[kmh27]

Hi, I am looking for a little advise..................

This is a long drawn out story and I am not even sure where to start. My husband is a unique soul. He puts on this loud bravado'd exterior as a kind of defense mechanism. He makes it very hard for people to get to know him. He is loud and has the mouth of a truck driver, but he did not have the normal upbringing. He is the product of a failed marriage and of abusive parents. Once you do break through that shell, you will never find a more loving and loyal person.

Earlier this year, my family betrayed our family. My parents saw a bruise on my oldest daughter and made assumptions. ***For clarification - the bruise was obtained in a witnessed sledding accident*** My parents told my sister and my sister told her shrink. The next thing I know, my family is under investigation by The county Child Protective Services.

Not once was I asked what happened and yet my daughter states she told them she hit the snow bank. Instead my children and my husband and I are put through a lengthy investigation. In the end, our name was cleared but our children are left traumatized and confused by the experience. Through all this, my husband and I remained strong.

I have since cut off almost all contact with my parents and I haven't talked to my sister since March. My Dad keeps trying to contact me. They do not understand how much they have hurt me. They, my family, have proven by there actions just how little they think of me as a person. How little they respect the person that they raised me to be. My/Our Children are my world and I would never allow anything to harm them.

I went to a cousins graduation party recently and my parents were there. I went to see my Goddaughter who is having health issues and other cousins that do not live local. All I can say, it was the most awkward experience of my life. Since that time my husband has pulled away from me. I can not get him to talk to me about what is going on. I do not know if he thinks I am going to leave him because opted to reconnect with my extended family. I just do not know anymore. All I do know is I feel so alone because I do not know who to talk to. I can not trust my family and now I feel like I have lost my best friend.

I am not sure if any of this makes sense. It's just starting to feel like I am losing myself in the process. How do you fight for something when you blame yourself for other peoples actions? How do you repair the damage that others have caused?

[rcoreyus]

I am so sorry this happened to you. I was involved in the foster care program years ago. A 5 year old girl was taken out of her home for more than 6 months because a single person made a completely unfounded claim of abuse. (no physical evidence, no support from psychologists, etc - just a claim).

In that case I have good reason to believe the claim was malicious. In this case it is likely your family was trying to do the right thing. We are all told to report any evidence of child abuse. They probably struggled with it, and finally decided that protecting your daughter was more important than protecting your husband. I expect it was a very difficult decision for them - worse now that they have seen the harm it has done.

Before you condemn them though, think about what you would have done in the same situation?

For me, knowing what I know now about how child protective services operates, I would never make a claim like this unless I was absolutely sure - but maybe they didn't realized how things would go.

[Ashlee T.]

If you and your husband have no history of abuse, if your kids are clean, happy, do well in school, are clearly well taken care of and not abused then I can't understand how they would have thought they were doing the right thing. The right thing, in my opinion, would've been to ask the child "Ouch, where did you get such an awful bruise!?" and if the child responded with details of a sledding adventure with no signs of deceit, I'd let it go. Then I'd mention the bruise to the mother, "Did you notice little ___ 's bruise? It looks bad, what happened to her?" If mom responds with details of a sledding adventure with no signs of deceit, I'd let it go.

But all that is assuming there was no reason for them to believe the child may be abused. If the children talk about how mean he is all the time, then yeah, I can see where the fam might be concerned. Or if there was some history of abuse.

As for him shutting you out, open communication is the best thing. If he refuses to talk to you about what's bothering him, then what can you possibly do? Not much.....

[jns]

Unfortunately, you confirm one of my views of Child Protective Services (or Social Services). Another one is they put children back into truly abusive homes and that leads to damage and sometimes to death of a child.

Your husband is unsure of your loyalties. He may never forgive your family. I think both your husband and you need to be in therapy to heal this. You may have to cut off contact with your family to a greater degree. Do you have a group of loyal friends to lean on from time to time?

[CHANDLERS WISH]

You know people are human and they make mistakes...

Grandparents have been around, they have seen things in their life time that you are yet to see.

Their "thought pattern" was not that their own daughter, hurt their grandchild IMO, rather frightened that yes, your husband as he has a loud personality, may have hurt their grandchild and as you love him, maybe you ignored that occassion attitude, it sounds more to me that they were "throwing thoughts out there, do you think? Type questions and your sister who has issues obviously did the same thing, threw it out there to her shrink, you know how it goes, one person tells another, who tells another and the whole story changes by the time it gets to the forth person.

The fact that your Dad has continually tried to contact you suggests that it was more accidental than deliberate and that it all blew out of proportion, do you honestly know what really was said? If your sister is seeing a shrink, maybe she elaborated?

The way I see it, if your parents really thought that, they would have pulled you aside and spoke to you of their huge concern or reported it themselves.

Think about it... It was "family internal gossip" if you will, of a concern that ended up out there to the world by your sister.

Your husband can not divide you and your family it's blood. Both of you in my opinion need to go and see your parents and find out exactly how this all firstly happened and if anything, even if it was just talk that ended up where it did, and they have a right to pose the question with fear as grandparents but your husband deserves the right to listen and to be apologised to for them even thinking that way.....