It's not silly - I'm sure it's hard for many people who've not experienced it themselves to understand why we say nothing. First, he was a father figure to me. He was the only one I trusted (before it started happening) - he taught me to ride a two-wheel bike, tie my shoes, cook, and other things my parents should have done. But my Dad was gone and my Mom was drunk - she started drinking heavily around the time I was five and in kindegarten, and it started happening not long after she became mentally and emotionally unavailable. Second, he threatened me. "If you tell anyone, I'll tell Mom you've been stealing from her." In fact it was he who was stealing from her, but somehow he had me believing he could make her believe it was me and that she would be very angry with me for it.
My other brother caught him in the act. He seemed to do nothing about it at the time, but I learned only in recent years that in fact he beat the hell out of him and told him if he ever even thought about touching me again, he'd kill him. I had always just figured it ended because my brother knew the other one knew.
How can we have a decent relationship now? Well, denial is a very powerful thing. I'm sure if anyone (even I) confronted him about it, he'd call us liars. He's also a raging alcoholic and has a lot of trouble with relationships. His life has always been shite (self-inflicted mostly). I don't give him any allowances for what he did because of that, but it's not like he's living the life of Riley having been a sexual predator as a kid, either. As the song goes, I think he takes his pension in loneliness and alcohol. And there's been my denial as well. It kept me from telling my husband for 18 years, even though he's the one I trust most in the world and the one who is in fact worthy of that trust. It made me hate my other brother for years for not actively doing anything about it when in fact he did, but because we never talked about it until two years ago, I didn't know that.
And when I say "decent," I don't mean we're the best of friends. We're civil to one another and keep each other apprised of events in our family, and he's visited a couple of times with his second wife (hey, I do live in Florida, and it's awfully nice here in February) but that's it. And the reason that much of a relationship came to be is because he was the one who had to find my mother when she had died of a heart attack alone in her apartment in 1992. He had quit drinking for a year and was seemingly finally getting his life together, and then that. He's never recovered from it. Started drinking again later that same day. Still won't talk about it. Has been through two wives since it and is on Number Three. I hadn't spoken to him at all in about two years when he called me to tell me she had died. What can I say? I felt bad for him. I hate him for what he did, but I love him because he's my brother. And like it or not, he and my other brother and I know each other as well as anyone can. I could tell you more stories about our childhood that would make your toenails curl, but I won't inflict any more ugliness on the general populace here.
Sorry if I sound defensive - I don't mean to be. But I do want people who wonder "Why didn't you do something/tell somebody?" and "How can you get along with him now?" to understand the reasons, and to understand how complicated it becomes when you're talking about a member of your immediate family being the abuser.