My girlfriend's dad took her virginity

Basically I just want some opinions on how I can help her in any way. I would also like to hear others thoughts on the situation, as I feel I can't go to anyone else with this. Earlier today my girlfriend, came to me shaking and crying saying that her step dad(she calls him dad and has known him since she was a two year old; her real dad doesn't love her and has even said this to her) stole her virginity when she was only 13(she later told me she was only 10, I think she may still be lying-she may have been younger?). She said I was the first person she had ever told.
this may take a bit of typing...
I'm currently nineteen and she is seventeen. we have only been dating for about three months but we were close friends before we started dating. Her and her step dad seemed very close, and he was always overly protective of her, bordering on smothering. I can understand being protective and I get that strict parents generally lead to raising better kids, but he was over the top and I could definitely tell. I always got on odd impression from him and now I understand why, he always came off as jealous and a little nervous. She says she still loves her step dad(as a father) and she thinks he cares about her(which i think is a load, obviously i didn't tell her that). My girlfriend said it started when she was ten and was "on and off" until a year ago. I asked her when the last time was and she was very vague but said a year ago, maybe she was lying? could it be more recent? I have never been more angry in my life than today, as implied earlier I have been around her dad quite a bit and had several conversations together, even sharing several beers together. I was close to paying him a visit but took my anger out on my wall. After telling me she left to tell her mom about it with hopes she would confront her husband and make him leave. Her mom went from saying she didn't believe her, to that she already suspected it, and even blamed my girlfriend at one point. She also is unsure of wether to make him leave or "work things out" for fear of being alone. I was pretty disheartened to hear this, regardless she says her mom said she would confront him sometime this week. All I want to do is go to her house, pull him aside and tell him get out of town or I'll make him, or just call the police but I recognize this isn't my place at all. I realize how much strength it took her to tell anyone and I just want to know how I can help her. I know it has messed with her over the years, and certainly ruined her childhood. She feels guilty for not saying anything sooner. Her dad also threatened her by saying he would take her car/phone etc. with him if she told and he were sent off for it. she also said she wouldn't blame me if i left her because of all of this, so I encouraged her and told her I love her n whatnot. We have a really good relationship with each other, and I just want to know how I can help her. I let her know she can come to my house whenever she needs to and I can give her a ride if necessary. I'm going to go pick her up later. I could tell she was at least a little relieved after telling her mom. she said it was like a weight was lifted off her shoulders. I know I'm all over the place with this whole story but the whole thing just blew my mind, I don't see how someone could supposedly care for someone like my girlfriend(she's very sweet and cute) but then use their position over her to manipulate her into something like this for so long. it's all just such a messed up situation and I need help with it. She says I don't understand(obviously I don't) and that it's more complicated than it appears when I say that they have to get rid of him but I'm pretty sure she just thinks it's complicated because of his manipulations and lies throughout her childhood. I just need some good advice.

it is very complicated without a doubt. Your girlfriend is living in hell, she feels guilty for all that has happened, she feels guilty for not being able to stop him, and she will feel guilty if he is taken away.
and so, it is very complicated and her emotions must e off the charts. She is seventeen now and the little girl is fading away and the older girl will soon become very pissed off to say the least. She is in multiple places all at the same time, Step dad wants to keep her as his personal plaything, she has you know as a boyfriend which is a light in the darkness, which is why she confided in you. She is screaming on the inside and it is now coming out. Step dad is nervous, because he knows he is an asshole that took advantage of a little girl and now she is growing up and he sees you as a threat. She needs to tell him to stick the car and cell phone up his ass and walk out and straight to the police. This guy could have realized his mistake the first time he touched her and stopped, but instead he continued for years destroying her life. The mom needs to wake up and understand she is just as bad as she said she may have been aware of this. She gave her daughter to him for security or whatever. Bunch of assholes.
Your girl said it was ok if you did not want to be with her anymore, that is the feeling of worthlessness that is coming and is probably already in her thanks to that asswipe.

