Do I HAVE to forgive them?

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Do I HAVE to forgive them?
Mark,

For some survivors, the mix of love and hate for the same person is a very painful confusion. After all, it was someone close to us, who mattered a great deal to us, who could hurt us so badly through sexual abuse.

Maybe your T is concerned that there is some love for your father in you, and that when you have come to terms with your anger, when your anger is not raging so brightly before your eyes, the love might still be there. Then you might have a different view of your father's sickness.

Take this with a grain of salt; I'm not in the place you are. I think doing what you believe is best at the moment when you have to decide is the right course. I don't envy the choice you have to make. I will support your right to make that choice as you see fit. This is your recovery and your life.

Joe
 
I am not so sure I really know what forgiveness is as it is applied to someone who harmed us when we were kids. I know it is not excusing them. It is not saying it is ok, or even not as bad as it could have been.

I understand about how anger and hate messes us up and hurts us. I have certainly had a lot of physical ailments that are clearly connected to the rage I felt about being used, manipulated, abused, abandoned, and on and on and on. But I just don't know quite how I can forgive and then not feel what I feel.

Mark, the father son relationship is a very primal one. I have no idea how it would feel to have been actually harmed by my Dad. He harmed me in being an alcoholic, keeping my family poor, and refusing to talk feelings with me. But he did not sexually abuse me.

I think it would be so crushing if I had been SA'ed by my Dad as you were. I have nothing ot offer except joining you in your trying to sort it all out.

I had a bad relationship with one of my siblings. The day she died I was relieved. But, today, I miss her and wish I could talk to her now, knowing what I do now. Not sure how that apples to you.

I wish you peace in making whatever response you feel is right at the time. Just don't beat yourself up if you later feel it was not the right choice.

Bob
 
Geez, Mark, can I offer a little sympathy. Good heavens, what an agenda your therapist has mapped out for you. Sounds almost impossible from where you are in your recovery.
I say, take a couple of breaths, sit down for a minute, listen to your brothers here and consider again what Ken has written.
What I understand about forgiveness is that it has to come from you, in this circumstance, not from some outside source telling you that you have to forgive.
Some of us, most of us, just forget. We forget our perpetrators because they just are not as important to us anymore.
It is as hard to forgive your father as it would be to forgive him if he asked for it.
I mean, where are YOU in all of this? Probably trying your damndest to recover and get some stability in your life. Forgiveness is a "backend" consideration, not something with which you begin recovery. And, again, it is a consideration, not a requirement.
My wife wants to hang my 8th grade teacher while for me he has faded into the background. She has known of him for as long as we've been married but not with any of the sorted details that she learned about him this year, while I've been tellilng my story, here.
I haven't forgiven him--she never will--but forgiveness is not even in any plan of mine.
I hope that you can come to some peace with all of this. I don't think that it is fair to be asking you to do things for which you may not be ready or ever be willing to do.
It seems to me that listening to your story and hearing about your anger and legitimizing that anger, helps you to put it into perspective so that you can move on to more productive things with your energy.
Therapy, therapists, friends, pastors, teachers, us, we all have ideas for your recovery, but frankly, it's up to you to sort through some of the bull shit and listen to your own heart which will help you find your own path.
I've found the friendship and advice here to be generally helpful, I've found the friendship and counsel here to be life saving.

Peace, power and courage, Mark,

David
 
Mark,

This is a great thread and some great things have been said already. I will add my two cents worth about forgiveness and first say I pretty much agree with what everyone has already said. SA is simply unforgivable. But what we must do is get to a point where the abuse and the abusers no longer exert any influence or control on our lives or the decisions we make.

I think the closest single word to use is forgiveness in that part of forgiveness is making a decision to "let go of the pain" and not seek retribution against those that abused us.

I do not think this means we try to understand them or see them or talk to them or wish them anything but a long and painful death. It simply means we reach a point where our time our energy and our life is more important than theirs or the abuse and we move on. If you want to use the word forgiveness, fine, I don't think there is a word for the process or the feeling that I am talking about.

As to the discussion about whether you help your Father or not, and without knowing your therapist, he may very well be making such a big deal out of it to make absolutly sure that you are sure of your decision so you will not have any regrets later. Sometimes a Therapist, at least mine will, will take a position that she knows I won't agree with, just to make sure I am exploring all the option, and all the ramifications of my decision.

