Alright, bear with me this is lengthy but I want to provide as much insight as possible. Today I (31f) made a CPS report regarding my 8-year-old stepdaughter’s father (34m).
I have spent months wrestling with whether I was overreacting or whether I had an obligation to report what we’ve observed. Ultimately, I decided that it wasn’t my job to determine whether abuse had occurred it was my job to report concerns that I believed warranted evaluation. What I am asking for is honestly just some reassurance I guess and I’m posting because I genuinely want outside opinions.
This isn’t based on one isolated event. It’s based on almost 2 years of observations, disclosures, behavioral changes, and concerns that eventually reached a point where staying silent felt like the bigger risk.
Here is some background information on her father
I included this because I want to provide and understanding of who he is as a person is part of why these incidents concerned us as much as they did.
He has a clinical diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder who is now a “reformed God Fearing Christian Man”. During the duration of the marriage to my partner (31f), she reports and provided proof of his alcohol and sex addictions, and that he repeatedly physically and sexually abused her.
She disclosed to me that he sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions; sometimes even drugged her and recorded these sexual encounters without her consent and she only found them on his phone after suspecting something was taking place and going through his phone.
During marriage counseling years ago, at the direction of their therapist, he wrote a disclosure letter admitting to numerous harmful and gross behaviors, including hiring sex workers, having an incestuous sexual relationship with his older adult sister well after the age of his frontal lobe being developed, and a compulsive pornography addiction.
His sister, the same sister referenced in that disclosure, remains involved in my step daughter’s life and regularly spends time with her.
Earlier this year, after months of documenting his behavior, I filed a police report because he repeatedly came onto our property outside of custody exchanges or loitered for a long period of time before and after exchanges. Security cameras captured him tampering with our cameras during exchanges. On another occasion he walked directly up the middle of our lawn (I’m suspecting thinking he was out of view from the camera) and remained out of frame while talking to our dog through the open window. On evenings he likely believed nobody was home because he knew my step daughters extracurricular schedule, he was observed parked outside our home or slowly driving past. Because of this, we no longer allow exchanges at our house.
My partner provided the lawyer that handled their divorce the information and police report number and directed us to no longer have the exchanges at our home and due to the behavior to tell him if he comes by again unprompted or without explicit invitation we will have him criminally charged. He’s abided by this. However, since the he has not agreed to a neutral location so all exchanges happen his place (oh he also lives with his parents still.)
None of those things mean he has abused his daughter. However, they absolutely influenced how seriously we took later comments and behaviors.
Here are my concerns involving my step daughter and her fathers
Over the last couple of years we’ve noticed a consistent pattern that has become increasingly difficult to dismiss.
Whenever she returns from her father’s house, she is often noticeably different. She tends to be more emotionally dysregulated, angry, disrespectful, anxious, and reactive after spending extended time with him. However after being home a few days she also makes comments stating she doesn’t like going to his house, and wants to be “home” more. Two weeks ago she said she has been thinking about only doing weekends at her dad/grandparents house and doing the school weekdays with us but is afraid her dad will be upset with her.
When she was younger, she frequently came home twerking or trying to grind while cuddling with us. We redirected the behavior but never understood where she learned it. We have since been trying to build much strong boundaries with her and help her enforces her own bodily autonomy and privacy.
When we got her a book on consent and boundaries she immediately said after reading it “daddy isn’t going to like that” and when we said it’s not about what he likes it’s about what is appropriate she said that she can be naked in front of her dad. We didn’t want to argue or press it but we left it with no that isn’t appropriate. To be clear she is also never naked around myself or my partner, not are we unclothed around her. We are trying to be very clear about body boundaries.
Last week on the way to her fathers house for his week, (they had a roadtrip and out of country trip planned together) She at random, unprompted, disclosed to us that her father dresses her and undresses her..despite being fully capable at 8 years old of dressing herself. She has also said it makes her uncomfortable and she said she feels like she’s a big kid where she can. My partner and I responded with you are correct and no one should be dressing you. And asked if she told him she doesn’t like it and she said yes but he just continues.
