My brother lives and works in Dubai as a senior project engineer. He is in his late 30s and has had a volatile life. Started using drugs young. Went through drug addiction, recovered, studied and then moved oversees. He had no issues with girls, in fact the last two years has been the longest period he’s gone without having a female on his life. We are close, but before I found out about this abuse we argued a lot because of his behaviour and how it impacted me and my two sisters. He disclosed the abuse to me 15 years ago after we were arguing about his behaviour and basically said I’m like this because I was abused my Aunty C.
My parents new about the abuse, they found out when he was 16. They handled it terribly and instead of my mum confronting her sister with the accusations she swept it under the carpet in the hope that my bro moved on. I also suspect that my parents didn’t quite believe it because at the time by brothers behaviour was extremely bad, and he had been known to lie extensively to cover his poor behaviour. So I think my parents were worried that they could unleash hell on the family for something that was a lie. Well it’s been almost 20 years and this has not gone away.
My Aunty in the other hand. We have a very close relationship. She is only 10 years older than my brother and 12 years older than me so we were basically raised like siblings. Accusing my Aunty of doing this is something so far fetched that I can’t even get my head around it. She is one of the most principally based people I know, she is an amazing mother to her 4 sons, yes that’s right, 4 sons. She would cut off her leg to do the right thing by someone. This accusation has absolutely destroyed her. I would honestly be shocked if she makes it out the other side in one piece. She will either harm herself or have significant mental health issues because she is not in a good place. And my uncle (her husband) basically laughed at this and said it’s the biggest load of BS and that basically my brother has come up with this story to excuse his behaviour growing up and he’s targeted my Aunty to make his story believable.
I am piggy in the middle. My younger sisters don’t know. There’s just myself, my parents, my uncle (second oldest, my mum is the oldest) and a family friend. My parents are distraught because they don’t know what to do. I am a complete mental mess. I could not believe my Aunty would ever do something like this. I have pressed my mum hard about my Aunty behaviour growing up and she said there was never anything. She once got into trouble for flashing her bumb at a neighbour when she was a girl around 6 years old. But otherwise she was a dream child never in trouble and never have anyone any issues. She’s been with my uncle since they were 16 and he cannot believe it. I have known for many years but obviously the disclosure from my brother to my Aunty directly has made it very real. I now need to decide what I believe. Either one is telling the truth and I am in a lose lose. I either lose a brother, or an Aunty. When my brother first disclosed I was like fuck my Aunty fuck this and fuck that But as I thought about it more and more I cannot I honestly even speak the words that my Aunty did this.
There are also parts of my brothers story that just make it so unbelievable. Some of the locations where the abuse happened make it so easy for her to be caught. And I wonder where my grandparents were because we grew up in a Croatian house and my grandparents were always there. They never left our sight.
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