Your Father certainly does not "deserve" any help from you whatsoever. But with that said, I believe your decision should not be about what is good for him, but what is good for you. If it is a good thing for you to help him, for whatever reason, maybe extending his life so he will see you succeed and be happy despite him, maybe just because you want more time to try to make him realize what he did. I really do not know and don't intend to try to figure it out for you. I just wanted to make the point that the decision is yours to make and it should be made based on what is best for you. After all you are the one that has to live with the consequences of your actions. Just like your father has to live with the consequences of his, which may very well be his death, because of what he did to the one person who could help him.

It's your decision allways, but as for my opinion,I would go to his funeral and piss on his coffin.

All my best.
BT
 
I lost my mom about a year and a half ago. I miss her so much. But when she died I realized that I had to deal with some things that were not pleasant. My father managed to manipulate the family into thinking I was the crazy one including my mother. That hurts so much to this very day. But losing her was difficult and so I had to not only grieve for the loss, but I had to deal with the family issues as well and most of the family issues were my personal things.

While it may be nice and a "fairy tale world" to make peace with a father especially if they have a disease, that is not always reality. To push someone in that direction is not helpful in my opinion. To shine the path a little for them to see may be, but I think it is a very thin line. To me, it shouldn't be about forgiving or rectifying your relationship with your father. That comes later when you've begun to deal with the anger and have strong suppport system in place in my opinion.

And it is just my opinion too.

I've often left a therapist's office pissed off and couldn't say anything. That is the nature of how I learned to deal with things. With time, I got to the point where I could come back and talk to my therapist the next week. I'm not naturally assertive and it is something I am learning. But for your therapist to make such an issue out of it almost suggests that he doesn't have the sensitivity to you that he needs to have. If he made a statement that he would encourage you to share with him things such as this when they happen, I wouldn't have a problem with that. But to go further like it sounds took place, it raises my eyebrows. We've all been beat down enough in our lives and most of us are pretty hard on ourselves anyway. We don't need someone else adding to that.

You know, I am getting the sense that this therapist may not be the one for you but that is your decision to make. And you have to go with your gut feeling on it.

Don
 
Hi Mark:
You wrote:
Im not sure about him anymore; he didnt convince me at all. He thinks my decision of letting my father dies is a very definitive one and something I may regret in future, so I should think about it more carefully. He seems to be sincerely worried about me, but theres no reason to that, its not like Ive killed him or something. I just chose not helping him; does it make me a monster?
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I'm not sure what that's about. Do you have something that will keep your father alive? Are you talking about refusing to donate a kidney or something like that? If so, then certainly, it is your perogative to withhold something that will hasten his death without your intervention, especially if it will be detrimental to you. If the idea is that somehow, your giving him your forgiveness will help him live longer, at no expense to your physical being, then maybe that's a different story.

Abuse is about power, not really about sexual gratification (though that's often part of it.) To withhold the power of forgiveness to make him suffer or grovel, is certainly within your control.

When people talk about evil perpetrators, like Father John Geoghan who was killed in prison last week, and say, "great, it's about time", my reaction is, "if you wanted to make the s.o.b suffer for his crimes, he should live a long life in prison. Death would be too merciful for a creep like him."

Consider, if you have the power to keep your father alive, what the results would be for him to a) suffer through being in treatment for his abuse of you, b) possible guilt he might feel for your noble act rescuing him from death, or c) having the opportunity to confront him as an adult with the strength and understanding you could have as you successfully become whole and happy despite what he did to you.

It's only a wild scenerio I propose based on limited information. My inclination is to keep options open. Death brings perhaps only relief for him. Life has more possibilities, particularly as you gain strength and understanding through your own recovery.

Don't dismiss your therapist's game plan. He should share it with you if you can suspend your anger and be able to consider all options. Two final thoughts about revenge:

Revenge is a dish best served cold (that is, without the heat of emotion), and,

Success is the best revenge.

I'm glad you are mobilized by the anger you feel. I'm also glad that your post has stirred so much response from your brothers who are at different stages of healing. Consider their words.

Keep working. You are on the road to healing.

