The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
Would like some input on a situation and how you 'ol-timer's (and new timer's )might have handled a particular situation.
background info: Ex-father-in-law sexually molested my ex-husband from the time he was 3-11. Physically, mentally and emotionally abused him the rest of his childhood. Mentally and emotionally continues to abuse him as an adult because ex-husband has difficulty setting boundaries with his dad. My ex-husbands mother knows of all this abuse and rationalizes it in her mind that all is ok because her husband has asked God for forgiveness and all is forgiven. Alcoholic father attended AA for 5 years and then got "religion" and didn't need AA anymore. Perpetrator did Step 9 in my presence in 1991. Nothing was mentioned about the incest. Just a general "I'm sorry" for the physical and emotional abuse that occured. Grandfather's daughter (ex-husband's sister) says she excepted this "general" apology as amends for "all" indiscretions. She says she was not sexually abused, other than he tried once with her and she told him (at age 5) to stop or she would tell her mother and he stopped.
Situation: Alcoholic ex-father-in-law sends my daughter a Christmas card. Sounds pretty innocent so far, huh? Well ex-fil starts to 'preach' to his grand-daughter about forgiveness and not holding grudges. Tells her we should leave the past in the past and how 'Jesus' would not want us to not forgive others.
My daughter knows about the incest (She was told at age 5 when her dad and I divorced that her Papa didn't understand about good touch/ bad touch and that that was why she was not allowed to be alone with him at any time. Good touch/bad touch was explained at school) She has been "informed" more about the situation as she has grown as it was deemed 'age-appropriate' by a counselor. Ex-fil does not know she had been told at such an early age, as far as I know.
Ex-husband had an emotional breakdown in 1998, one year and one month after his daughter's 1st birthday. This is when the sexual abuse came out. I had been in 12-step programs 8 years at this point. Husband was in mental hospital for 10 days, his family was calling EVERY day to find out why he hadn't called (they were keeping tabs). They did not know he had been institutionalized. His sister called and DEMANDED that we tell her (don't know why it was her) or she was coming down to find out (both sister and in-laws lived out-of-state). I called in-laws and asked to talk to the mother (thinking that somehow she knew). She said she wanted to put her husband on the phone (I told her I didn't think she wanted to do that, but it was up to her). I told them both that their son was in the mental hospital and it was due to the emotional, physical and yes sexual abuse that he had suffered at the hand of his alcoholic father. The father remained silent. The mother defended the father completely saying that he could never have done that, she never left the children alone. She continued to defend him while he remained silent. I tried to console her and told her I knew she didn't intend to do anything to harm her children, but the result was the same, he had sexually abused at least the son. I said that maybe with God's help and AA (the father had attended AA 5 years) and Al-anon and some extensive counseling this family could heal. When I mentioned God, the father finally spoke. "How do we know your not making all this up? You've done it before." he said.
Which of course I had not, although I had been married 2 times previously, both to alcoholics. Anyway, on this statement, I hung up. I won't take the time here to go into all the details of how extensively my ex-husband and I worked to try to save this marriage and to 'repair' this extended family unit. But no one PERSON can restore anything, only God can do that and the Ex-fil wanted no part in 'owning' what he had done.
Fast-forward to present: I now have ex-husband on supervised visitation with our daughter because during the divorce in 2004 he succumbed to child porn himself and after I caught him red-handed at this he agreed to the supervised visitation being written into the divorce degree. His parents also only get to see our daughter under "supervised" conditions.
During the "hell years" as I call them, 1998-2004, ex-fil quoted Mark 11:26 to me on a regular basis. "But if ye do not forgive neither will your Father, which is in heaven, forgive your trespasses."
This caused me much anquish because the "God of my Understanding" is the God of the Bible. So I talked at great length to my spiritual advisor (pastor) and my sponsor about this. I came to understand that while I did need to "forgive" him for my sanity's sake, I did not have to allow him in my life (which is what he wanted) or my daughter's life, if I didn't deem it safe.
