I learned something very disturbing about my step-mother last night, and it is bothering me so much I feel like I have to write it down and get it out. My dad married "Jamie" about six years ago, someone who I thought was a very nice woman and I was very happy that my father had found someone to love. It also did not affect my life too much because I was already almost out of college at this point.
She already had a son from a previous marriage; her first husband died when the son was only four years old. "Nash" was about 11 years old when my father married Jamie, and he was the only complication in the marriage because he was a special needs child. He has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, which is a severe form of MD that strikes in early childhood and progresses fairly fast. He is doing better with it than most sufferers, but in all likelihood he will be dead by the time he is 21-23.
I don't necessarily think of Nash as my "brother" because I was already out of the house when my dad remarried, and I only visit on holidays and the summer. Nevertheless I do care about him and he has always been a good kid, with a really good attitude about his disability. I definitely don't think I could handle being confined to a wheelchair for much of my life and knowing I was going to die a very early death the way he has.
He has very little control of his arms and legs, and spends a lot of time on the computer. He doesn't have the strength/dexterity to type, but he can use a special mouse and software that helps him find words faster to type. Think Stephen Hawking but with the ability to talk in real life. My dad does a great job taking care of him, but it is definitely his mother that does most of the work, and usually most of the unpleasant tasks like bathing him and helping him use the bathroom.
Alright, that's enough backstory. Here's where the really weird part comes in. I'm currently visiting my dad right now and was hanging out with Nash last night while my father and Jamie had a night out. I was drinking some beer and Nash asked if he could have some too. He's 17 now, and I didn't really have a problem with it, so I let him go at it, figuring even if he got tipsy he'd be sobered up by the time they got home after midnight. Well, let me tell you it apparently doesn't but about three beers to get a skinny kid with DMD wasted, drinking for the first time.
Nash is goofy at first, slurring even more than usual because of the beer and having a good time. But then suddenly he gets solemn and says "I have to tell you something." And he starts talking about how he feels so guilty and has this terrible secret and he doesn't know what to do about it. I'm not sure what kind of terrible secret a kid that can barely move has, so I'm really not expecting too much.
But then he reveals something pretty shocking. Apparently Jamie has been "helping him masturbate" for the last two years. He says that he feels really guilty about it afterwards and disturbed, but that he has a lot of sexual urges and can't help looking at porn on the internet, since it's pretty much all he has as entertainment. But it's also incredibly frustrating because he can't climax, because he doesn't have the strength/dexterity to jack off.
I ask him how the hell this started and he tells me that his mom caught him looking at porn about two years ago and asked him how he felt about not being able to masturbate, etc. and he admitted that it was extremely frustrating and that sometimes he feels like he is going to explode. And then a couple weeks later he is looking at porn again and he hears his mother come up behind his chair. She unzips his pants, and he is just sitting there in shock, but apparently doesn't stop her. And then, apparently it became a fairly regular weekly thing.
Nash told me that he feels even more guilty now because last week his mom even offered to start giving him blow jobs. And he feels tortured about being horrified at the idea, and also feelling like he won't be able to say no. And he also feels weird about his mother seeming to enjoy "helping" him. I'm so disgusted and horrified at this point that I don't really know what to say. I just say we can talk about this later, and start onto some whiskey.
So now I don't know what to do. Do I tell my father about this? Do I confront his mother? Or do I just leave it all alone? I honestly have no clue what to do in this situation, because I can look at it from multiple points of view. I know how hard it must be for Nash to not have any "release" but this is also really messed up. Definitely I think his mother has some issues, and I feel like my dad should know that, but at the same time there marriage seems really happy and good otherwise. So I really don't know what my next move is, if anything.
