I was groomed by my stepfather, and I lost my mother because of it

This is really hard for me to admit. It took me a little over 5 years to talk about with my biological father, but I'm willing to talk about it with strangers.

I am currently 23 years old. This started happening in my teen years (between 14-15 years old).

I remember when it first started. My family always moved from place to place. We never stayed in one apartment. My stepfather came into the picture after we moved into a two-story home in an intersection point. I remember I was excited to meet this new man my mom talked about, since her dating history has been not great. They met online and he came up all the way from Texas to be with her and her kids. I think I hadn't even reached the age of 12 when I first met him.

We moved to an apartment in another intersection point a while after he came to live with us. It was a decent living space, although I personally had a few issues with my mother with us going back and forth with each other. Other than that, I was just trying to get through my teen years. But one afternoon, I was hanging out with my stepfather in their bedroom, just having a conversation with him. It was an isolated room upstairs, so no one would see unless they came up the stairs. I made a joke about how my biological father was a professional masseuse and how I picked up on some of his techniques. My stepfather made note of that and asked me if I could perform a massage on him sometime. I wasn't sure how to take this, since I was a kid, but I accepted. We ended up making an agreement where I would give him massages and he would give me money for it. The money went up to maximum 50 bucks to do it.

I kept massaging him when he asked me to, but it was always when my mom was at work, doing errands, or just out of the house in general. He told me one time directly not to tell her. which confused me. I thought something like massages wasn't a big deal, but he encouraged me to keep it secret from my own mom. I promised I wouldn't tell her though. It kept going for a while, even after we moved out to another place outside of the town we lived in.

I remember an instance where he wanted me to use my feet to step on his back. which happened a couple times prior, so I said yes. When I stepped on his back, I could see he was... physically reacting to it. His back shuddered and his legs wouldn't stay still. He didn't make any noises, but his body did all the talking. He turned his head and said he didn't want his reactions to make me uncomfortable. I was still a minor and didn't know how to respond at the time, so I just said it was fine.

This went on until I went to art school for college at 18. It didn't happen after that, until 2023, where he asked me for the last time to massage him. I said no and he didn't push it. After that, I remember my stepdad and my mother scolding me about something I said to my stepdad and he told her about it, although we had a promise together, we wouldn't speak about our private conversations with her. That's when I moved out to live with my biological dad temporarily. I told my dad about the massages and inappropriate behavior my stepdad had done to me.

He told me I should tell my mom about it, so I did. She came over to my dad's place, and I told her everything I could remember. I still see her face to this day. Nothing was behind her eyes. It almost felt like she hated me in that moment, as if I was destroying their relationship. The first comment she made after my confession was about what I was wearing around the house. We went back and forth a couple times before my dad, being the moderator of the conversation, stepped in to talk to my mom. That's when I left the room. I proceeded to throw chairs, scream at the top of my lungs and cry profusely, which made both of them run to check on me. I was a manic wreck after what she said to me.

My dad offered to take a walk with me and I accepted. When I went to my room to put my shoes on, my mother came in and sat beside me. The only thing she said to me was, "I love you, but I have to talk to my husband." She left after that." I haven't seen her in person since that day.

She proceeded to talk behind my back to my sibling, saying my other cases of mistreatment and abuse from partners should be put into question. She even said to my sibling that if I was left alone with their boyfriend, I would accuse them of assault. She also tried to spin things onto my biological dad for other reasons, which are complete lies to make him look like a bad father.

I've been through forms of abuse, sexual assault, and forms of manipulation by multiple people, irl and online. But this has been the hardest to heal from. Not just because I was taken advantage of as a kid, but because I lost one of my parents because of it and framed as a crazy person who is deceitful to others.

If you have any questions, AMA.