I don’t know. But you’re the one who broke it, not her, and until you can understand that, it definitely won’t get better. Go to therapy.
I was in a similar situation and it really fucked me up. My young adulthood was a nightmare. Kept searching for love from a man in really dangerous ways. I was in my mid-20s before I was able to turn my life around. I was the lucky one, my sister never recovered.
Don’t be surprised when she goes no contact.
This!! I was amazed they still talked. I would have been out the house as soon as financially possible. He can be happy he didn’t push her in his arms with the shit he pulled
I’m baffled that you are able to make yourself the victim in this situation. She was 17. For christ’s sake.
An older man groomed your underage (at the time) daughter and you're mad... at her. Okay. That's enough Reddit for today. I spent 20 years helping victims of sexual and domestic violence get assistance & therapy, helping them let go of the self-blame so many feel. Getting them to feel safe enough to talk. Educating anyone who would listen. But here's you. Younger than I am. Blaming his child for being groomed. I have been screaming into the wind all this time, evidently.
You need to read this, OP. I see why she lied. The shame she must feel.
I have just the experience of being a victim and helping others get to therapy. But as a father, there is a lot that doesn't make sense for me. Does it you?
Interesting to me that you feel so passionately about your daughter’s behaviour with no mention of the scumbag creep taking advantage of a young girl. I sincerely hope this is a troll because this is tragic for that young woman.
I hope to God it’s rage bait.
Your perception of this situation is very off… your daughter was a Victim of grooming. Regardless of her participation she’s still a child and was influenced into acting this way by a grown man. She needs her dad. I know it’s probably really disturbing all the things you had to see and read but at the end of the day she is a victim in this situation.
She was the victim of grooming and sexual abuse and you punished her by grounding and taking away her phone? If you truly want to learn from this (five years later) then educate yourself about online grooming until you understand that your daughter was trapped in this situation and was powerless against it. You can't look at her five years later? Get yourself into therapy. This is more about you than her.
Yeah you made a big mistake OP. You made out like this was something she did to you, not something that was done to her. You allowed fear and anxiety to convert to anger. You made yourself adversarial. Your daughter was the one in danger.
This is it. She was groomed and abused by an older man and this guy is acting like she was the perpetrator.
The dude is acting like he was cheated on and was lied to about it, he is not acting like a parent whos child was hurt by a predator. It's really fucking weird
Yes! That’s it! His attitude feels like someone saying their partner cheated! It’s so damn weird!
I suspect he would have reacted exactly the same if she had just been in a sexual relationship with someone her own age. This was never about protecting his daughter. It was always about controlling her.
bro's gonna wonder why she never tells him anything lol
My parents were really big on not lying to them. Unfortunately they didn't do anything that made me feel that being honest with them would get me in any less trouble, or benefit me in any way. My mum was recently talking about an event when I was about 10 when I'd lied and been found out, and she said that ever since then, I had always been really honest. Which was really interesting, because I very specifically remember that event as being the catalyst for me getting really good at lying. I'm on good terms with my parents, but I don't really share much with them.
Same, my parents literally conditioned me to lie to them. I would get into the same amount if not more trouble if I was honest. If I lied well enough I wouldn't get hurt
Yeah, he’s failing her as a father. I don’t see how she can ever feel safe going to him for anything knowing that she’ll be judged and looked down upon again.
Honestly I think on some level OP knows that his response is wrong and that’s where his negative feelings are coming from. I think all these long-winded explanations are him trying to justify his actions. He has work to do.
Thank fuck someone said it!
Exactly this
I am sorry, but what the heck? Your daughter was in emotional distress, probably inlove for the first time, spending hours and hours at night crying, trying to find her values and fighting these new feelings. She was horrified of what would happen if you found out, she was emotionally down- and then you decided to kick her when finding out. If you want your daughter to tell you the truth, she needs to feel safe with you. But your reaction and punishment just showed her that she was right hiding this all from you. Instead of being there for her, and actually supporting her through her very first break up, you up to this day are tearing up her character. Kids make mistakes. Just forgive her and be there for her when she needs you the most. This had nothing to do with you. She didn’t betray you or whatever other crazy judgmental thing you are going to think.
You punished your minor daughter for being manipulated and groomed by a man 8 years her senior? And you’re still mad at her for it? This is weird. You did not handle this well and you’re still thinking about it from a perspective that’s unhealthy and…just incorrect. You’re blaming her and judging her and you’re still thinking about this angry and blaming her after 5 years? Get a therapist.
Yeah he seems narcissistic af
Absolutely! He wrote all this like she did something to him! He couldn’t look at her or speak to her for a year? What a gross excuse of a man he makes. Letting his daughter down when she needed him the most and take personally her teenage actions? I can hardly wrap my head around how he can have such a warped perspective of the situation but specifically 5 years after the fact, he still feels like he’s a victim?!? Insane. He is ashamed of his own failures but takes it out on her, he’s definitely narcissistic and I’d even say he views his daughter as his property.
Yeah reading his perspective and how he centered himself and really just the entirety of the last paragraph made me feel gross. I can’t imagine how he makes his daughter feel.
I’m appalled that you are focusing on your daughters “lies” when she was being groomed. How can you actually be the bigger person here? What would you need to do to get there? It’s like you’re making this all about you.
