Question: With Thanksgiving coming up, I have to once again deal with something I'd rather not: unwelcome attention from my father-in-law. He's always making lewd jokes, and even makes direct comments to women about their physique. I became a new target of his during my first visit five years ago, and at first I was totally shocked. He commented on how great my skirt looked … especially from behind. Last year, he asked me if I'd been going to the gym more lately because I looked so "firm." He does this in front of the whole extended family and they just laugh it off. My husband says he's just joking around and it's harmless. I know he's not some sex addict who's actually going to make a move on me, but it makes me extremely uncomfortable. And it's not even just me. My sister-in-law gets it too. As soon as one family visit is over, I start dreading the next. My husband is sympathetic, to a certain degree, but he says since we only fly out to see his folks twice a year, we should let it slide. Clearly he'd rather just ignore the whole thing. Should I throw down the gauntlet and boycott Thanksgiving or am I taking this way too seriously?
Answer: I know this guy. I don't mean that I literally know your father-in-law, but I know that guy. There's one in every group, a shooting-from-the-hip court jester saying the things that we're all thinking - the men, at least. In a way, playing this jester role provides a service: He expresses the things we're all thinking but feel too embarrassed to say. There are limits, however. Let these comments he's making to you, his daughter-law, slide? No. Absolutely not.
You say that he's not going to actually pounce on you, but I don't think that makes his behaviour harmless. And harmless or not, he may very well be a sex addict. Maybe not in the way you're thinking, but as I learned from Penny Lawson, manager of family services and special programs at Bellwood Health Services in Toronto, there are many
categories of sex addicts. "One can have a fantasy sex addiction and you'd never know it because it all remains only in their thoughts," says Ms. Lawson. Clearly, your father-in-law is not this type of sex addict - too bad for you - but the point is that this is a problem that manifests itself differently in different people.
Ms. Lawson says that it would be a mistake to label your father-in-law a sex addict without a lot more information and even seeing him in person, but some of the signs of sex addiction that she lists are indeed present in your story: "Inappropriate sexual humour, inappropriate dress, sexualizing every situation even when it's not called for, all the way through to multiple relationships and so on."
In the longer scope, of course it matters whether or not your father-in-law is a real, bona fide sex addict, but my advice is the same regardless. Throw down that gauntlet! Only, throw it down at the foot of your husband. He's the one who should be taking this to his father. Right now, you say your husband is laughing off his dad's naughty advances toward you. How about you withhold your own advances for a while and see if he laughs that off too.
With a dad as aggressive as your father-in-law sounds, I wouldn't be surprised if your husband gave up on trying to stand up to him a long time ago. But, it's never too late. "In terms of behaviour generally and addiction specifically," says Ms. Lawson, "it tends to continue unless there's some negative consequences to the behaviour." That negative consequence, as communicated to your father-in-law by your husband, is that unless he quits it with the lewd remarks he's not going to see either of you next October. Maybe even hold Christmas over his head.
After all, if your husband's family has been laughing off this behaviour all these years, your father-in-law may have a lost any sense of appropriate boundaries. Hearing those words from his son might just embarrass him into watching his tongue. Victory for you and that sister-in-law of yours and any other unsuspecting woman that joins the family.
But on a serious note, if it comes out that he does have a real problem, you and your husband could be doing the family a favour by bringing it to the surface and making room for positive change.
More than likely, though, your father-in-law is not a sex addict at all, but instead has another disorder that Ms. Lawson identified. One which I would say affects all men of fatherly age: "Some people just think they're funny and they're not."
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