Posted by Acheick on March 16, 2004 at 11:09:04
In Reply to: A Considered Reply posted by anovagrrl on March 16, 2004 at 10:47:32:
Perhaps its not in the same vein, but I often think of my ex husband and how healing it would be if he could come clean and be truly remorseful about what he did to me and his children. Maybe I'm wrong in thinking that way, but it would be nice to know that he is paying penance somehow if at least only in his conscience as I have no other recourse and neither do my children. I know my children feel this way too and it just sticks in my craw when he comes around and acts like everyone should just forgive him and get over it. He even made the statement, "I've made my peace with God..." Grrrrrr.... do you know how irritatiing that is? How I hate to see my children suffer more because of this arrogant attitude?
Did you see the movie "Missing"? Again, it may not relate to what you are discussing as far as sexual abuse, but she had issues with her father deserting her and her mother and her mother ended up dying at a young age and the daughter suffered abuse because of the bad situations they ended up in. He had come back, not to reconcile, but to help her. She looked at him at one point and said, "I'm not going to forgive you" and he said, "I don't expect you to." The understanding was he knew that what he did was so wrong there was no way he would even want to hear about being forgiven, he just needed to pay his dues. I thought that would be such a lovely scenario to hear that from my exhusband and for him to tell that to his children. Instead he is just the opposite, "I've apologized, now let's go on and just forget about the past, forget about your pain, forget about any recompence or restitution I should be making."
I just think that seeing someone is truly remorseful and wanting to pay their dues, and not just fluffing off with a little apology and then expecting the victims to get over it - which is what TF does and I understand Jules disgust at this -, would be helpful. Do you think I'm wrong in thinking this - that it actually would not help? I feel that way about myself and my situation.