My step father was a pastor....his whole family are "Christians".....
he never once threatned to kill me....
but he did use things like "it would DESTROY mom if she ever found out"....or "if this got out, then other things will come out and so many lives will be destroyed" etc.....
I mostly tried to protect my mom for all the years i was abused. I just couldn't imagine her knowing that her husband who she thought we were all such a close happy family would ever do things like that.
I regret it to this day.
Cuz now that i'm an adult and i finally told.....she doesn't feel like she's in the position where she has to "protect" me anymore.
We haven't seen each other in two years and he is actually living w/ her while we're going through the court trial. They say he'll live there till he goes to jail. Cuz they're pretty sure that's where he's going soon since he's already admitted the abuse.
My mom feels like he is a changed person. A "broken man" is what she calls him.
So after all those years of protecting my mom, it wasn't even worth it in the end.
I lost her anyway and she barely "grieved" over what happened.
So no....to answer your question....my life was never threatned, but he was very manipulative in other ways. And he would use our "father/daughter" relationship and loyalty thing that was there between us as a way for me not to tell.
In other words, he wasn't always a monster. He could be a great "dad" when the abuse wasn't going on.
Which i tried to ignore so badly.
I don't know if all that makes sense.
Obviously my head was messed up. I was only 11 when it started.
My mother in law on the other hand was abused by her bio dad and he was a monster every day of her life and would beat her up and threaten to kill her and her family constantly.
So i guess it goes both ways.
But to me, Hailey's eyes look like an abused child. (sexually or mentally, i'm not sure)......