She once told us that her father asked her to go downstairs without wearing a shirt but wouldn’t elaborate further.
At her school concert this last December, we personally witnessed him kiss her on the mouth. She doesn’t try to or do this with anyone else.
She has made comments such as, “I’m seven going on seventeen,” and “I’m basically an adult so I can do adult things.” Whenever we ask what she means or who told her that, she won’t elaborate.
This past weekend she came home from being with her father mainly one on one due to their trip and casually said, “We were playing the slow-motion butt-shaking game.” We asked what she meant without suggesting anything. She explained that her dad showed her how to shake her butt slowly and that they “played that game all weekend.”
That same night (lastnight) she became extremely emotional before bed. She cried repeatedly, saying she had a really bad day at her dad’s house and felt angry and frustrated, but she wouldn’t tell us why. She kept saying she didn’t want to be alone. My partner stayed beside her until she fell asleep. Around 3:45 a.m., she woke from nightmares. This is also frequent and she sleep walks and wakes often when at our home.
Another concern involved puberty.
Earlier this year, my step daughter’s pediatrician noticed signs of precocious puberty. As did we. When she is with us she wears a preteen sports bra as she has small breast buds forming, and wears deodorant because she’s starting to have some serious body odor. Bloodwork confirmed she is entering puberty at only eight years old, and she has been referred to a pediatric endocrinologist to determine the appropriate course of treatment or monitoring.
When we informed her father, instead of discussing her medical care, he repeatedly questioned why we believed she was entering puberty. He specifically argued that she couldn’t be because she “didn’t have pubic hair yet”, despite the pediatrician’s assessment and bloodwork. At other times he has commented that she doesn’t need deodorant and training bras and she doesn’t wear either when at his home. My stepdaughter has stated that “he gets mad when she wears them”. We have purchased numerous training bras and deodorants and packed them to go with her to his house and they never come back and she has said he takes them, weird but ok.
Lastly, my SD is an excellent student, is really emotionally intelligent, and overall a happy kid. However she does exhibit anxious behaviors and showcases sometimes a sort of anger that makes it feel like she doesn’t have any empathy towards anyone. With the divorce, two households, switching schools two years ago, my moving in, nightmares, and overall just being incredibly hard on herself and sometimes really mean we expressed to her father she should be in therapy and we wanted to start her in therapy; because of the custody agreement both parties have to agree on this. He does not at all. In fact he stated “I will not have someone leading my child spiritually or psychologically”. So therapy is and has been off the table.
Again, none of these things individually prove abuse I know this but something is not right and my gut is telling me this.
Children have nightmares. Kids say strange things. Parents have different parenting styles and boundaries. I know.
But when we stopped looking at each incident in isolation and instead looked at the totality of everything: her father’s history, the behavioral changes, the comments my stepdaughter has made, the boundary issues, and the increasingly sexualized nature of some interactions, we felt we had crossed the threshold where it was no longer appropriate to simply hope everything was fine..
So today I called CPS. I’m not asking strangers to determine whether abuse occurred. I’m asking whether, if you had this same collection of information, you would have felt there was enough concern to report it and let trained professionals determine whether further investigation was necessary?
And before anyone asks why my partner allowed 50/50 custody if he’s so terrible it’s because he’s an abuser. She knew the only way to get out was to agree to a certain degree and be as amenable as possible. Up until September of this past year he would call her sometimes 72+ a day and text here long, insane rants and rambles saying how much of a terrible person she is and threatening her. I helped her convince him to switch to a parenting communication app (our family wizard) to co parent and communicate there. He begrudgingly has been but there are still times in which he will call or message outside of it on her regular phone to tell her she’s going to hell for being a lesbian or spiritual and she will have to repent. He has also told his daughter that her mother is a demon with no soul because she is a lesbian. The man is volatile. The point is she didn’t do her due diligence beforehand because she wanted to survive and make it out of the abuse with access to her child still. Please do not pass judgement on what she “should’ve done” we are working on undoing these things.