Tag Archives: grief

Grief Has Many Faces and I Experienced Them All

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We think we’re plugging along in life okay and then WHAM!!! We get hit right in the center of the heart with another grief emotion and we wonder what is happening. Such was the case with me. I really thought I was doing okay. Bills were getting paid. We had a house to live in. The girls and I had food on the table. My ex-husband was locked away, and I knew he’d never abuse another child again. All of these things are such positive things. Why, oh why, then was I feeling so rotten?

I could feel myself swelling up inside with feelings that I never wanted to feel. I felt jealous of those who had “normal lives.” I felt like I got cheated out of so much, and sometimes I’d find myself yelling at God that life was so unfair! I felt angry. I wondered when the anger would come, and let me tell you it did! “Why? Why did my kids have to suffer like this because of their father? That was NOT fair at all! They never asked for this pain, this suffering, this anguish, this humiliation. They were good kids. No, I take that back. They were great kids! They deserved more than this!” “God, do you hear me? Why? Why did you let this happen? Is this all part of your plan? Really? Is this what you planned for our lives?”

Innocent children have suffered tremendously because of the man I married. I never felt the emotions of remorse and sadness so heavily on my heart. This is not right. NOTHING GOOD can ever come from a precious child being abused. “God, why? You know I placed every bit of trust in you to help me find a righteous, godly husband. Why this one? Why send me to a man who abused precious children? Why allow these innocent ones to be hurt like this?”

My grief was all over the place. And, I do mean all over the place. At night when I turned off the lights and was alone in bed, my heart felt like it was literally bleeding. I did everything from cry out to God, to yell at God, to question the very existence of God. That’s just what grief does to a person.

Where does one turn during times like this? I certainly couldn’t turn to family members. They were suffering right along with me. I couldn’t turn to my church family. I felt as though I had none at this point. When John’s truth became known, I had already been ostracized from the church due to the lies he was telling. He made me out to be a crazy, horrible wife who was vengeful and had turned away from family and God. None of that was true, but not one member of my church family ever came to visit me to find out if there was any truth to what he was saying. Instead, they pitied John and left me struggling by the wayside. What a sad commentary!

For about the next two years following John’s incarceration I became very quiet — not sharing many of my feelings with anyone (who would listen?), and putting on a strong face in public. Sometimes we hide behind masks, and I became a pro. Why? Because I knew if I released all of these pent up feelings and this burden of grief, I would scare people. I would place a burden on my children, and I didn’t want to do that. They were burdened and wounded enough. I didn’t want others to see me like this. What good would that do for anyone?

And, so……I experienced the many, many faces of grief (anger, hurt, pain, frustration, jealously, hopelessness, unforgiveness, hate, and unbelief) all the while wearing my mask of strength. Maybe the mask helped me survive this life-changing, life-threatening storm. I don’t know. I do know this. Living the life as the spouse of an abuser is difficult. It’s painful. And, it is lonely. Very, very lonely. Living the life as an abuse survivor is the same. Very few people will understand. Very few people can honestly validate your pain. And, sadly, at times there will be very few people who genuinely care.

And, this is why I share my thoughts with you. I don’t want YOU to experience this kind of anguished loneliness. I want you to know that someone’s in your court. I want you to know that someone cares. I want you to know that someone understands.

I want you to know that you’re going to make it.

With much love until the next time,

Clara

***For additional support, please visit here.

Married to a Pedophile: “How Life Changed on May 22, 2015”

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So many of you have written asking what happened to my writing.  Why silence for three months?  Did I give up this fight for the education and prevention of child sexual molestation?

On May 22, 2015, I had just settled into my bed to begin reading.  It had been a long day of work followed by dinner with friends.  Since it was near Memorial Day, my friends asked if I minded if we made a stop at the cemetery to place flowers on their son’s grave.  He died at the age of six very unexpectedly.    Continue reading →

Married to a Pedophile: Year Two is Harder Than Year One!