Maybe you can guide her to these boards so that she knows she is not alone and get some strength from other survivors here. There are a lot of girls and woman here that have had similar issues with family and she may be able to have someone to talk to. There may be things she wont discuss with you because they are traumatizing and she may be worried about loosing you.

Whatever you do, it will be critically important to support her in terms of where she is in her own process of dealing with this. It's easy for outsiders to jump ahead to what seems the obvious solutions, but for her and her mom, the process will be slower and they will need time to sort things out. It's important to let them do that at their own speed. They'll have confusing, conflicting and contradictory emotions about the stepfather, and the next steps won't be as readily apparent to them as they may be to you, who are free of those emotions. So please be supportive of what they want & need first. You can offer guidance for what you think should happen, but it has to be their decision. The daughter and mother come first. It might help to encourage them to seek professional counseling.

The stepfather is secondary at this point, he's the wrongdoer and whatever happens with him is not as important as the welfare of the daughter & mother. He'll have to face the consequences of what he's done, but the focus shouldn't be on him. It's already been way too much about him. Now it needs to be about your girlfriend and her mom. Your energies are best spent in support of them.

Thanks avatar and surviving for the advice and input. I found it helpful and would appreciate to hear more thoughts on the subject. I am very confused as this whole ordeal is an entirely new concept to me.

alright well there are some new developments.... again even if you're just commenting on something small about this whole ordeal I don't care. I appreciate all input, I just want to be able to wrap my head around these things better and even if you can't relate i still wouldn't mind hearing your opinion.

My girlfriends mom confronted her dad who denied everything vigorously, so much so her mom was convinced she was lying(I think it's only because that's what she wants to believe. she is very selfish). My girlfriend talked her dad into telling the truth. He cried and apologized and promised to do better, swore he had changed and was sorry... and her mom took him back... the night before last when my girlfriend said she was through ever giving him sex he flipped his lid got so mad.... It's obvious to me he's only sad that he got caught. He's a very good manipulator and liar... My girlfriend still even trusts him, and is convinced i see him as more of a monster than he really is. He stole seven of her crucial childhood years, as well as her virginity(I lost my virginity to her..) sure people can change, but nothing makes people put up a show like being caught. I would know I've been kicked out of school more than once for failed drug tests. well anyways now i guess she's in the position of him still living at home with them both convinced he's going to try to be a better father, her mother trying to get over her own daughters seven year rape so she can avoid feeling alone... and no one but me to confide in. I talked her into making sure he doesn't have any authority over her, and I tried to get her to tell him he lost his privileges as a father by abusing that relationship in the first place but i don't think she will. I at least made her promise to be wary of him and call him on anything small he tries to do. She says she is at peace with the whole thing but I'm scared shitless because she's still living in the same house as him. she assured me if anything happened id be the first to know but honestly thats not too encouraging. I want him gone. dead gone. or at least out of town/in prison being sodomized gone. I have never felt such intense hatred and I don't understand how my girlfriend and her mother could give him a second chance....

could someone who knowingly did so much damage to THEIR OWN DAUGHTER'S life really care at all? I wouldn't wish that punishment on my worst enemy, him excluded. Is she safe with him in the house? can he be trusted? I'm convinced he's putting up a show but I've always been a pessimist. I don't know what I would do if I saw him... I drove to her house last night and seeing his car and house made me furious. I heard his voice over a voicemail he sent me(before he knew the beans had spilled) and it just set me off. I dented my steering wheal I hit it so hard. Would've broken my hand but I box. Unless something drastic changes my girlfriend and I will be in each others lives for a while, surely I'll bump into him. I swear if I could kill him and get away with it, he'd already be dead...
I just need any advice, any input, anything.
thanks

Based on past experiences with men of that particular caliber, he probably willfully believes his own line of lies. It doesn't make any of it true. He doesn't care. He doesn't understand what caring would mean. What he does have is his own feelings that let him convince himself he's justified in some way. There's cognitive dissonance there. He lost caring the second he started this. It's too far-gone. This isn't getting angry at a child and yelling at them for breaking something, this is willfully selfish behavior.