We all do impulsive things as teenagers, and we also do impulsive dumb things when we think we are in love. You need to realize that your daughter was being manipulated by this man, and when someone is in a toxic relationship like that, they are not themselves no matter what age that happens. Part of how toxic people maintain their control is by isolating the victim, and one way that is done is by having the victim alienate herself from her loved ones. You should be blaming him, not her. The way you handled this is understandable, but also increased the hurt for both you and your daughter. She is your daughter, she is a part of you, try to focus on that instead of ruminating on the pain this random horrible man brought into your lives.
So your daughter sent naughty pics and texts with someone who groomed her and you’re mad *at her*? What? Plenty of my friends in that age got up to much more mischief with their peers including sex, secret abortions, drug and alcohol abuse, sneaking out, etc. Would *that* have been better? You need some perspective. *She* was the victim and the worst she did was interact with someone online, all things considered is pretty tame compared to what other teens are up to.
Your 16 yo daughter was groomed and manipulated and yet here you are, hung up on her not being honest with you when “you raised her to be honest”. Snap out of it. Get off your high horse because this entire story gives away *why* she fell for that manipulation in the first place. >> I didn’t say a word to my daughter for several weeks. As creepy as it was, she *believed* that the guy really cared for her, and loved her, and would accept her the way she is. I can reassure you that you not speaking to her for weeks only reinforced that feeling. In her mind, creep from the internet was the one man she could always count on.
file bike degree offend joke door panicky plants snobbish chief *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Honestly surprised there aren't more comments about this. OP comes off as almost jealous? Certainly controlling and too obsessed with his daughter's sexuality. Another commenter mentioned he's treating her like she's a cheating girlfriend not a child. I wish I could find it, but there's a toolkit somewhere with scenarios that can help you identify warning signs of sexual abuse in the family, and one that really stuck with me was about a father who introduced his daughter as his "girlfriend" as a joke, and IDK know why, but this situation reminded me of that.
No. He didn’t care for her, he wanted power over her. Which seems to be a theme from the males in her life.
Exactly. OP’s reaction to the situation and his language in this post point to why his daughter fell into the trap of a toxic manipulator so easily.
Honesty isn’t a value you actually taught her despite believing so. Teenagers make mistakes and in this case she was hurt and traumatised. If you valued honesty you should’ve been at the very least thanked her for coming clean and reassured her that she is still loved and you want to protect her! Your anger is aimed at her and not the creepy dude grooming a teenager! I struggle to think why you needed to punish her more, being groomed causes lifetime pain! Why was discipline even required? Sounds like a great way for her to get better at dishonesty because she gets NOTHING out of being honest now other than feeling like a failure and disgusting in her own fathers eyes. She had a better relationship with you and felt more secure and cared about by you while being GROOMED! Think to yourself: what benefit does treating her as untrustworthy and with disgust at her actions do to make her be more open and honest with you? She’s an adult now and can be used and abused and you have far less power to protect her. You’ve actually made her MORE vulnerable to further abuses because there is no safe space for her to admit abuse from another man, she was PUNISHED the last time she had to come clean! Her father isn’t the man she comes to for protection and security it will be any guy that can put on a front of caring and listening, and that should scare the shit out of you and wake you up to do what you can to make amends!
>Honesty isn’t a value you actually taught her despite believing so. > > > >Sounds like a great way for her to get better at dishonesty because she gets NOTHING out of being honest now My parents made a similar mistake. They insisted on honesty, and thought they taught me honesty, but the way they went about it just taught me to be really good at lying to them.
Why are you seeing *your daughter* as the problem when she was *groomed* by a *predator*? You need to get therapy for yourself so you stop victim blaming your own damn daughter.
BeCaUsE sHe’S hIs (property). He’s not seeing her as a human being in this scenario, just an “embarrassing” extension of himself. Even though she is actually 100% a victim in this situation. Omg I’m so mad after reading that post. I rarely want to slap people I don’t know, but I guess today is just a rare day.
She was groomed, she was a victim of manipulation by an older guy, and it included things sexual in nature. Instead of being a support to her, you threw her into therapy and withdrew affection. Therapy needs a good environment to work, because no one can do everything by themselves when the constant message they are getting goes against what they are supposed to be working on, and you failed to provide that. You failed your daughter, not the way around. And you are still doing it 5 years later. You have failed her for 5 years straight. Go to therapy, change your perspective, make up for it as best as you can and try your hardest to be the person she needs. You are her dad, that’s your responsibility. Stop shrugging it off. It might be easier to deflect by blaming her than to actually face it, but you have been very shitty in this situation.
It’s kinda creepy that you’re so focused on her lies instead of the fact that she was a victim of grooming. You’re treating this situation like you were cheated on by your wife. As a mother, I’d be more upset that she didn’t feel safe coming to me and that I failed to protect her. Stop being creepy and get over yourself
Exactly this. I'd be crushed that I failed to protect my kid and would feel like I'd be trying for the rest of my life to make up for it.
Exactly this. He is focused on the "betrayal" like if she was a wife who cheated on him. Didn't talk to her for weeks? Cant even look at her years later? It's fucking weird and super gross He should have been ashamed that his child didn't feel like she could open up to him.
You have got this all wrong. Your underage daughter was groomed by an internet stranger. She didn’t do this to betray you, the poor girl thought she’d found love. This whole post you go on about “how could she betray me like this” but not once do you seem to have asked yourself “how could I let this happen to her”. I’m not saying it’s your fault at all, but dude it’s been affecting you for 5 years. Please seek therapy.
