Sunday, April 17, 2016

We tell ourselves and say to all the other anonymous women just like us, "We will get through this.We will."

Someday. We will even stop reliving that day, will stop hearing the police knock at our door. The barked orders. Stop remembering the day he called from the jail.  Even our  nightmares of that terrifying time will fade. Our kids will stop asking, where is he? There will be entire mornings when we will forget we were ever betrayed.

We will become brave and dare speak our secrets, We will find comfort in hearing the stories told by the wives of other sex offenders. How they got through it. Are managing to get through "it."  And we will suddenly know that we too are women who will also get through this. But maybe we are still women who for now also sign ourselves Anonymous when we tell our stories, when we like they also still sign our comments, Anonymous.

With 750,000 names on the National Sex Offender Registry there have got to be lots of us hiding somewhere. Reaching out in the dark. Finding each other amid the chaos of our lives.. Even a state like Nevada has 19000 sex offenders. The presence of so many Offenders server as  markers attesting to the existence of thousands of anonymous women and children...each holding tight to the self same secrets..lives torn apart but lately being pieced back together. Rising again from the ravages left in our lives by sexual obsessions  acted out upon the lives of our children.

The after effects  of  pornography, child sexual abuse, pedophilia, even rape. Each offense far more than it's mere legal definition. And all the women betrayed?  Where should they find us? Perhaps standing isolated and anonymous, unknown but next to each other in some long line or other?   In a check out line at the grocery store? Perhaps clutching or food stamps? In line looking for work? Registering the sex offender's children for school? Looking for a day care provider we can trust when we no longer trust anyone? Trying to keep a broken family together, deciding whether to stay or go, but if so where? Anonymously we come and go. Pass one another. Unknowing. Unless we see someone familiar standing, waiting once more in visiting.  As we are.

Perhaps we chose to Google our own address and find other families of other offenders living somehow close by. Curious, we might drive by.Take a look.  Only to see another anonymous woman, Alone, with a face much like our own, looking as though betrayal had made secret sisters of us all. Our sister standing there on her anonymous doorstep,

Just another women who secretly signs herself Anonymous late at night when her kids are finally put to bed. On the internet where she too is free to seek the kindness of other Anonymous women like hersllf somehow betrayed by their own once trusted sex offender..

We might see  a woman much like us, now isolated by secrets, up into the night searching for internet sites looking to find internet places where we may gather to hear each others stories, feel each others anger, staunch each others pain until some night each of us realizes its our pain falling down out of every story, our tears on the keyboard. And we realize we are no alone. ,

And at that moment we know that we will get through this in the company of so many.

Just women reaching out to each other. Late at night.Joining hands with each other because we understand ...

9 comments:

  1. I am the wife of a sex addict who is also a tier 1 sex offender in Nevada. I welcome others to read my story and reach out for support. Unlike your blog, mine is anonymous because I am not yet ready to be completely unveiled.I don't yet have the courage that you do, but I admire your strength.

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  2. You said your story is on your blog. Could you please let me have a link to your blog? I'm sure many people here on Not the Life would be happy to follow your blog and I would love to read your story there. I also want you to know we respect and certainly understand your choice to remain anonymous.

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  3. Sure, it is http://healingwifeofsa.blogspot.com

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    1. Thank you. I read through your blog and want to recommend it to everyone reading Not the Life...I think we all find the isolation and the fear of "discovery"/ fear of collateral damage we experience after the 'knock on the door' which forces all of us to make choices and take a stand that we never expected to have to take...Isolation and loneliness and the need to find other women who understand and support us whatever our decisions if vital to our growth survival in this new "universe" we find ourselves thrust into...
      Once again heres the link. A new friend is always welcome...
      https://healingwifeofsa.blogspot.com/2016/03/isolation-is-hell.html?showComment=1460993860972#c250852274544253929

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    2. How do you handle the anger and hurt your teens feel at the situation of being a single parent household. It almost seems unfair that when they see their dad who is on work release they are happy to see him, yet save all the anger for home.

      Feeling broken and alone

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  4. You know, for years I felt guilty and faulted myself over what happened to my children. But looking back, I think because I actually believed mothers were supposed to make it all better (no matter what) As a result, especially after the knock on the door, I allowed my kids to guilt-trip me in ways that were harmful to me and to them. Letting my kids dump their hurt and anger on me kept all of us stuck in the shame/ blame game.

    It's true that sometimes the court punishes fathers too harshly but they (not we) actually broke the law, They were tried and convicted of some sort of sexual impropriety. Some fathers play into the harshness of their punishment to manipulate their kids into feeling feel guilty that their Daddy is being treated "unfairly." After that, it's a short step for them to come home angry and dump on their mother because, as mother's, we 'allowed all this' to happen.'

    I think it's important to encourage open communication but we also need to set firm rules about HOW we communicate as a family. In my own case, my ex had spent a lot of energy isolating each of us so he could make sure we didn't talk openly to each other or tell anyone else what was going. That meant he was safe even if we weren't. Divide and conquer is self-serving and it doesn't stop just because someone is in jail. In families like mine honest, open communication was (by definition) already part of the problem. I think it's important to set a goal to learn how to talk openly and honestly in our family BUT as parents we have to set rules about HOW we speak to each other. WITH civility, kindness. HOW family members talk to each other matters. And setting those parameters starts with us as mothers (doesn't it always?) We need to expect respect and set rules of respectful communication in order to work speak about all the harms already suffered and to heal and then move on. To do that, We need to point out when out kids are manipulating, venting or trying to guilt trip us.

    They hurt, we hurt. The world is 'unfair." hat's a given.The rule remains, in our family we do not dump on each other. That's the rule. It's a hard rule to enforce if we are still blaming ourselves as not being good enough mother's in the first place. But openness, kindness and civility are absolutely necessary if we want to survive and heal as a family and not remain forever angry, isolated and alone in the same house. It is the same task we face if we decide there is hope to get back together as a couple.
    In short, pointing out that verbal abuse is violence and telling our kids, (with a smile if we can manage one) 'I think you are trying to guilt-trip me' That's "not Okay' in our family." Just telling them "I want you to feel safe talking openly but I feel like you are talking to me in this way in order to hurt me. That's not Okay." Standing up for ourselves is vital. It begins when we don't beat ourselves up and don't let anyone else do that either. In a family where 'communication' has been used and abused. we need to be role models. No matter what happened in the past you are The Mother. They need to know they can speak openly but bullying and abuse of any sort is off limits in our family now, After surviving all that has already happened, having to keep on being a
    role model well... in a totally 'unfair' world, that just sucks doesn't it?

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    1. Be careful, your ex might have told them you knew the whole time. (I hope he is your ex) You were his wife. I do not know if your children were the victims. However, if they were there is zero trust.The only reason you know, is because a police officer told you.There are lots of mothers that are now estranged parents. Some believed the kids were blaming them, but the kids where blaming themselves. The mothers were to worried about their own guilt, to help the children.

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