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In Reply to: Let me clarify posted by Acheick on November 02, 2002 at 23:50:55:
Someone below asked for some posts on this subject: the "working things out" experiences are very different with each of my children because they are so different. I have a daughter and 2 sons who are out of the F.
Here's how it's been going with one of them: I've had some pretty stormy communications with my daughter. She's got a lot of student loans to pay back for her universtity studies, she wasn't able to major in business administration because F education left her completely ill equipped in mathematics & so far it's been too much for her to catch up with, at first she had to go it completely alone with now support from me, so her frustrations will be justifiably directed at me, her dad, who "never wanted to be normal" as she told me in a recent phone call.
But everytime some new anger comes up we find a way to talk about it and work things out. In fact a week ago after that tumultuous phone call I emailed her the following:
"Hi _______,
I just wrote the following Declaration.
I know it’s true when you say that you’ve suffered.
I know it’s true when you say that I hurt you.
I know that when you were small I spanked you extremely hard and even now you still “hurt” from that.
I know it’s true when you say that I did not want to live normal life.
I know it’s true when you say that this deprived you of getting a chance to have a proper education.
I know it’s true that when you were young you missed out on many opportunities to do things that are simply part of normal growing up for most other youngsters.
It’s a fact that I stayed in a cult and did not listen to questions my conscience asked.
I know it’s a fact that things have been harder for you: to be able to study, to adjust to living a normal life as you now aspire to do.
Yes, I believed it was wrong to be a registered tax payer.
Yes, I was deceived.
I know that I bear responsibility for the above wrongs, and for all the others that I have not cited.
My desire is for you to know that I am sorry and that I want to make up for all that I can. Forgive me.
My desire is that I will continue to live for the new goals that I now have in my life which is nothing more than to live a normal useful life and to be as much as I can a normal person.
My aspirations are that from now on I will assume my responsibilities to all those in my life, especially to my wife and children.
I believe you when you say that you love me."
This is what my daughter answered the same day.
"Dear Dad,
I just read what you wrote and I was very touched by it. I want to let you know that I love you and that surpasses other feeling I may have about things in my past. Dad, I forgive you for everything, although I will admit that everything in my past is not easily forgotten. I know you love me, enough to ask for forgivess. That really means a lot.
I hate that cult. We were all victims of it, perhaps to different extents, but nonetheless victims."
Here's how I see it, just as it's taking me a long time to get my own matters about my life and time in the cult and now out of it, it's going to be a long process to work things out with my children.
