Acknowledging, coming to terms with are not the same as healing. Sure Heather you are doing well but this does not mean you are as well as you could be within yourself. You handle it and you function. Do you really want to go around limping for the rest of your life when you could be striding out? Many people with bad FOO situations shy away from therapy so saying, I'm fine I came to terms with it. But this is just bravado and fear speaking. You don't want to root out those demons because something inside you knows the process will be painful.
I think the early sexual stuff is about a lack of affection from your father. When I see my D4 interacting with her father and grandfathers there is so much flirtatious physical behaviour going on. It is healthy flirtatious behaviour there is nothing unsavoury happening just tickling and kissing and being thrown around to make her giggle. In fact my Dad will often say to me "she's a terrible flirt". But this is what little girls need to do to build a healthy self-esteem and relationships with men where they do not need to use sex to validate themselves. She is strenthening her feminine power by building healthy relationships with her male relatives. Of course they princess her but I can't see her throwing herself away on the first guy that comes along because she will have high standards of love and affection to measure against.
The fact that you so clearly value the crumbs your Dad threw in your direction shows how strong your yearning for validation by a male was. It is not surprising that you threw yourself at the boys at all.
I think the other male relatives such as Grandfathers are almost more important than Dads in giving girls the right kind of validation, Dads are often too busy to interact in the right kind of way. I had neither grandfather and my dad was quite a distant person when I was a child and I can clearly remember him pushing my little sister off his lap and calling her a fat lump, so I too threw myself at the boys. Been there and done my fair share of one night stands too
Your in a terrible bind Heather and I understand that, of course you don't want to rock the boat and ruin your kids lives, but I'm not sure that you will. The stronger you become and the more you heal yourself the better role model you will make for them. You are providing a poor role model by putting up with the cr*p you get from H so you have to weigh that in the balance too. I am not suggesting you ditch the R, I am just suggesting that you take your focus away from it for a while and see what you can do on your own behalf.
Fran
if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs Erica Jong
