My Sil Traumatized Me For Years Calling It A “Love Tap.” Then My Cousin-in-law Showed The Family A Video That Changed Everything. Was I Truly Too Sensitive?

Breaking Old Patterns

Tom started going to individual therapy with a different counselor than Leopold to work on why he’d prioritized his family’s comfort over my safety. He came home from his third session looking exhausted and told me his therapist had helped him see patterns from childhood where his parents expected him to smooth over any conflict and protect Denise from consequences because she was the baby of the family.

Tom said he remembered being seven years old and getting punished for tattling when he told his parents Denise had hit him, and his mom had said he needed to be the bigger person and let it go. He’d learned early that keeping peace meant ignoring problems and making excuses for his sister’s behavior.

Understanding where his enabling came from didn’t excuse three years of dismissing my pain but it helped explain why changing these patterns was so hard for him. He was working with his therapist on setting boundaries with his parents and recognizing when he was falling back into old habits of protecting Denise instead of protecting me.

Josephine called my cell phone three weeks after the discovery motion and asked if we could meet with a family mediator to try resolving this without going to trial. I told her I’d consider mediation only if Denise participated and took genuine responsibility instead of making excuses. Josephine promised Denise would be there and would be serious about finding a resolution.

I said I needed to talk to Lucille first and Josephine agreed to wait for my answer. Lucille said mediation could be good because it might get us a better settlement than the insulting offer Denise’s attorney had made, but she insisted on attending with me to protect my legal interests. We scheduled the mediation for three weeks out at a neutral location downtown.

In preparation for mediation, I spent several nights writing out every incident I could remember from three years of abuse. I started with the wedding when Denise hit me while I was signing the guest book and worked forward chronologically through every family dinner, holiday gathering, birthday party, and barbecue where she’d struck me.

I documented the time she hit me at my father’s wake while I was greeting mourners. I wrote about the Christmas when she smacked my head so hard I dropped a plate of food. I listed the birthday party where she taught her kids to hit me as a game.

The list grew to four pages single-spaced, and when I counted up the incidents, I’d documented approximately 60 separate assaults over three years. Seeing it written out like that made me feel sick because the sheer number of times she’d hit me was horrifying in black and white.

I showed Tom the list and he went pale reading it because he’d been present for most of these incidents and had laughed or told me to relax instead of protecting me.

The Mediation

The mediation session happened on a cold Tuesday morning at a conference center downtown. Denise arrived with her husband looking nervous and defensive. Josephine came alone because Wallace had refused to participate, saying the whole thing was ridiculous.

Tom and I sat on one side of the long conference table with Lucille while Denise and her husband sat across from us with their attorney. The mediator was a woman in her 50s who explained the ground rules about respectful communication and working toward resolution.

Denise started by saying she was sorry I was hurt but she insisted she’d never intended any harm and thought we were joking around the whole time. The words made me instantly angry because she was still not taking real responsibility.

She kept saying things like,

“I didn’t mean it that way and I thought you knew I was playing and I never would have done it if I’d known you were actually upset.”

Her attorney had clearly coached her to apologize without admitting wrongdoing but it came across as fake and self-serving. The mediator asked if everyone was willing to watch Bradley’s video and Denise’s husband objected saying they’d already seen it but the mediator insisted.

We all sat in uncomfortable silence watching the compilation of Denise hitting me four times in one hour at the anniversary party. Denise’s face changed as she watched herself on screen and she started crying saying she didn’t realize it looked that bad.

She kept repeating, “I didn’t know, I didn’t know,” while her husband tried to comfort her.

Wallace would have jumped in to soothe her too but he wasn’t there and Josephine sat quietly watching her daughter with a sad expression. The mediator firmly told Denise she needed to focus on accountability, not self-pity, because this session was about addressing harm she’d caused not managing her feelings about being confronted.

I pulled out my four-page list and started reading it aloud, beginning with the wedding day assault. By page two Josephine was crying silently and Wallace looked pale even though he wasn’t present. Denise kept interrupting to say she didn’t remember it being that many times and I finally snapped at her.

I told her of course she didn’t remember because she wasn’t the one living in constant fear of when the next hit would come. I told her I’d spent three years tensing up every time I heard footsteps behind me and taking pain medication before family events and sleeping badly because I’d have nightmares about being hit.

Lucille let me speak without interruption and I saw Denise’s attorney taking notes, probably realizing how bad this looked for his client. The mediation lasted three hours with breaks where both sides went to separate rooms to discuss options.

Finally, Denise came back into the room and offered what sounded like a genuine apology. She said she hurt me repeatedly over three years and her behavior was abusive regardless of what she’d intended.

She agreed to pay $15,000 to cover my medical expenses and damages. She agreed to attend anger management counseling for six months. She agreed to have no contact with me for at least one year while I healed.

Her attorney drafted the settlement terms and everyone except Wallace signed because he still refused to participate. I left the mediation feeling like I’d won something but not everything. The financial compensation would cover my medical bills and then some. The acknowledgement of harm was important after three years of being told I was too sensitive.

But I knew Denise still didn’t fully understand the severity of what she’d done to me. Lucille said this was typical in family abuse cases where abusers offer just enough accountability to avoid trial but resist deeper examination of their behavior. She said I should be proud of what I’d accomplished because most family abuse victims never get any acknowledgement at all.

Tom drove us home in silence and I stared out the window thinking about how partial victories were sometimes all you could get when dealing with people who’d rather protect their self-image than face what they’d done.