I say "we" in the title because I just have this feeling that most of us feel some level of guilt over this.
Let me start by saying that I never felt the slightest bit of guilt over going NC with my NMother. She was so wicked, so evil, and committed such acts of cruelty against me that I never felt anything but unburdened. But going NC with my Co-father has been a different struggle, and I'm trying to come to grips with the reasons why I feel so darned guilty. I just want to stop having doubts, and stop questioning myself. I don't know how to move forward.
I spent the better part of 40 years making excuses for the man, telling myself that he really did love me, but that he was brainwashed by NM. At one point I managed to convince myself that he was mentally retarded, in a Forrest Gump "simpleton" kind of way. After all, he never ever engaged in any serious conversation, just nodded his head in agreement or dismissed serious problems with the usual, "Oh well, you know. La la la. Yup, you know."
In the last year, since our move, he has continued to send cards and letters to an address that he has never verified as mine. The only proof NM has is finding two names that matched ours on public record as buying this house. But we were unable to sell our old house in AZ and have kept it as a rental, so our names are still attached to that property too. The thing that set off NM's online search was me unplugging the phone line, something we were planning on doing anyway since we now use our cells as our primary phones. Today another card came, this one a birthday card for my husband, again with a note saying he hopes to see us soon. I don't want to see him. I don't want to talk to him. Yet I still feel sorry for him.
In the year since going NC, I've spent a lot of time thinking about the things he did, and in looking back, they were a million times worse than I ever allowed myself to believe them to be. I always made excuses for him, I always forgave him. But lately I spend a lot of time reliving the punishments he inflicted on me when I was in high school because NM told him I was on drugs, failing in school, sleeping with boys, all things I never did. I spent three years crying and pleading with him to please believe me, and he never did. Not even the benefit of a doubt. No wiggle room. I was the "bad seed." Mother said so. When I was homeless and starving on the streets he wouldn't even give me a $20 bill for food because "Your mother says I can't help you." My God, I could have been raped or murdered out there, a vulnerable girl who was more naive than most, thanks to NM's attempts at sheltering me and trying to force me to remain in a state of arrested development.
Long story short, after a year of throwing the cards and letters away, I want to start returning them, marked: RETURN TO SENDER, NOT AT THIS ADDRESS. He deserves it. He really does. In fact, I'm sure he knows that he deserves it. And still, I hate myself for being cruel to my abusers. He abused ME, and I hate myself for hurting him.
How do you all cope? Or do you? Are we all destined to a life of guilt? Is this the trade-off for going NC. If it is, it seems that we'll never be free. They'll always have a hold on us.
Kathy