When ex-fil sent the Christmas card that basically resulted in him shifting the blame from me (I had become the scap-goat in this matter since I was the original one who opened Pandora's box, the counselors explained to me) to my daughter...I went balistic. I called him up (against my daughter's wishes) and told him under no circumstances was I going to allow him to do to her what he had done to me. This was NOT her fault and he was NOT going to lay blame on her (I think I may have even cussed at him, I was so livid I don't even remember. And I don't usually cuss.) He would not be allowed to see her anymore.
So, to wrap it up, this is what my question is: Tonight's topic in meeting was detachment. How could I have "detached" from this situation better and not allowed him (the A) to push my buttons once again? Was my daughter right (she's been in Alateen, by the way ), should I have 'slept' on it and gathered my thoughts before calling? I'm afraid this would have eaten me alive all night had I tried to do that. Maybe I should have called my sponsor (hindsight). But I also know I shouldn't "should" on myself. I was trying in my own way to set boundaries with this VERY sick man.
I have allowed him in my life (even if only under supervised situations) too much in my opinion. That may be what caused me to blow up as I did. I don't know.
Anyway, I value any and all e,s, & h on this matter.
Thanks, Overcome
-- Edited by Overcome on Saturday 11th of December 2010 12:16:16 AM
-- Edited by Overcome on Saturday 11th of December 2010 04:42:11 PM
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I can Overcome all things through my HP who strengthens me.
Hi, Overcome, this is a very tough and complicated and painful situation. I'm so sorry you've been faced with this. And so glad that you are keeping your daughter safe.
I bet others with more experience will have valuable things to say.
What I've noticed is that every time I engage with sick people, the turmoil escalates. I used to think, "How can I let him get away with saying that! I refuse to stay silent any longer!" and I'd get into it with the addicts in my life. And things would just get worse. I used to repeat like a mantra, "Recovery isn't winning, it's not playing." Because I just kept wanting to "win."
I say "sick people" as if I wasn't one of them, but of course addiction and dysfunction causes insanity and the insanity spreads to touch everyone involved, so even though I could see how sick my A was, I was also sick myself.
Addicts know only turmoil and if we step back from it, they try to draw us back in. They issue invitations to be upset. It's very hard not to take them up on it. It's a battle between the two modes of being: in turmoil, or calm and steady. They want to pull us off center and get us involved in the turmoil again. And quite often we accept the invitation. The invitation to do things their way instead of our way.
Denial is at the heart of addiction and dysfunction. I used to be obsessed with making my A exH acknowledge the lying, stealing, and horrors he had committed. Because of that he had a hold over me: as long as he never acknowledged, he could push my buttons any time by talking about how paranoid and oversensitive I was. The boundary I had to set was, "It doesn't matter what he claims; I'm going to go about my life knowing what I know and acting accordingly." He'd try to bait me and bait me. It was so agonizing having to go through life with him refusing to admit any of it. It's now years later and he still will not admit that one minute of any of it happened. But wanting him to admit it is like wanting a spider to start chatting to you about vegetarianism. I can't change him.
It seems to me that detaching is always the best self-care in times of stress. I wish you strength in this difficult situation.
I am a sexual abuse survivor and I too read my bible, I am new on here so cant say too much about detachment etc, but in my mind there would be a VERY big difference from detaching from an alcoholic you live with and that might be abusing you verbally, to detaching from somone who is as sick as your husband, or grandfather, and they are very wrong to be quoting the bible on any of their sick crimes.
You might remind them of the verse where Jesus states if anyone harms a small child etc etc, a pastor once told me that there is a huge difference in forgiving someone say for talking about you, or doing you a small wrong, to forgiving someone who sexually abuses, he said to me that even God would understand why I had problems forgiving such an horrific crime.