Ken
 
I'm not sure what that's about. Do you have something that will keep your father alive? Are you talking about refusing to donate a kidney or something like that?
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Ken, my father is sick in hospital and he needs a kidney transplant (or something like that). The doctors think Im his last chance of getting better.

And yes, although I want him dead, at the same time I agree that it would be better if he could suffer for his crimes, that death would be too merciful for a creep like him. But that is not in my hands, the only way I could think about helping him it would be if I forgive him and I dont. And, if hes gonna die because of that, its not my problem.

Thats nothing to think about it, forgiveness is something very personal and very individual, its not something you just decide to do. If I dont feel like forgiving him, so thats it. If, because I dont forgive him, Im not able to help him and because of that hes gonna die, so it is. That thought doesnt bother me; Ive already made my mind.

Your Father certainly does not "deserve" any help from you whatsoever. But with that said, I believe your decision should not be about what is good for him, but what is good for you.
the decision is yours to make and it should be made based on what is best for you. After all you are the one that has to live with the consequences of your actions.
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Thats what I think too. Im sorry if not being able to be the big person is a proof of how early I am in my recovery, but I think its time to me to do what I want in my life, and not just please everybody else. And Im feeling very good with my decision.

I want to thank everybody who has answered me; you really helped me to understand what this is all about.
 
Mark
Healing is about making decisions, big decisions that affect OUR lives.
We have to live with them, there's no doubt about that. But as we heal we grow stronger, and if those decisions we made weren't exactly right we have our new found strengths to help us deal with them.

Would you have made decisions like this a few months ago ? I don't think so.

Dave
 
Hi everybody

Ive been thinking about this conversation all day, and a couple of things have occurred to me that havent been mentioned yet, so I thought I should add my two cents.

Ive always wondered about thinking of letting go in terms of forgiveness. Abuse leads to anger and fear and all kinds of other side emotions (at least it has in menot wanting to totalize anybody else's experience), and letting go of those feelings has been extremely important to me. We often use the word forgiveness when what might be more helpful is release. Forgiveness is a gift no one need give. But release and letting go are among the first steps on the road to living again. When we hate someone, we sometimes hold them in a prison in our hearts, a place where we can rail against them for all the pain of the years that began with the first abuse. But holding them through hatred even in a prison in our hearts keeps them there, a constant reminder of pain and doubt and loss. So if someone suggests forgiveness, they may actually be talking about something much more freeing. An opening of the gates of a jail that hurts no one but ourselves.

I dont know what to think of forgivenessit too might be helpful for some people, but release and letting go have worked wonders for me.

Now, I was also thinking about hate. Mark talks about this whole issue of hate that is eating me alive. In my own history, my dad was the abuser, so I know something about the kind of hate being spoken. I discovered for myself a while ago that the hate was actually a very complicated combination of things. I hated the effect on my life that the abuse had. I hated my dad. I hated my mom for not seeing what was going on. I hated the world for a while. And then I realized that there was a lot more to it. That because it was my dad who had done this terrible thing, I was also grieving what was essentially the death of any dream I might have had of actually having a father. The abuse created a rift between us that could never heal. And for me at least this was an ultimate tragedy. The day my dad abused me, he vaporized all the years of love we might have shared.

From this I understood that part of my hate was also anger at being deprived of a father. This was perhaps the most devastating thing to understand. When my dad molested me, he destroyed much more than he could ever have dreamed. No more possibilitiesno more playing catch in the yard, no more sharing dreams and learning from him how to be man, no more love (and what a loss that was)no more anything. He died as my father on that day, and I couldnt begin to grieve until understood all the ramifications of that simple fact. I eventually had to release myself from the desire to be loved or love as a son and to forgive myself for so desiring and so failing to achieve.

I think its important that we recognize the nature of our pain as we try to heal. Some of the hatred may well be misplaced grief, and that grief, unnoticed and unvoiced, leads to many more kinds of pain and suffering.

Once the grief comes forth, the nature of the relationship gets a lot clearer. After I cried for the loss of my father, I could see my abuser in a very different light. I still despised him, but he was in fact no longer my dad. Fatherhood is more than just blood. Instead, and this was very comforting, he was just a man.

When he died some years later, I felt relief, but the grief was long gone. He had already died a long time ago.

I imagine many of us share this grief, and I thought it would be a good idea to give it a voice in the conversation.

Danny
 
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