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Nataleh, I dont think theres any intention by anyone to offend and its good to share opinions, views and stories even if they are very different from our own. I think responses should also be honest otherwise we are then too worried to speak openly in case we offend someone and, for me at least, a main source of support of this site is that its honest and real, even if that reality is different for everyone.
I really struggle with forgiveness – I’m worried that by not forgiving I’m holding onto the damage, but i have also decided that I will never say that what he has done is ok and I forgive him. I’m not sure where that leaves me – working on accepting and leaving it maybe – and I dont know if I understand what forgiveness even means. Can anyone explain it for me ?? I guess its different things to different people ? Natalie – when you say you are forgiving yourself – what are you forgiving yourself for ? Im not asking you to share personal stuff I’m just not sure I get what you mean, if its a general thing or something specific ? SxNataleh – you will notice on this board that there is a lot of anger. I think that’s part of the process. I choose not to get stuck in that – and lean toward compassion (probably to a fault).
I think that’s a common reaction to being lied to and abused (this SA stuff is abuse).
I completely agree with you – but then again, my heritage is Amish (so maybe that explains it). I really struggle with hating someone who is clearly sick (from a childhood trauma). I do think that we need to stay clear of them if they are “in their addiction” or their PD is front and center. This is what I’m trying to focus on – trying to discern when the coast is clear or not.
I think I can forgive (not forget) the past – but I can’t continue doing that the rest of my life. I try to stay in the present, but the fear of being blindsided again in the future is challenging for me.
I find that if I dwell on the past, then I can’t be truly happy. It is like a huge black shroud on my life. I use the past at times as a reminder to myself to remain somewhat vigilant and to pray that God will show me what I need to know to stay safe.
There are some days when the negativity and anger on this board puts me off – but then I realize that everyone has their own way of dealing with this stuff. Others have left the board because of it, but I’m here to learn and grow. I take what is useful – and ignore the rest. What I don’t like is the “shame” that is used sometimes for those of us that have a more positive, or a different outlook on the shituation at hand. But again, I don’t take on the shame. It’s a good exercise for me not to take that on.
Deb
hey all
i don’t hate my husband. i hate the behaviour. i strongly dislike many of the therapeutic models. i hate what these men do to the ones they love. i hate what the porn industry and sex trade does to women – both those participating, and those affected by SA.
have i forgiven him? that is such a hard question. his behaviour has/had nothing to do with me, so i suppose in a way, there is nothing to forgive because his actions were on their own trajectory. they really weren’t about me.
forgiving him for shattering my life? well.. that one is more difficult. maybe once i piece it back together i will be able to forgive that.
do i like him? no. do i respect him? no. do i love him? yes, but not like i used to. my love has been tempered by the respect i have lost.
have i forgiven him? i’m not sure what that means. i’ve read that you let go of the pain someone has caused you. i’m not sure when that will happen, because the pain is still deep in my body, in the form of ptsd.
as for anger and ‘negative’ emotions, i don’t believe they should be suppressed. these emotions are our sentinels, they are there to keep us safe. the trick is learning how to channel these emotions in healthy ways. now that i’m starting to express my feelings about all this, i am struggling with this.
SAs are really a different kind of person, it seems from reading the posts on this site, their behaviours are so common. it is difficult for me to believe in my sah like i would a healthy person. to believe he will do anything but hurt me deeply in the end. to believe that people with this addiction do anything but shred the hearts of those they love. that may be cynicism, or it may be realism.
but is this separate from forgiveness? i don’t know. i don’t think he meant to hurt me. but he also didn’t/doesn’t stop himself from hurting me.
also, i think our SAs have varying degrees of narcissism. if your SA isn’t so much of a narcissist, you may be surprised at how some of us sisters express our beliefs about SAs.
right now, at this stage of my healing, i prefer to think of forgiving as letting go of what my old idea of him was. redefining him so that his behaviour and my idea of the man make a better fit.
i think that not forgiving can be harmful to me, if i let it eat me up, if my anger and pain don’t get expressed healthily and become toxic for me. i also believe that blind forgiveness can be dangerous, that a state of forgiveness should not mean i put myself in unsafe situations. or encourage/enable more hurtful behaviour from others.
sisters, if you find that you would prefer a more positive, self searching approach, cosa might be a good place for you. this site is one of the only forums where it is possible to really express anger and ‘negative’ emotions.
love
lisa
natale please don’t be offended, this is a great thread. Keep it going. Barbra Steffens said don’t be too quick to forgive, it will lead to a false recovery. I remember reading that and thinking I will never win this. I am so confused. I’m screwed if I’m angry, I’m screwed if I forgive. It has been 23 months now and I understand more. I was told by 3 different therapists that I am too kind and too patient. crap. Thats what got me here? That seems to be the common denominator here. Too kind, too patient.