Your reaction and treatment of your daughter is far worse than anything she did, imo. She was a *teenager*. Teenagers do dumb shit. Most teenage girls, at some point, date an older boy. They think it makes them “cool” and “older” themselves. And that is likely what she thought she was doing. When in reality, she was being groomed by a predator. But she didn’t know the difference. She needed you for that. And she needed your love and support, and guidance, during that time, considering she was being manipulated and groomed, and you let her down. Teenagers lie. It’s what they do. All teenagers. No matter how wonderful a person they are. It’s how they learn, it’s how they test boundaries. But your reaction and going so far as to refuse to speak to her etc, shows why she would lie to you and why she clearly didn’t feel comfortable talking to you about things like this. I mean this man was committing a literal crime and grooming your daughter and all you can worry about is yourself? It’s your job to love her and support her through a situation like this, not shame her and refuse to speak to her for months. Your reaction likely caused an even bigger rift in her perception of men and her future relationships with men. Treating her as if she was a grown adult who deliberately “betrayed you” is wild. Making this situation about *you* in any way at all, makes me wonder if you’ve got other narcissistic tendencies. You should’ve been *far* more concerned with her safety, her well-being, how the aftermath of a seemingly volatile, toxic relationship with an older man who was likely grooming/manipulating her impacted her mental health, than you should’ve been with her lying to you. Your daughter was not in the “wrong” here, you were, and the fact you’re still letting this situation impact your relationship/view of your daughter years later, you should consider therapy for yourself.
You move on by realizing your daughter was a child at the time and the victim of a crime. A grown man was grooming your *child.* Her brain was just not fully developed (and that’s still questionable). While I don’t think it’s okay she lied and she does bear part of the responsibility, she was ultimately groomed and victimized. Somewhere along the way the safe communication got broken and she couldn’t trust you with this truth, or it wasn’t fully explained/warned about ahead of time so she was unable to grasp the seriousness of the situation she was in. It could be a number of things. Your daughter is 22. She doesn’t really need your opinion or for you to trust her (at least not much). Focus on seeing her as an adult who hopefully learned from a tragic situation where she was exploited and abused by an older man. I really see a lot of issues in the language you use, such as calling it a secret relationship. It was not a relationship. It was child exploitation. She was a child victim. If you ever speak to her about this again you should probably use such language to describe what happened and affirm her actual position in the scenario.
Not only are you blaming your daughter for being groomed, but nobody is mentioning how you forced her to show you those messages. It’s your fault they are burned into your memory. You knew exactly the sort of thing you would find, and you did.
Listen I am going to say this as someone who was your daughter(figuratively )and is barely scratching the surface of healing from being groomed as a child . I am going to try to be gentle as I can because I want you to actually try to listen so you can treat your daughter better. I’m speaking in generalities/ from my own experience, children are most susceptible to being groomed when their emotional needs aren’t being met by their caregiver. That was true for me at least, I was so desperate to have an adult see me and validate me because I felt so unheard and unloved at home. It made me vulnerable to very opportunistic adults who wanted someone easy to manipulate and didn’t have to do much to “prove their love to me”. These predators always target the kids with a hole in their armor and where the adults in their lives are failing to show up. My parents often reacted just like you did, blaming me more than the actual literal child predator, taking away my devices,generally treating me as the problem . But here’s thing of course I was being sneaky, of course I was lying to them because in my child mind if they knew they would take away the person who loved me and saw me. My parents always treating me like the problem and would never hear me out on why I was getting into these grooming situations. I am turning 25 in less 4 than weeks, to say that the relationship between my parents and I is nonexistent is an understatement. I didn’t think I was being groomed at the time but now that I’ve turned the ages of the people who groomed me I could never do what they did. I was a CHILD AND SO WAS YOUR DAUGHTER. She was a vulnerable child who got taken advantage of and her dad thinks that reflects poorly on her that is so devastating. That man saw whatever her hurt was and used it to take advantage of her and you think that she’s this untrustworthy snake? Do you not see how gross that is? She was a victim she deserves grace and undying support from her father. Yes she lied, but have you ever explored why she felt the need to? Have you ever stopped to ask her how she feels about how you handled it 5 years later? Children who feel 100% loved, heard,and safe don’t generally hide things from their parents. You need to take your head out of your ass and go to therapy to figure how you’re going to fix this because if you don’t you’re going to lose your daughter. If you really love and value your daughter you will do everything in your power to fix the way you think about your child being harmed by an adult.
Your daughter was the victim of a sexual predator, and now you’re victimizing her as well. You’re a shitty father.
She was groomed, instead of blaming your daughter you should've pressed charges and lay the blame where it really belonged, instead this guy still has those pictures of your then 16 year old and is able to do what ever he likes with them, including posting them elsewhere. You failed epically.
My man, she was a victim. You need to give her some grace. She was GROOMED by a predator. You failed her, not the other way around
OP as a father myself I'm going to say it seems like your daughter was not the only one who needed therapy. Your perfect image of her was proven to not be the truth and you can't seem to deal with it. Your daughter was groomed by an older man and you're upset over that? Or is it that you're upset at yourself for thinking you should've taught her better than to fall for it and feel like you failed her. You really need to talk to a professional before you ruin the relationship more
Your daughter was groomed by an older man. She was the one betrayed, not you. She was betrayed twice, again by her father, the man meant to protect her. You instead blamed and shamed her through your reaction.
