Guilt…
May 4, 2008 by donottellalice
He was a master of emotions. He doled out fear and anger like everyday water. I thought I was the only one who suffered from his emotional abuse, but now see the damage left on my daughters. The guilt with this recognition fills my soul as I realize I failed to protect them from his emotional abuse.
This is how he controlled us all and how he managed to rape his own child for years. Never did he lay a hand on any of the rest of us, but his emotional abuse–the guilt and fear–holds on to our lives in the form of scars that we cannot fully ever overcome.
He abused us all emotionally with his control while claiming it was all God’s way and word.
My heart cries constantly and I can only offer my children my deepest apology for failing to protect them from their own father. They have forgiven me, but I do not feel that I deserve forgiveness.
I am having the hardest time forgiving myself…
Wrestling with guilt keeps me pretty busy too! I just struggle with trying to figure out why I didn’t leave years before I did.
I didn’t know about the physical and sexual abuse that was happening to the children, because it was definitely done in secret and kept a secret for years and was only recently revealed to me. But I certainly knew about the emotional, psychological and spiritual abuse because it was not done in secret, but was done brazenly and all of us including me were victims.
How could I not feel guilty about not rescuing the children years ago? They use to beg us to quit fighting. Or they would hide in their rooms and just suffer alone and frightened. It is hard for me to explain to them that no matter what I did it was hurtful to them–it hurt them when I tried to defend myself, it hurt them when I left to get away from the vicious things being said and done to me. It hurt them when anger about something I said or did that made him angry was taken out on them. The guilt about the times I was so frantic that I left and didn’t take the children with me haunts me and leaves me with so much pain I can hardly bear it. I have asked their forgiveness for the times I abandoned them to have to cope with their angry father alone.
My mother recently told me that my daughter had confided in her that she thought when she was sent to visit her grandparents in the summer, it was because we wanted to get rid of her and didn’t love her anymore. How’s that for a big trigger of guilt? I don’t remember any particular rationale for her going although in retrospect perhaps I subconsciously was giving her a holiday from the abuse at home. Only she didn’t experience it that way obviously. I only recall the extremely happy memories I had of my summer visits to my grandparents and wanted her to have the same joy I had experienced as a child.
When the children express their painful feelings about the trauma they experienced, all I can say is how very sorry I am and how much I wish they had never had to experience the awful things they have, and how much I love them.
When the guilt gets really bad, I feel guilty that I brought children into the world to experience the suffering that my children have.
At least you did something when you found out.
My mother-in-law just told the kids to be quiet and lives in a state of denial to this day. The family has been co-erced into believing in the myth of their happy family. The incest perpetrator wrote me a letter telling me that I needed to end the family disunity. He is a very dominant man and up until I told him what I thought of him, I doubt anyone had condemned what he did. Just remember that at least you did something when you found out.