And people in relationships with abusers want to believe. They will white-light the hell out of the abuser, because that's what they want to be true. It's much easier to believe someone is "good" or "bad" and so if they can find any "good" to latch onto, they will. The problem is that the greys are much more telling, and when someone's black spots are raping their daughter, there isn't anything that justifies that.

I agree with Ashlar that there won't be much change or progress with the stepfather. That's why he can't be central to any solutions. At best his presence can only be tolerated, in deference to your girlfriend's wishes. He's going to dislike you intensely, and you can't change that, you can only regulate your own behavior towards him.

For your girlfriend, it's important to realize that you, her mother, and her stepfather are probably the 3 most significant relationships in her life. Right now, she's at risk of losing 2 of them. So first, you can offer your assurance that she isn't at risk of losing the third. That will give her a stable base from which to make her own progress. Then you also have to understand that what appears to be irrational behavior is her attempt to preserve the other 2 relationships. Familial bonds are extremely strong, you can find many examples in this forum of children accepting unbelievably bad behavior of their loved ones, in order to maintain those bonds. It's sad that adults sometimes use those bonds for their own selfish purposes. As with you, the first instinct should be to protect, not to harm.

Her own father has already told her he doesn't love her, and she likely has doubts she can't face about whether her mother and stepfather really care about her. So that provides additional motivation for her to try to make things work with them, to prove that they do. However since she has only just now come out with the truth, there is a lot of processing still to come for her. Her current viewpoint is really only the beginning, and is mostly meant to manage & survive the immediate crisis. If you provide a supportive environment, in which the rules of love are not based on lying and manipulation, she'll be better able to process things and arrive at conclusions that favor her own well-being over theirs.

Part of providing a supportive environment is understanding that people may use it to make further mistakes. That's part of it, and you can only continue to offer encouragement for the right direction, and hope they figure it out for themselves. You can do this up to the point that your-own well-being is at risk, at which point you may need to withdraw. But I think there's always value in making the attempt. You'll at least know that you did what you could, which will give you some peace.

Thank you so much avatar and ashlar. both of your comments were insightful and helpful to me in this situation.
My girlfriends told me how thankful she is that I'm there for her and I assured her I always will be. I couldn't care less how much he dislikes me though to be honest. My girlfriend told him I know the truth so he better be scared. I just don't see how I can avoid ever seeing him though, and I don't know what I'd do if I did. He's six four and two twenty but old. If he tried to fight I'd beat him. I've talked with her a lot about how she can't worry about her parents feelings or position in this, and that she is the one she should be concerned with and I think some of that got through. I told her that her mom will need her help and support but that her own situation is the important one and the one she needs to fix. She's a very optimistic person who has even talked about how she always likes to find the good in people(long before we were even dating). That's kind of what scares me though, her attitude combined with his ability to manipulate could wind up causing more pain so to speak. For now though I guess things are kinda settled with this whole thing as of last night. Sorry I've been posting so much, but so much has come up out of no where and everything is changing for my girlfriend and she's really confiding in me. I just want to be sure that I can offer her good and healthy advice on this subject that had never even crossed my mind two days ago.

I just want to know do you guys think she can really grow and move on with him in the house? She said she would rather him be gone, but isn't adamant about it. Is there anything I should be doing that I'm not(without overstepping my boundaries)? Again, I'm not in the least bit concerned for my own well being in this situation and I'm not scared at all of her "father".

Again, any advice or insight or even just little comments are so appreciated and really go further than you might think. I'm glad I found this sight, it has taught me a lot about this subject and through me has helped my girlfriend a lot in this horrible situation. thanks again so much and God bless

It sounds like you have a good handle on this, and are already doing & saying the right things. It's a lot for anyone to manage but you're doing really well, and I'm sure your girlfriend appreciates all your advice and support.