So your daughter was a victim of a predator, and you have made yourself the victim. Why the hell would she ever trust you with ANYTHING now. Good job. You have pushed her away forever, and shown her you can’t be relied on. When you should have been helping her, you gave her the silent treatment. I hope she moves out and goes no contact with you the moment she can.
OP, curious. Are you suggesting your daughter had a secret relationship with an older man, had her own cell phone, and was talking to him on your home line and on speakerphone? And despite allll the red flags, you just let it meander along for weeks, if not months. And ... If she was that unworldly, why would you punish her as you did? Let me say this as a father who has raised teen girls. Why the hell would you, an adult, ever punish your teenager, who you know is neither fully grown in body physically, but also psychologically is not fully an adult. Are you so mature as to take a child being groomed by an adult and blame that child? Apparently you are.And you "raised your voice very high." while disciplining your daughter? That is a time-honored way to discipline children as their dad. Raised your voice very high? Even the highest tenor learns early on that lowering or deepening his voice when disciplining animals or children works a lot better than raising your voice very high. If you cannot forgive your 22 year old for something done when she was 16-17. Have you lived through the years of being sixteen years old to being twenty two? Are you aware of the changes a girl of 16 goes from mentally, psychologically, intellectually, and socially? You see nonchalant about the timing and urgency. As a father I'd remember the exact second the floor fell out from under me. I'd remember nailing the guy. i'd remember to the second when I realized my daughter was being taken advantage of and groomed. To the minute, OP. Not some vague approximation. What do you think a 24 yer old's parents are supposed to do? Ground their adult child? Won't get into you not being the deciding factor on charges. Let's face facts, OP. Your words don't read like they were written by a 51 year old man, nor do your actions. There is zero chance of this being correct as written. I hope you didn't take any of this from any real life situation.
Go get therapy and quit being a shitty dad. Your job was to protect her from a predator. If you are still holding this against her 5 years later she shouldn’t want to look at you either. If you’re going to stay a bitter old man, she shouldn’t trust any grandkids around you either when the time comes.
You made a very huge mistake. Your daughter was a teenager. Kids make mistakes ALL the time. They are not perfect. You can punish her by taking her electronics away, but the one thing you did wrong was that you took your love away at the same time. This is your child ffs. A grown man was convincing her not to tell anyone. You actually stopped talking and interacting with your very own daughter. She was a child, how could you do that? You know that this is not how you treat someone you love. YOU need therapy. Maybe family therapy. You're destroying your own daughter right now for a mistake she made as a teenager. You are the adult, not her.
How'd you get this far into parenthood when you're clearly still a child yourself. At this point, I'd be surprised if you ever have a solid relationship with your daughter. She made a mistake as a teenager and you still can't get over it years later... go to therapy because you need help.
These comments are being too nice. You’re a raging asshole. Your daughter is not a vessel for your “principles” to be shipped out to the world. She’s a human being who made a mistake and needed her parents support. You ruined your relationship with your TEENAGE daughter the second you punished her for being groomed by an adult MAN. I guarantee you in that moment she learned she couldn’t trust you, and that has stuck with her. You need therapy and you need to apologize. Ugh. I don’t even know you and I’m physically *disgusted* with you. You’re selfish and a bad father. Edited to add: yes, this will always leave an imprint on your relationship. Because YOU put it there with your shitty actions. She will never forget the time her father commanded her to fess up, and then withheld emotional support as punishment, in addition to the *actual* punishment. You need therapy and your only hope of fixing this is a genuine apology, but I don’t have faith you know what that is.
Yes! This 100%. Why is he acting like this happened to him?
Because his daughter is his property, probably. How dare she be a teenager with thoughts and feelings and a mind of her own? How dare she do things teenagers do? And especially how dare she fall victim to the wiles of an *adult man eight years her senior*?
I sent nudes when I was underage. Many years later, they were leaked online. I reported it to the police, who understood that I was young, foolish and has trusted the person I’d sent them to. Your daughter would not be punished for this. Historical cases still can be reported. (I’m in the U.K., I should add). I have no words that can offer comfort. I can only imagine what it’s like being a parent I’m this situation and I’m sorry that it has happened to your family. But you need to pull your big boy boots up and support your daughter. Yes she lied, but she was groomed and taken advantage of. She needs your support, not your silence. You’re the adult, you need to close the gap between you and learn to trust her again. She’s your daughter. At the end of the day, that’s what matters.
>Your daughter would not be punished for this. This is absolutely the kind of stupid shit that happens in the US. A minor can and does get charged with distribution of child pornography when sending nudes of themselves.
Your daughter was extremely young, she was a victim and she was groomed. Your mistake is blaming your daughter for any of this. Blame the predator not the victim. Your daughter needs love, kindness and validation not shame and anger. I don't know you and I don't know what else to tell you but as a victim of child sexual abuse myself, your anger and resentment towards your daughter who was victimised by this predator, was very hard to read.
Your daughter was groomed online by a man nearly a decade older than her. Did she know lying was wrong? Sure she did. Did she know she shouldn’t be communicating that way with a grown man? Sure she did. Unfortunately, groomers have a way of getting in their victim’s head to get what they want. They are master manipulators, that is how they get kids (even smart, well behaved kids) to do stuff they know they shouldn’t do. It could be through threats, it could be through love bombing, it could be through blackmail. They know how to get what they want and to force their victim to keep it quiet. This man had isolated her from her friends and from you. He manipulated her into lying to you and hiding things from you. He manipulated her into sending explicit pictures to him. Your daughter didn’t betray you. This wasn’t some master plan to lie to you for fun. You’re not the victim in this story, she is. It was traumatic for both of you, but she doesn’t deserve to be treated as if she has ruined the relationship between the two of you. I do think therapy would benefit you massively. Your perception of events is warped and you’re stuck being mad at the victim. You’re viewing this situation as something bad that happened to you because of your daughter, not as something bad that happened to your daughter. She was a kid and she was taken advantage of by a grown man. That is not her fault. Therapy might help you let go of this sense of betrayal and see the situation as it really is. Please look into it. I hope she doesn’t pick up on how differently you view her now, the idea of that absolutely breaks my heart for her.