As far as you looking for blame in yourself natale, I would love to hear more. I too kept thinking what part did I play in all this? My husband insists I played a part. When I talked to Dr. Minwalla (I know I sound like a broken record – but this was huge for me) He said this is 100% his fault. 100% . He said I had a relationship with someone who was pretending, and my reactions were to his pretend behavior. Any problems we had I tried to fix. I believed we had a partnership. He is a really nice guy with a secret weird world.
Dr Minwalla told me (gave me permission) to stop trying to take some responsibility for this.
Ladies allow yourself 24 hours to think that way. All his fault. It makes me want to protect myself.
I am on my way to forgiving him, I feel sad for the shift in our lives, our 5 kids lives, the challenges all 7 of us are going to face because of the betrayal. He feels sorry for himself. He never mentions the people.I will forgive him eventually because I don’t want to live in a world where being too kind and too patient is a bad thing. This angry stuff is a drag.
” There is a lot of anger on this board”
Wouldn`t it be very odd if there wasn`t? I was married to a man I loved for 19 years. I had 2 beautiful children with him. He cheated on me since before we were married. He knew it was wrong because he hid it. When I forced him into therapy and he told his counselor what he was doing, she told him to get help from a CSAt. She gave him a number. She told him he was going to get caught. He never once called the number . He never once googled one single article to read. He drug me to marriage counseling for a year and a half and made everything my fault. He put my health at risk, his family at risk, his job at risk….. he shattered me emotionally. If I wasn`t a basically strong woman, I may have killed myself.
Yes, I am angry. I do not hate my Husband. I will probably love him the rest of my life. I will always try to the best of my ability to be good and kind to him. I will not pretend that everything is fine. I will not apologize for being angry/hurt/sad/puzzled/shocked/sickened….
Bev… I don’t blame you or fault you one bit! I am very supportive of you and the excruciating choices you have had to make to protect yourself… your family… YOUR life!!! I admire the strength I see in you! And I agree you have ABSOLUTELY nothing to appolagize for and I don’t see that he would deserve an appolagy from you! Keep going strong! I think you are doing a wonderful job!! You have also helped me out quite a bit since I joined the sisterhood!
With Love and Respect,
NataleBev – you are so new to this that your anger is appropriate. Now – if anger is front and center 5 years from now – then I would say that you need help….. your strength in the face of your new discovery is amazing and I can see that anger and hurt is fueling it. I wish I had some of yours…
Speaking of the Amish – isn’t it interesting how they can shun their own yet forgive others (who shoot their kids?)
Deb
Debinca – I adore you!!! You speak (type…lol) how I feel and you have helped me clarify in my own head and see a different way of… I guess accepting… what has been bothering me on this site. The ways I feel about the way some things have gone down on the public (MTASA) site… not so sure about acceptance there… but you have given me a bit more hope in regards to the SoS portion. Thanks
Thanks to all of you for standing up… making a point to try to calm my distress here. I do appreciate everyone’s opinions whether negative or positive and would never want any one to feel stiffled (sp?). there are just some instances that have happened with others in the past week where I feel under personal attack… even tho… while it could be seen this way… I was not trying to name call, brow beat or personally attack anyone or put them down! And I do not feel at all that the things I say that are positive because (by the grace of God) things are improving in my life… are giving false hope!
NataleAmen about your Amish comment Debinca….. I found that extremely intersting! Thats a polite word for what I really thought/think of that fact…. :-/
Let me just jump in and say if Bev is still dealing with an SA 5 years from now, she still has every right to be angry with him!
And if 5 years from now she doesn’t have any contact with him, she still has a right to feel angry sometimes.
I think that’s true for all of us. Of course, we don’t want to be consumed with anger- but I am sure that 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now, I will still have anger about my STBX. I hope that it isn’t so intense. I hope that I can shrug it off more easily. I am sure it won’t be such a big part of my life. But I think feeling anger is appropriate for someone who took so much from me.
I was abused in college by my boyfriend. That was about 25 years ago. If I stop and consider what he did, I do get angry. Not seeing red angry. But an “I will not let someone do that to me again” kind of anger. I feel sadness, too.
But anger does give you strength. It is protective. It gives me the energy to get up and fight this fight each day. I’m one year in, and the attorneys tell me I probably have another 2 to go. And my hardest days are still to come. How could I keep going without anger?
teri,
yes, absolutely. anger is not a negative emotion. it is just an emotion, designed to protect us. it is not bad, it depends upon how it is expressed and what affect it has on our lives and others. anger can be good or bad for us.
and forgiveness is not good. it is an attitude, an emotion, which can be good or bad for us. iblind forgiveness can hurt others. and acting in a forgiving way while allowing abuse to occur is very dangerous. i’m not there yet, but i assume that forgiving mindfully, with clarity can be healing.
i know i was led to believe that i was a good girl if i was nice. quiet. subservient. forgiving. turn the other cheek.