About the fighting business, I realize that's tempting, probably deserved, and might make you feel better, but unfortunately you can't punch evil out of the world, like in the movies. Overcoming someone physically is just another form of manipulation. Sometimes it's necessary to protect yourself or another, or it may be a friendly competition in sport (boxing or wrestling), but in this case it would just send another message to your girlfriend that men can get what they want by force. She needs instead for you to provide an example that real men don't need force or manipulation to be successful. It's not unmanly to walk away from an ###hole, it's smart. Or as a friend of mine puts it, in a competition with an ###hole, you'll always lose to a true practitioner.

Your comment about her belief in the goodness of people is dead-on, that's a classic error of the young. I've made it many times myself. I eventually recognized that it's both a strength and a weakness. You don't want to disabuse her of the notion that there is good in the world, and that most people truly are well-intended. But you can encourage her to hold that belief in general while also testing it with individuals. The thing to look for is consistency between words and deeds. If the words are good but the actions are not, that person is not to be trusted. She should be able to see that her stepfather fails this test.

With regard to her being in the house with him, that should be a temporary situation until she moves away to college. Once she's no longer a minor, you can help her to make other living arrangements. In the meantime you can encourage her & her mother to allow no unsupervised time with him. His trip to college alone with her that you mentioned should be out of the question now, I think you could safely insist on going along. Everyone would understand why, and they shouldn't question it. As a general rule, it's best to let her make her own decisions as much as possible, but on this one issue it's ok to push back because it involves her safety. You can explain to her that you need to have a safety veto, so as not to worry excessively. She should be willing to accept it on that basis, if she isn't being pushed on everything else as well. You have to choose your battles, but this one is important.

Thanks for the input avatar, I'm glad you care about her situation. This should be my last post, but as usual, any input is appreciated.

I don't believe I mentioned a college trip with them alone? But if there were one I'm sure (or at least hope) she would object to it as much as me. Her mom works night shifts and sleeps in the day so they have a lot of alone time(at least that's how things used to be) i don't think he ever forced himself on her though. Just used manipulation and his position over her to convince her it was ok an normal, and by the time she learned the truth I guess she was in too deep. I've already told her I refuse to be around her step dad because I know I might do something stupid and I want to avoid that situation. I get a little angry sometimes.
As for not being able to punch evil out of the world, sure you can. You just have to hit hard enough to breakthrough the skull. Could take a few tries. I kid, and I'd never kill him unless he gave me a solid excuse(although I think raping ones girlfriend for seven years should count. I'm sure the law disagrees). I don't think Ill ever get over my hatred for him but who knows. He caused so much hurt and turmoil in such a sweet and innocent girls life when he was supposed to bring support and protection. I know I couldn't handle being in the same room as him. Thanks again guys.

I can't give any advice or insight or whatever else, but I could tell you part of my story.
I lost my virginity when I was 5. Someone in my family did it ( most likely was my dad, not 100% sure as I was a little kid.) He started abusing me when I was 2 and he stopped when I was like 7.
It's complicated. No one in my family really knows what happened (besides him). I've never told any of them the truth. I've told my two best friends and I have a counselor. But it's still really hard, because alot of people don't understand. Because for me I loved him (still do) and I didn't care about what he did. I still loved him. But that's the thing, people can't understand that. I mean how can someone love someone who raped them? This doesn't go with all people who have been abused. Alot of them have alot of hate towards the person who did it. But others of us it's more comlicated, well different anyways. But I've never wanted to admit that it was the truth, that I actually love him. It'd be easier to just be able to hate them. But some cases that's just not the way.
Sometimes you don't want something bad to happen to the person who hurt them, because they care about them. I know when I talk to my best friend about it (he knows that I love him), I can see it in his face, that he wishes he could kick his ass and that he doesn't understand how I can love him. But he tries. Sometimes I don't understand how I can either but I guess I still just don't want to believe it...

Anyways, I really have no clue at all where I was going with this. I do that sometimes when I write.(plus long day) But I guess I'd just say listen and be there for her. Like you already are. Try to be understanding, I know that's hard sometimes, but that's probably the best thing you can do.
I guess that's all I have to say . Told you, no good advice or anything.