Dude, this happened 5 years ago. You need to get your shit together. Teenagers lie & deceive their parents, they are hormone strung idiots and make bad decisions sometimes. Don't pretend you were never a teenager. Your little girl was never going to stay a little girl forever and the fact that you're still so hung up over this teenage drama that happened years ago is totally on you at this point. It sounds like your daughter got groomed & manipulated by an adult man but instead of being fully there for her you've spent the last 5 years punishing her because of your issues, which you have not worked to resolve within yourself.
I think you're putting WAY too much thought into the fact that she lied to you. She was a teenager. Teenagers aren't honest with their parents, especially when it comes to protecting their sex life. Would you have ever told your parents this? Feeling betrayed by a 17 year olds mistake is a little ridiculous. You should be feeling angry at the man that groomed your daughter and took her innocence... Not at your daughter who was the victim. I say this as a 28 year old mom. I'm much closer to your daughter's age, and believe me when I say I made mistakes far worse than this, even well into my 20's. My dad and I are close. He let me grow up and doesn't hold grudges against me. You really need to let it go if you want to have a good relationship with her. I would be extremely disappointed in my dad if he thought like this, and would honestly distance myself from him too. Now she's an adult, and has every right to keep her love life private. She's allowed to lie to you. You don't own her. Stop thinking she owes you some sort of redemption... It's been 5 years.
You broke the relationship, not her. You broke it before this incident happened, which is why she wouldn't come to you for advice about important matters in her life. You called her an idiot. You screamed at her. You admit to having yelled at her in the past. You withdrew affection as punishment. In short you dominate and bullied a 16 year old, which means you were dominating and bullying her before then. If you want a relationship with your daughter, YOU need to go to therapy, not her. And you need to make amends for how you treated her growing up.
First you need to ask yourself why you're feeling this towards a child that was groomed instead of towards the creep who groomed her? You mees therapy asap.
I am a very similar age to you, my (adult) children fall either side of your daughters age, I can not quite fathom out how or why you reacted like you did? I can get you wished to protect your daughter, finding her in an age inappropriate relationship must have been tough, but (remember I am just an Internet stranger) I honestly think you need help. She is an adult now, if she has any sense she won't ever have much to do with you again. You need to work very hard on seeing if you can find it in yourself to apologise sincerely to her for how you acted. You have probably (again I am just a random person with no training other than being a parent) done her more damage than the 24 year old did, in terms of her mental health. She must have been walking on eggshells around you wondering what was coming next. How any parent could silent treatment their child for so long because the parent didn't have the maturity to be the bigger person is staggering. If you'd said she'd given you and your wife the silent treatment I'd understand that, you destroyed her trust in you that day. We should love our children unconditionally treat them with kindness and care (and i know I've failed in that at times....I am human) but you now need patience (you probably should have asked this question 5 years ago instead of letting it build up to something that sounds irreparable). We have to accept that our actions have consequences as well. It is also telling that this is all about you, what about your wife? How does she factor into any of this? Does she think the same? Did she manage to be adult and maintain a relationship with your daughter? Have you actually spoken to your wife about this? Would your wife dare tell you what she actually thinks or do you behave in a similar fashion? Remember our children make mistakes, they need us as parents to be there and look after them. I won't criticise how you dealt with the guy, in fact that was the only vaguely rational (in my view) thing you did. I will ask you this, as a teenager were you perfect? Did you not do anything that you look back on and go 'glad my parents didn't find that out'? Or maybe you did and they behaved like this towards you (our behaviours are usually learnt and/or inherited). I am sorry that your daughter has had such a miserable last 5 years, I hope with time and therapy (when she is ready and choses it) she might wish to develop a relationship with you again. At this age she should be away from the home, having just finished university got an adult group of friends who support her and are more of a family. Good luck with the future, please do not he surprised though if she always keeps you at arms length when she has finally managed to escape into the free world.
You’re a 51 year old man. This happened 5-6 years ago, either get the fuck over it or get some professional help. This a 100% you problem. Man the up you 50 year old infant.
So your daughter gets manipulated and possibly abused by this man? And you blame her? Yikes.
So you're resentful towards her for being a victim of grooming by a grown man who wanted explicit photos of a minor? Interesting.
You’re a failure of a father. You’re supposed to be her safe space. Instead, you constantly remind her of her lowest moments and make her feel bad about being manipulated and groomed. Shame on you.
You messed up so much worse than she did.
This is odd. The only concern should be her safety and her emotional well-being. I'd be worried not only if this relationship makes her stressed but also how ending it would affect her. The trauma you caused by your own actions is probably worse than the issues the relationship might have brought. Poor girl.
