This is entirely a Mama post here, so it’s very off topic. This blog is nearly all about J and I’s experiences but it’s also my go-to for talking things out in a way. Please bear with me.
We’ve all done it in our lives, trusting the wrong person and realizing way too late that we’d done so. When you grow up in an abusive home, trust is something you kind of learn third hand. It’s not something that was taught as being innate. I did not grow up with a natural trust of my parents, or of situations, or of … well, much. Trust was learned as a process as though it were a foreign language. I understand it better now, but my understanding will always be imperfect so when someone comes along and commits what amounts to a vast crime against it it does feel as serious as a deep physical wound.
I have struggled with this. I still am struggling with this. This person added to their crimes against the trust given to them the use of “forgiveness” to equal “absolution”. They would constantly demand to be forgiven, believing firmly that forgiveness meant what they did was okay.
That’s not what forgiveness means. That’s never what forgiveness has meant. Forgiveness means acknowledging something happened and chosing to move on from it. It is not leave given by the person doling out the forgiveness for the person receiving it to repeat the same actions that required forgiveness in the first place.
That is abusing trust. That is abuse, to continue to make someone believe they must forgive you for your bad actions or they are a terrible person even though you just use their good nature as an excuse to keep repeating the same offenses or worse.
I let this person into my head so much that they had me believing I was a terrible person, that I was a monster, that I was abusive when I would stand my ground and demand to be treated with respect and dignity. The amount of times I was sworn at or torn into verbally over just plain sticking to my guns and not doing as I was demanded is absolutely ridiculous. It should have stopped after the first, but this is my sin. I was stupid. I wanted to trust; to believe in the goodness of someone it turns out never deserved it.
So here I am.
The ache is less, but I do not believe it will ever be completely gone. It will not hurt in the way that some other things do. My heart aches over the loss of my Nana and others, for example, in a very different manner. I am sad to know I cannot hug them again or hear their voice, yet I have the solace of knowing they’re still always there around me. This pain, from what this person did, is deeper and sadder. I cannot regain the years and energy lost to this person. I cannot go back and re-see that which I should have seen at the start and prevented so much pain with.
But I can move forward. I know the truth of who and what they are now and in knowing, I also know it is they who have to live with it. Not me, now. Not ever again me. I get the gift of continuing with my life knowing the truth and being able to heal from the wounds caused of years of hearing what a terrible person I was. I trusted this person with too much truth you see, and I am learning not to give that out again. They took me at my weakest points and sharpened them into fine blades by which to try to keep me down; to try to make me controllable.
If my own father couldn’t manage that, there was no way in hell this person was going to pull it off, especially not now with too much in the balance.
I’ve always been able to stand for others, to yell when they could not and to support them and help them through what they needed me for. I could never stand for myself, not with true strength and conviction. Then J came along.
Now I have to stand for myself and be true to what I need, what I want, and what will make our futures the best.
I think that scared this person. Independence always did.
I will never say whether I forgive this person or not. That’s a matter that belongs known to my heart and my heart alone until they might, on some unlikely day, learn what the word truly means. I will move on, as I have been, and I will love my son every day all the more for the strength that little boy has given me. I’ll close the door on this person once and for all and should they try to snake it open….
Well, opening things they weren’t welcome to didn’t work out well for Pandora, so I cannot imagine it will work out for them either.
Please forgive the lack of comment section. Not sure I am ready to open this one up for discussion. – N