My significant other’s dad told me why he liked me, and it took me aback.
Well about four months before we started dating, my girlfriend was sexually assaulted at her school. Since she was a minor at the time her name was kept secret, but my mother knew the mother of the person involved and my mom found out the girl’s name. Turns out it was a childhood friend of mine. That hurt, but nowhere near as bad as what she went through.
Four months later a friend of mine posted a pic on Facebook and in the picture was that girl. I ended up getting her added on Facebook. We got to talking and I admitted that when we were children, she was my first crush. We laughed and she said she used to like me too. Well after a few weeks of talking we realized we were both still attracted to each other and ended up dating.
So here’s the thing, I didn’t tell her I knew what happened to her right away. We took things very slow. I let her lead when she wanted to cuddle she initiated. I let her see that she was safe with me, after about a month she told me about what happened. She said she felt guilty not telling me since I treated her so well and I didn’t push her for anything sexually, she was worried she’d hurt my feeling by not being open emotionally or sexually.
I just told her that I knew the whole time and that I didn’t care that she had trouble opening up emotionally, or that she couldn’t handle sexuality. I knew that going it things wouldn’t be normal, or easy. I know it was a risk not telling her since that could be seen as lying and I know that could have hurt her more, at the time I was 16 and dumb though.
As we kept dating I continued to let her lead things physically, and her family accepted me pretty well. Turns out her dad had figured out I knew but didn’t know how to approach me and her mom was glad she had a male outside her family and her pastor that she could open up to.
Her dad pulled me aside after a meeting we had with the pastor (they are Christian, I went to the same church as a kid) and told me that he appreciated me helping her, being gentle with her, being a safe place, but also not treating her like she’s a broken doll that needs to be protected from the world. He said that they thought they were going to lose her after what happened because she didn’t talk outside of the church and all she did was sit at home on the computer until we started talking. He said that he hoped one day, hopefully not anytime soon, he could call me son.
Well, his wish came true. We got married more than a year ago and she’s expecting our son in a few months.
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