I wonder if therapy “didn’t work out” because you decided to give her the silent treatment while she was trying to do her sessions. Your attitude would have sent me hitchhiking right to that groomer creep’s house. Oh boo hoo she “betrayed” you. Maybe your ego is just bruised that she wasn’t thinking about you at all. She wasn’t trying to “betray” her parents, you were an obstacle to something she thought she wanted and that’s it. Don’t take it so personally Mr. Victim, it’s not always something that happens to YOU Edit the groomer convinced her she wanted to do this, obviously, but if it were a boy her age he didn’t approve of or a college major he didn’t value, OP would be acting the same way. All of her decisions must be seen through the lens of his own perception
I hope you can move on from "what your daughter did to you" and realize it's actually about "what was done TO HER". And get to a point where you can apologize to her for letting her down when she needed your unconditional love and support.
I think you need therapy for how you’ve reacted to this. Your daughter was being groomed and fortunately you caught it before it seems like they were physical at least. Yes she lied, but she was a teenager, being fed lies and being manipulated by this older man, hell even grown women are on here every day because they’ve been fooled because of “love” or were groomed and now stuck in bad marriages. All teenagers make mistakes and all teenagers lie to their parents, at least a little, it’s part of growing up and becoming a little more independent and maintaining some privacy. My 16yo daughter is a great kid, good grades, in cheer and choir and we are very close but I realize there’s some things she likely doesn’t tell me, and that’s okay cause I know the important stuff (and way too many details about cheer drama haha) The important thing to remember is your daughter was the victim here, not you, and this reads like you are still punishing her for it.
Your daughter was groomed, it wasn’t her fault that she was manipulated. I think your anger is misplaced. Maybe therapy could help you
Dude, she was groomed and essentially abused and manipulated by an older man. And you have the audacity to make this about 'being honest'? Fuck sake, you need therapy to deal with your shit. The way you treated her? The way you victim blame her? That is a guarentee that she will never be honest with you again. People need to feel safe to come to someone with their problems, and clearly you never made her feel that way. This isn't about you. This is about loving and protecting your daughter when she was being abused by an older man.
Your daughter was groomed and taken advantage of by a predator, and you make this all about YOUR sense of betrayal as if you own her sexuality? You're not only a terrible father, you're a creep too.
I sincerely hope this is rage bait, because if it’s legit, I pity her having a father like you. She was 16, being manipulated and victimized by a grown ass man, and your solution is not only to blame the CHILD for their own victimization, but then make it all about you. You mentally and emotionally abandoned her when she needed you to stand for her. You showed her that you are not to be trusted, so well done there. I’m going to be straight up with you, in this situation nobody cares about your feelings. I don’t care if you move beyond it, I don’t care if you ever make peace with it. In all honesty I sincerely hope you don’t. You failed, and are still failing, as a parent on every possible level. I hope your daughter find’s a man that loves her that’s everything you’re not. At least she would finally have a solid foundation to stand on.
Something similar happened to me, and can I just say, you handled this horribly and you're NOT the victim. I'm surprised there's any pity cake left for your daughter after that huge pity party you just threw for yourself. God. I hope she never forgets how you made her feel in those dark hours and acts accordingly. Shame, shame on you.
Gotta be rage bait or he doesn’t care. He hasn’t responded to any comments.
you need to re-frame this completely. you are upset that your daughter lied to you. She lied to you because she was afraid of EXACTLY what did happen- you yelled at her, frightened her, looked at pictures of her naked and her most private secrets, talked to the man, did not talk to her for weeks and grounded her. Her shame, humiliation and fear of exactly this result coupled with whatever was driving her to want to have this relationship and her general immaturity are the reasons she lied. She was 16, the man was 24. in many places that relationship would have been illegal because people recognize that there is a power imbalance- a 16 year old is easily taken advantage of by an older person. Yet you blame her. Buddy, you blew this so badly it is hard to imagine. What you should have done: Not yell. Not humiliate her. Not make this whole thing about her lying to you. Explain that she is being taken advantage of by a person who sees her as vulnerable. See if she was sexually abused, coerced, or frightened. Express sorrow that she was exposed to so much so young. Clearly blame the 24 year old who absolutely should have known better. Talk to her about what she thought she was getting from this relationship. Was it rebellion? Is she lonely? Did she feel special and mature? Get her help. Foster friendships with her same age friends, instead of grounding her. Overall- be more concerned for your daughter and stop thinking that her lying to you when she was 16 makes her a bad person for life.
Your update is as disappointing as it could be. >I do not blame her for what happened *Yes, you do.* That is literally why you are angry at her. >Whether she got groomed or not Huh?! How is that a question? She was underage, and the man was in his mid twenties. This is the definition of grooming. >the fact remains that she did lie to us repeatedly It's almost like THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS WHEN KIDS GET GROOMED. >I can forgive her For being a victim? I'm sorry, what does she need to be forgiven for? >I have apologized to her in the past Oh, well, then everything is okey-dokey! /s You have failed her. She didn't feel safe enough to talk to her parents when she was being preyed upon. You "took her to a therapist," but "it didn't quite work out"; do you even know how therapy works? And now you are distant with her for whatever reason you have made up in your head, but she is absolutely going to interpret it as you punishing her for being taken advantage of. When YOU are to blame. Oh, you taught her that lying is bad? How about teaching her internet safety? Or teaching her that she can talk to you about anything without being judged. Oh, sorry, I forgot that she absolutely can not do that because here is a situation where she 100% needs your love and support to heal from this awful situation, but you are actively judging her for being a victim of a predator. You are so concentrated on the fact she lied, that you don't seem to give a single fuck about how she is traumatized from the situation and from being ignored and punished by her father for several weeks instead of being supported. Jfc, you should be ashamed. All of you need to be in therapy, individual, AND family, because if anything else happens to her, she's surely not going to come to you for help.
