u/Amz50

When I was young (approx between 10-13 yrs), I travelled with my family from Ireland to attend my sister’s wedding in the UK. I was the flower girl and it was arranged that we would travel from my other sister’s home which she shared with her long term boyfriend/partner at the time and they had no kids at this stage, so it was just my sister, her partner and I in the flat, the night before my oldest sisters wedding.

My sister set me up on the pull out sofa bed she had in her living room, stuck on the tv for me and kissed me goodnight. I’m not sure exactly how long after it was but her partner came into the room, saw I wasn’t asleep and sat beside me on the pullout bed and I think he made conversation about what was on the TV at the time.
He then wrapped his arm around my waist and put his hands into my pjs bottoms and left his hand on my thigh/bum for what felt like forever but only a couple of minutes from what I can remember. He then made a comment that has stuck with me.. “I didn’t know you were old enough to wear thongs”. I just remember freezing, not liking what was going on and then he left. Not sure how long he stuck around but I don’t think it was very long.

I never spoke about it to anyone and continued to act normal around them and pushed it to the back of my mind.
I then told my mam and two sisters about it when moved to the UK myself years later but I didn’t receive any reassurance or validation, they just simply moved on with the conversation so I didn’t speak to anyone about it again.
It was only through my last couple of years of going through therapy that I revisited that horrid memory and it’s made me feel sick to my stomach that no one did anything at the time and now I’m left with a huge weight of guilt that I should have pushed it and told my sister about her now husband doing that, as they have three children together and have been married a long time.

Another reason why it’s come up for me is that my nieces (his daughters) have been suffering with MH issues and both have tried to take their own lives in the past few 2/3 years (only found this out recently), but my mind is becoming more and more consumed with the idea that something inappropriate happened with him and that is the reason for their suicidal thoughts.
However I haven’t spoken to my niece, nor do I want to ask that question, she’s a young teenager who may be struggling due to many different things like biology, (mental health issues are prominent in my family) she lived in the US for 5yrs and the drills used to scare her so it may be PTSD but her Mam recently mentioned that her doctor thinks she might have autism and can cause depression if not treated.

Regardless, categorically this happened and I feel shame. i have no idea what to do, I’m 31, it happened before over 10+ yrs ago, my sister has been happily married to him for yrs and has three lovely children and a whole life they’ve built. I cannot imagine the pain I would cause telling her what happened, I’m not even sure she would believe me but I’m scared he might have done something similar or worse and I’d feel ultimately responsible, but I feel so torn as I told my Mam and two other sisters but nothing ever came of it. I also spend a lot of time with her and the kids when I moved to the UK first and got along with her partner as normal because I genuinely blocked it out of my brain until the last couple of years.

The more and more I think about it, the more I feel the responsibility to tell her regardless of the outcome as she deserves to know. I would want to know.
I feel like an awful person harbouring this secret and it wouldn’t be as big if I had of told her at the time to what it would be now and could potentially break her family up forever. I’m genuinely stressed out over it and I’m no longer in therapy to speak to my psychiatrist about it.