Nothing like going to church and having guilt dumped on me about the SA

Nothing like going to church and having guilt dumped on me about the SA
E

EGL

Registrant
My wife and I are attending a marriage class at church with about 30 other married couples. It's a video seminar thing for about 12 weeks, with a discussion period that follows each video each week. The seminar is on the Song of Solomon book of the Bible, which many of you may know is about the relationship of a man and woman as lovers.

During the video, the speaker was talking to the video audience about disclosure of things between the potential husband and wife, the point being, not to have secrets going into marriage. At one point, he said (and I paraphrase) "Men, if you've lead a wild life, tell your future wife about it now....maybe you did drugs, maybe you had a lot of sex partners before meeting her, maybe you were sodomized as a boy,...."

I just dropped my head down and stared at the carpet, felt the tears welling up in my eyes, trying to decide if I could slip out to the men's room for a moment to compose myself. But, I stayed, feeling guilty for having hid that fact for 16 years from my wife.
 
How can someone who doesn't have any clue what SA can do to us, how difficult burden can be, can tell you what you should do?
And to tell you in a way that you have to feel guilt about it.
It is not appropriate and even more it is not acceptable!

I would tell to everyone who might be important to me but only when I would be ready, it can't be faster than that.

Ivo
 
Eddie,

you must have nearly blew a fuse!!!

They should never use phrases like that. I bet the speaker hadn't been sodomised as a boy, assuming he is a man.

This is totally unacceptable, and I would certainly complain to whoever is over that church, as high as it could go.

sorry you had to go through that crap,

ste
 
Things like that are the reason the this Bible man with a degree in bible, former sunday School teacner and cheurch elder no longer attends church. Organized religion in my eyes cannot accept the things that can happen in a persons life without claiming it all to be God's will.

I CANNOT accept that and will not tolerate anyone teaching it. So what was a huge part of my life for 40 years is now gone. I wish I could find my footing back in an organized religion, but they all seem to only hurt me or others more.

Who you tell is your decision and you certainly don't need some pious hard ass telling you how to be a survivor. If the church cannot treat survivors with compassion and love, then they need to get out of the compassion and love business and be honset about being a goody two shoes social club.

Ken
 
Eddie,

This kind of thinking has no place in a church. It's like saying "tell your future wife if you were robbed and beaten nearly to death" as if THAT is a sin.

I tell you this. When many of these men stand before God (or whoever), these are the words I hope they hear "Better to have tied a millstone around their neck and flung themselves into the deepest sea that to hurt one of these little ones".

That kind of talk makes me wonder. Sounds just like a perp. Put the blame on the victim!

:mad: Grrrrrrrrr!

Marc

P.S. You are not guilty of anything! Yeesshh!

(edited to add P.S.)
 
I ache for you because while there may be some truth to what the person said, it is no where as easy as he makes it out to be. I remember the days when I didn't want anyone to even have a remote clue of what had happened to me. Now I've gotten to a point, where that has all changed. But knowing myself with churches, I probably would have decked the guy. It's a good thing I don't go to church. The last time I was around a preacher was at my mom's funeral and he was laying the guilt trip on me. Of course I flipped him off to! I still laugh on that one.

But like someone else said, you've done nothing wrong! It was the perp that did wrong to you and you have nothing to apologize for.

But also know, you're not alone - you've got all of us!

Don
 
Thank you all for your insight on this, I really do appreciate it. I thought I was somewhat past this tendency to immediately take anything dumped upon me as fact, true and proven. When I heard that, I instinctively snapped back into the old mode of believing it must be my fault, like so many other things (thanks, Dad, for instilling that sh*t-filled way of thinking in me! [extreme sarcasm intended]).

Thanks, guys, for setting me straight again. I know people say things without thinking of the impact on others, but that was one of those moments which just stop you cold when someone says it.
 
Originally posted by Kenf:
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I CANNOT accept that and will not tolerate anyone teaching it. So what was a huge part of my life for 40 years is now gone. I wish I could find my footing back in an organized religion, but they all seem to only hurt me or others more.

snip
Click to expand...
Ken, you've echoed my thoughts on the hcurch of today. The problem goes well beyond SA, it goes to the heart of Christian doctrine (and Jewish / Islam as well). The current church cannot and will not see people as they are and most importantly echoes only the conservative viewpoint. It seems to me that all churches, synagougs and mosques are either grossly anti-male or grossly anti-female: There are in my experience no exceptions.

That is a massive pity.

jw
 
Maybe this preacher spoke through ignorance, but it would be nice to think that if someone is in a position of trust and authority they would at least get their facts straight first.

Dave

:mad:
 
I'm sorry that you had that experience. Some churches just don't get it. Some will never get it.
Every so once in a while, "the church" will adopt someone's program, kinda like, Dobson's Family thing. Everybody jumps on the band wagon whether it makes good sense or not.
Where ever that comment came from, about, "being sodomized as a boy," sounds like one of those crazy phrases that someone got in their head and without thinking, they stuck it in that video on marriage. Sounds like someone who maybe majored in Psychology and only took freshman courses.
I hate that. This is off subject but someone was talking about liking Bush the other day and they used the phrase about, "people of faith," and then proceeded to talk as if they were speaking for all people of faith. Give me a break.
Sometimes I wonder if "the church" has harmed more than they have helped.
Peace, Eddie, and all,
may the Saints preserve us.

David
 
Yes it was an outrageous thing to say, but I do agree that we must share our feelings about our abuse with those we are closest to. We are shaped by some pretty horrible things and we cannot let that shit simmer deep isnide us and never let it out.
 
I don't see the implied guilt in the statement, I think it's more of a case of us being hyper sensative than anything else.

I wish that I would've been in such a meeting 15 years ago, it might of prompted me to atleast think about telling & dealing back then, instead of nearly ruining my marriage and everything else in my life 9 years later.

I think the point was to not keep such things secretive, that they will only manifest themselves in other distructive ways, like in my case.
 
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