Are the sins of the fathers (and mothers) visited on the sons (and daughters)? In the case of Joel and his wives, it appears so.

Joel says he never knew his father. "I'm sure my mother married him to get away from home," he says. "She was the oldest of eight kids and ended up with major responsibility for raising her siblings. Her father would have been regarded as a man's man in those days. He gambled, drank, was a semi-pro boxer and baseball player and beat his wife and kids. He was so strong, when he died when I was seven, I couldn't believe he was really dead."

Joel married when he was 23. His wife, Hannah, and her five siblings had been abandoned by her father.

He says: "I'm sure she felt certain that the same thing was going to happen to her, so she took our three sons and pulled them around her like a mother hen. Within seven years, I'd been excluded from the relationship. It was her with the kids and me the breadwinner. She was never a very good sex partner. The last 10 years of our marriage were totally dead. I just gave up on it and left after 18 years. It was a self-fulfilling prophesy on her part."

Joel says he felt like "a total failure" after the marriage ended. "I was an old-fashioned boy who believed marriage was for life and the success of it was the responsibility of the husband." He had erectile dysfunction for months afterward because of the guilt.

Joel's second wife, Tammi, had two little girls when he met her. He says she was "a sexual tiger" and helped him work through his problems with ED. "I loved her. I put up with her attempt at provoking physical fights, which she had done with her first husband, and her controlling behavior. Her childhood sweetheart had beaten her, too.

"It turned out her father beat her mother all the time. The only way Tammi felt safe was to control everything in her environment. She was the woman that I loved the most and we spent over half of our relationship in counseling. I was told by counselors that until she could see her controlling behavior there was nothing I could do. I ended the marriage after 18 years. I couldn't handle it anymore."

Joel's third marriage was to Angela, a woman with five kids. "The last were leaving home when I came along. Sexually she outdid the last. I felt real appreciation from her. We lived together for a year and she talked me into marrying her. Only after that did I find out that she had been physically abused by her father. Her mother had done nothing to stop it. She married her first husband to get away from home."

To be continued ...

How has abuse in your family affected your relationships? Send your tale, along with your questions, problems and rants to cheryllavinrapp@gmail.com. And check out my e-books, "Dear Cheryl: Advice from Tales from the Front" and "I'll Call You. Not."

Photo credit: at Pixabay