i do not want to forgive my sah because i think i should.
anger can be a healthy catalyst and a tool for change. without anger, women would not today have the right to vote. without anger and justifiable outrage, the u.s. would still be legally enslaving hundreds of thousands of people of african descent. i strongly believe in anger for individuals, for communities, and for societies, especially used as a catalyst for clarity of thinking and transformation.
i also believe that forgiveness is healing, and that it’s purpose is towards healing of the injured, not the injurer/oppressor. i read somewhere that forgiveness is different than reconciliation. i am choosing to walk the path towards forgiveness of my SA, independently of reconciliation. i don’t know if we will reconcile or if that is the right thing for us. i know that i am right to be angry and outraged. but i also know that i don’t want to live with the bitterness and cynicism and negativity i feel well up inside me, because ultimately those emotions are hurting me, not him. sometimes i don’t recognize myself from the negativity. i choose to work on forgiveness for my own transformation, and because otherwise i let the negativity, the hate, the fear, win my heart. i refuse to let that happen. i will learn to open my heart again one day. even if it’s a more cautious and wiser heart.Without anger, we’d have another–what, 30 years?–of csats telling partners they’re codependent so that the sex addicts can can ride on–and break–the backs of their wives in recovery.
BEv,
I am responding to your original post. I agree with everything you said. I did try to forgive. I did what the books and therapists said. When I would start to express pain, they ALL would say…”but what about your childhood and issues”. Like I had no right to my feelings. NEVER, EVER AGAIN. Now I am divorced and quite damaged from all this recovery BS I paid lots of money to get. Now I am focusing on financial independence so I never feel obligated to stay for that reason. The kids are grown so that reason is past tense. I am so damn angry about all this. Our culture does not protect woman and children. How I wish it did.
I just had NO idea that my childhood issues prevented me from feeling pain when my Husband screwed hookers…..
Odd how his childhood issues allowed him to cheat on me for 20 years….
Obviously, something does not add up here 🙂
Gee Desiree, where were you three years ago when I was trying so fucking hard to do all the right things for my poor broken husband…
You could have saved me some time, sister!To answer your question Diane…my guess is she was busy tending to her own side of the street? What a crock of shit. Don’t even get me started on those loonies and their cult.
It hit me this morning, Bev, exactly how big a waste of emotion feeling guilty is here. Because whether you care or don’t about how well he’s doing right now, it’s going to have no bearing on this: A time is coming, don’t know how long or short–but you can bet he has the timeline in his mind–when he is going to decide that YOU SHOULD BE OVER IT and be able to move forward. He will believe that he did HIS PART. And when he does not get the feedback and behaviors he expects from you, it will become your fault all over again that the marriage isn’t working. If you’re not right in lock-step with his program, YOU will become the problem. And he’ll say it: “I did ____ and _____ and______ and _____….and then, yes, that old classic “Nothing I do will ever be enough for you.” At which point, he will go back to being an asshole and feel justified. Because they’re incapable of holding us in our pain for however long it takes. They’re incapable of understanding the impact of their choices, their behaviors, their deceptions. All they know is: I got caught, now I have to do such-and-such in order to keep what is mine. That’s their MO. It’s not about us. So feel what you feel. It makes no difference.
That’s what my STBX does, even with the kids, March. And it doesn’t even matter to him what he does as far as recovery, he still gets to decide what we feel and for how long.
It`s no damn wonder. In chapter 8 of Carnes` book ( Out of the Shadows), Carnes actually applauds a community:
“A second story relates the experience of the schoolteacher who was sexual with students. When the facts became known, the community stood behind the teacher. He had made enormous contribution to the welfare of the town. Townspeople sensitively stood behind the teacher, helped him get treatment, and kept his job open.”
Now, if that doesn`t chill your blood , I don`t know what will. This ( Carne`s book) is the SA Bible.
Bev, I continue to be appalled at this idiot Patrick Carnes. As someone who has drafted sexual abuse policies and done the hard work of implementing them, the protection of the abuser continues to be the ultimate betrayal, and the strongest indicator of the emotionally contagious dynamic of denial. Carnes is now in bed with predators, and thinks that makes him “sensitive”. “kept his job open”!!!! Appalling. This is patriarchy in the extreme. The safety of women and children is less important than this man being protected from the consequence of his criminal activity.
Carnes is an idiot. And he’s a dangerous idiot.
What a Thread! 🙂 What’s so hard about this “game.” Is that in order to detach from them (physically and financially separate) we have to be like them — cold and calculating, which is against our true nature, which is why they chose us as “easy to con” in the first place. The only way to win and be free is to out smart them at their own game. Bev, we can see the stage that you’re at. IGNORE your guilt. He is using your guilt to manipulate you. They don’t get better, they just get better at lying and hiding. I just don’t see the hope. I only see the con.
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