I personally do NOT agree with any child being allowed access to a child molester, supervised or not, its the sort of sickness they do NOT get well from, its not like alcoholism where it takes over the mind, child abuse is well planned with the intention of NOT being caught, just because they are in AA would mean NOTHING to me, child abusers are way more sick people than alcoholics, and would go to any lenght to appear to be trying to be cured, however it is NOT something I believe they can be cured of and I dont believe that AA would be thinking of childabuse when they quote their steps,
Never feel under any pressure to forgive these monsters, their crimes are unforgivable, and their sickness spreads through families and causes untold unrepairable damage, I do not believe that any innocent child should be allowed to be anywhere near them, however, having said that i have forgiven my abusers, though i am an adult and have walked a very long damaged journey because of them, i FORGAVE them for me, and for my peace of mind, not because they wanted me to, or because any pastor or church told me to, thats a sort of pain you should be given respect to deal with on your terms,
I really believe that God would leave us alone with that pain and allow us to decide after all it was our bodies that were violated and our innocence stolen, i hope this helps you in some small way, I know its not answering your questions, but please do not let this man have another moment of your peace or mind, if you place your anger next to his crimes, how can you even begin to question yourself or feel guilty, even Jesus believed in a "righteous anger"
I do think u were triggered by his biblical quote bc of the resentments at him "preaching" tp you in the past and now here it is - again.
I know that when I set more and more boundaries, like we dont discuss certain topics with specific people, we do not listen to or believe wholeheartedly the abuser's perspective (I had to do this for my own sanity and put me as the first and foremost voice of logic and reason in my own head, for my own perspective of self care and self preservation).
It is critical that you forgive, so you can let go and no longer be defined by what occured in the past. However, (and obviously this is my own opinion and intuiition working here) I would suspect that the grand father here gets a huge pay off for making others uncomfortable - (he got away with it with his own kid, so he walks around bashing the people he abused to forgive something so heinous (for him) so he can have a justification to do it again (like his wife "did"-forgave him so he could be "all ok again"). So yes, I would guess he is doing this with his preaching.
I had to stop listening to what the verbally abusive had to say anymore, they are hurting too but if I keep allowing them to hurt me, then I cant ever get out of it. So at first, I ignored them and then later I was able to move to loving detachment and simply no longer believing what they said. It is their opinion and you have your own intuition and HP to trust/have faith in.
I do not think I would allow my child to be around someone that did this to their own child, I would not want them to know them (bc the manipualtion/disease is so insidious), I would tell them about why and what when they were old enough to ask (with my anwers of course always being slightly vague and age appropriate). I am also big on self defense, so I would put any child of mine or anyone that asked about defensive martial arts - I would suggest aikido for that as it is strictly a defesnive art (not an offenseive or attacking one) so it will always help if you are ever attacked by anyone physcially.
So yeah, more boundaries as in, dont be willing to hear it and dont put his opinions over yours, u know his persepctive and it does not appear to be a very healthy one (IMHO, obviously).
I think change is very empowering - keep making changes that allow you to keep more serenity and more peace of mind.
Forgiveness is one thing, I would guess that the fil wants to hear you have forgiven him so he can get that free pass, and feel he got one over on everyone again, like he "wins". I personally would not tell him I forgave him and I would never ever forget or trust him with anything, not even a house plant.
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Light, Love, Peace, Blessings & Healing to Us All. God's Will Be Done. Amen.
My two cents.... sounds to me like you have handled this extremely well... the only way to have "detached" any further would have been perhaps to intercept the card altogether, and destroy it (no need to even read it). Sounds to me like he is "using religion" to try to justify his horrible actions, and neither you, nor your daughter, should have to be victims to any of his nonsense...
Take care Tom
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"He is either gonna drink, or he won't.... what are YOU gonna do?"
"What you think of me is none of my business"
"If you knew the answer to what you are worrying about, would it REALLY change anything?"
)might have handled a particular situation.