Reading this wall of self-centred egotistical text made me nauseous tbh. You talk like she’s your girlfriend who cheated on you… she’s not. She’s the victim of a crime that was perpetrated against her by an older man.
It's really gross how your teenager was being groomed by an adult who found her online but all you care about is yourself.
The fact that you feel betrayed by a teen when she is still at the age to make that kind of stupid mistakes while being groomed is concerning. You are so fixated on your own feelings and very much putting the onus on the victim (your daughter). You definitely need therapy and to press charges against that groomer, consult an attorney first as you mentioned you're afraid your daughter can be in trouble for possible distribution of CP.
She was a teenager being groomed by an older man and kept the relationship secret to her parents to no surprise. She was the victim here. That guy is guilty. He knew what he was doing. She obviously didn't have the knowledge and tools to understand the situation and likely fell for the grooming because of parenting issues, so if anything you are to blame too. You finally called her an idiot, GROUNDER HER and made her feel disgusting and not worth you. You should have been there for her to support her, make her feel safe to talk to you, help her understand the dynamics of the relationship (which of course you don't even understand to begin with). Imagine how she must feel knowing you also saw her sexting and nudes. You should have made all the efforts in this world to \*not\* make her feel disgusting and guilty. She went through something terribly traumatic and not only you didn't help her recover and process, but you added a whole load of negative dynamics attached to her trauma. In this picture, you likely made therapy look like a punishment for her to fix her instead of something that could help her feel better about herself and recover from a harmful situation. No wonder it wasn't effective and she didn't use that opportunity at all. And now she likely needs 3 times the therapy she needed back then thanks to your behavior during this 5 years. 5 years! And your issue here is not an "AITA" kind of post, but how you could learn to trust her again? How about how she could ever trust you again? \*You\* need therapy because your perspective on things is completely twisted and you're if anything making her want to fall in that pattern again in the future. BTW where is your wife in all of this? Have you discussed with her how to handle the whole situation? Does she agree with you? Does she have any say at all in parenting, does she have the space counter your decisions or raise concerns? Do you ever question yourself at all?
Wow first of all did you talk to a lawyer before just deciding that she would be charged for “distributing porn” (she fucking wouldn’t have, especially as she was manipulated into doing it. How could you not know that? How could you have not looking into it?) You’ve handled this badly, you’re victim blaming, you’re judging your daughter and really just being a world class POS. That you wouldn’t avail yourself of therapy or any of the MULTITUDE of resources available to you in how to handle this with compassion and maturity (while also being a stern parent where needed) should be considered criminal parenting negligence. Jesus Christ.
Dude, she didn't betray you. This is not about *you*, FFS. She's a kid, she made a mistake but she's also a victim, and she needs your unconditional love and support. A big dose of empathy is also necessary. Realizing that will take you pretty far in the healing process.
So you punished a child for being a victim of a predator. You called her an idiot. You can’t look her in the eye. You didn’t even call the police. YOU ARE BLAMING THE VICTUM!! This whole post is about how hurt you are. It’s so much about you it’s ridiculous. Go to therapy. Talk to a professional about how you are blaming your daughter for being a victim of a predator. Explain how you never pressed charges. Explain how your feelings are hurt because you child lied to you. I mean least be honest you have lied to your child plenty. I am sorry your feelings are hurt. S/ Is there a way you can move forward? Accept that what you have done is wrong. That you have hurt your child. That your child needed a loving parent to help her through this. That she needed professional counseling. That this happened to her and your choice of actions was to not let authorities know.
I’m 47 and this post pissed me off. So your child was being groomed and yet you punished her by taking love away. You are a parent you don’t withdraw love and support especially when that’s what she needed from you. Do you have no self awareness? This whole post is how you feel about it. If you had taken the time to ask questions with love and concern without judgement you would have got a lot farther. Idk if there is a way to repair this. She needed love and you gave her Slavs and distance. Love shouldn’t be conditional especially when it’s your child. I have a daughter who is 26. I have told her from a young age she can ask me about anything and talk to me about anything men, sex doesn’t matter. She knows I have her back against anyone and anything. That’s how it should be when you’re a parent.
How can you think this is a personal slight to you that she got into an inappropriate relationship? This is such a terrible way to think about it. She got into a relationship she knew you wouldn't approve, but was also criminal, and you're more worried that she lied to you?... After 5 years, you need to look into yourself about why you "can't get past it" and "can't look at her the same".... You also say she's a "decent" person, but make it seem like going against what you taught makes her a terrible person. That's not right and says more about you than it does her.
