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?

As 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.

I 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.

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