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This week has been a horribly heavy week of grief.  Rather than picking up where I left off last week in this journey of being married to a practicing pedophile for almost forty years without knowing it, I thought I’d get a few things off of my heart.  Sometimes the pain gets so bad that we just have to release some of it.

This week was bad.  The tears would not stop.  I work in the field of supporting families who are going through the grief of child loss, so I knew that year two would be worse than year one in this grief of finding out that the father of my children — the man I was married to– was a practicing pedophile for almost fifty years.  But I wasn’t prepared for the flood of emotions that would come pouring from deep within my soul.

This week was John’s birthday.  I thought I had worked through most of the emotional wreckage of John’s arrest and conviction for child molestation.  But, I was so very wrong!

It’s strange to say, but prior to hearing about John’s investigation, I honestly didn’t know what a pedophile was.  I had never spoken the word, nor did I ever talk about child molestation.  It was a topic that was foreign to me.  So, when I first learned that John was under investigation for child molestation I went into a state of shock.  I couldn’t imagine in my wildest dreams that he would commit such acts.  Deep in my heart I knew it was true.  The red flags as we’ve been discussing for several weeks were there.  In fact, by the time of his arrest, he might as well have been wearing a sign that said, “Child Molester.”  He was so caught up in what he was doing that he got sloppy.  He didn’t cover all of his tracks.  Several of the children he was molesting began speaking out.  They were telling. But, he was so deep into this perverse, dark life that he didn’t notice. And, he didn’t care.

Thank God he was arrested and stopped!

But, the thing that is so hard to grasp is the level of pain that my children are feeling and the way John treated them as well as all of his church family and the community as a whole.  He was wonderful to them!  He really, really was!  He was kind.  He was compassionate.  I’ve watched him cry over the hurt and pain of others.  I saw him wrestle with how to help families who were hurting financially and emotionally.  I’ve seen him sacrifice so much for his children.

And, yet…..this same man….this kind, generous, caring man was also the emotional abuser, all-controlling husband, and the one whose very heart, mind, and body abused countless young children throughout his lifetime.

It’s so hard to try to balance the scales.  So much kindness on one side, and so much evil on the other.  How can this be?  How does this happen?

ScalesAs I struggled through this birthday week, flashes of the “good John” kept sweeping through my mind.  I saw him at the beach with the kids, taking them on walks finding salamanders, barbecuing chicken and burgers for summer picnics. I saw him laughing with the kids and I remembered past family birthday parties — we had so many wonderful family traditions that we carried out for birthdays!

I woke up several times this week in a drenching sweat as I saw him in the courtroom looking at me with a smirk on his face showing no shame whatsoever over what he had done to so many little girls.  And, I cried.  I sobbed.  I buried my head into my pillow and cried until I thought my insides were falling out.

How can so much evil and good come from one person? It just doesn’t make sense!  I try to understand it, but it’s so big — so hard — to try to grasp!

I felt lonely and dark and blue this week.  I struggled with what to say to  my children when I talked with them.  Do you say it’s going to be okay when you know it’s not?  It’s never, ever going to be okay in the sense of family life as we once knew it.

house 156I felt like screaming so many different times this week, “Where’s the help? Who knows how to do this?  How do you travel this journey?”  And, so I cried more, and begged God to please feel real to me and to my family and to every little child who is struggling day after day with emotions that are so scarred and broken brought on by the abuse of this man — this kind man and this  very evil man.

Brokenness.  It’s not a hard word to type out on paper, but when you think about its meaning, it’s one of the most difficult words of all to say.

bro·ken
[ brṓkən ]
  1. no longer whole: in two or more pieces, e.g. after having been dropped or struck with something hard
  2. out of order: no longer in working condition
  3. not kept: not honored or fulfilled
Synonyms: wrecked, fragmented, shattered, cracked, smashed, damaged, ruined, destroyed

And, so I write these words.  I did not send them, but I felt them.  Continue reading →