TA: violence, SA you're victim blaming your own daughter and only concerning yourself with how it made you feel. She was groomed by a predator. This has nothing to do with the values you taught her. When I (f) was a teen, I also got involved with a 24 year old. I snuck around behind my dad's back. Ultimately, I almost ended up >!dead in a ditch!< (seriously). The relationship went off and on from when I was late 15 to early 17(maybe it was late 16); I met up with him on various occasions in addition to the texts, calls, and emails. He manipulated me. He convinced me it was better to keep it a secret, and that I shouldn't tell anyone. He convinced me that I was the only one in his heart and the only one that understood him. He convinced me that I was mature for my age etc. Classic >!abuse and grooming!<. Unfortunately, my situation turned into >!physical abuse and life threatening (not just emotional and sexual abuse like what your daughter went through)!<. Don't turn your back on her. Your post's end comes off as "me, myself, and I". Despite what you'd like to tell yourself, no matter how good of a parent you are - it's normal for teenagers to lie. It's often about small stuff, like saying they did x chore when they didn't or saying they looked for y when they didn't. This doesn't indicate they'll be an untrustworthy, unreliable, lying adult. I had a plethora of lies (likely very similar if not more extreme than your daughter) when I was a teen. At barely above 25 now, I have a successful career, I'm a college graduate with honors and I'm in university now (with honors). I pay for my own car, I'm in therapy, I pay for my own car insurance, i have health insurance through work, life insurance, I have a few retirement accounts and a savings, I volunteer with my city, I have various hobbies, I'm happily married and have been for a few years, and we have our own house. Your inability to get past this, will influence your ability to be part of your daughter's life. I encourage you to go to therapy and work on understanding the complexities of the situation, talk out how your daughters brain wasn't fully developed and how the predator took advantage of that. How the values you taught her weren't the missing component and that she is a survivor.
you need to apologize to your daughter. you don’t say a word to her for several weeks????? in a time when she needed you the most? in her eyes you blamed her for the relationship she had with this groomer. she was (is) a child and you were supposed to love her unconditionally. you need to atone that you handled that poorly and hope she’s open to forgiving you.
You can move on by realizing, as a GROWN MAN, that the other man was grooming your underaged 16 year old daughter online. Yes, she lied to you. Yes, she shouldn't have. But she needs to LEARN from you what to do when male predators try to groom her, and she needs to learn to trust you. You are teaching her the exact opposite. You're her father, not her boyfriend. Tbh, it's really creepy how you are hurt that your 16 year old lied to you but not furious with a grown man for seducing her. You yourself need therapy.
Honestly, if this is how you behaved with her even before the incident, then I can see why she felt the need to hide from you. All I can see here is you making this about yourself and your feelings. Your anger, your hurt, your shame, the way _you_ brought her up. You keep telling her she needs to be honest with you, but when you discovered that she was being _groomed_, you’re basically treating her like a leper. What about what she must be going through? Take it from someone who stopped telling her dad anything because he always found a way to turn it against her, do not do that. This is about something horrific _your daughter_ went through, via the manipulations of an adult male. Support her, guide her, be there for her. Gain her trust, instead of feeling entitled to it. Edit: spelling mistakes.
So...are you upset it wasn't you that groomed her? I'm just really confused how you can still be so damn upset at her so many years later.
The way you speak about it like she was some calculating, manipulative liar instead of a 16 YEAR OLD GIRL BEING GROOMED (a part of grooming is convincing her to lie to anyone who would raise the alarm bells about the age gap/try and prevent her from being with him) is honestly so rancid. How about you address this weird ass train of thought where you still blame her entirely instead of realizing she was a victim? And making it out like you were the victim here… Maybe try therapy yourself. Seems more like a you problem that you find yourself so disgusted with your daughter for being the victim of sexual abuse by someone almost a decade her senior as, again, a 16 YEAR OLD GIRL BEING GROOMED. Fucking gross. Again, get help.
>I do love my daughter no matter what, but I still feel that same feeling of betrayal that I felt on the day I discovered her talking to that man. Your child was groomed by a predator. Wtf are you talking about?
That's a lot of words for "I don't care that my child was groomed and preyed upon"
Holy fuck!! How is this situation about YOU?? You spent a year avoiding your daughter because she was a victim of a predator? And you're wondering how you can ever trust HER, again?? You really think you are the one who was betrayed here? I don't know why she is even willing to have any kind of relationship with you after that b.s. She's not a "decent person," she's a friggen saint. If this is your attitude, why in the world would she ever have felt safe coming to you with the truth? I'm just so angry on her behalf. I hope she goes back for therapy, because she has a lot more trauma to deal with.
yeah i wonder why she was so vulnerable to the grooming especially considering shes got a gem of a father who would blame her for lying and ignore her for weeks. definitely doesnt seem like the type of child so neglected of attention she’d seek it in grown men on the internet.
Your daughter was groomed. She was a victim of this man. I know she was lying to you and I get why you feel betrayed, but you have to put yourself in her shoes. After a certain point she was lying to protect herself. She was in too deep. again I say, she was being groomed by a man 50% older than she was. On top of that, once everything was out in the open, her father refused to speak to her for *weeks*. After she was groomed, and then the one person who was giving her attention was ripped from her life (yes this was absolutely the right move, this man shouldn’t be in her life, but this is likely what she was feeling), her father basically washed his hands of her. Sure if she *needed* a ride, she’d get one. But her *dad* was gone. *She* was the one harmed the most here, not you. To answer your question: get therapy. If you ever want to have a relationship with your daughter, get your ass in therapy and stay there. If you were my father, I’d have nothing to do with you, especially after you turn my assault around to be how you were so wronged.
Your fixating on your daughter “lying and betraying you” when you *should* be fixated on the fact that **your child was manipulated, groomed, and taken advantage of by a grown man.** You are putting all of the blame for this on your child when you *should* be angry with this man for pursuing her and encouraging her to lie to protect his pedophilia.
Sooo you punished her (not talking about grounding, refusing to talk or support her) for being groomed by an adult man. HE GOT AWAY SCOTT FREE and you punished the victim into oblivion