Dear Lighter,
I'm sorry... I don't know of a way to soften this or make it palatable.
Please forgive me. I should have shooshed until or unless I could have made a more complete explanation... or said nothing at all.
I know that you cannot make a giant leap in the midst of all you're enduring into the place of closure (such as it is) that I've reached after all these years.
I only hope to be able to show you that it will not always feel so desperate and impossibly endless. I know it's not good enough for where you are now. I remember that place. I wrote counselors, pastors, long phone calls, consults, research, appointments... every bit of energy I had went into trying to find a way to resolve this into some sort of fair. There is none.
There was no one who'd been there to help me sort this back then.
The "help" I received was in the form of my dad implying that my daughter may be lying, a police officer who let the pervert stop by at his convenience to make his statement, a court system which let him off a 15 year felony with 1 year suspended sentence and then a shortened probationary period, arranged by a probation officer who wrote in his final report that our family showed every sign of being able to maintain a safe environment for our children. Yay.
Then he started the lewd behavior again, a couple years later, and by that time, I had a 3 month old son, picked up my 4 children and moved 200 miles away. Dad went on and on about how that little boy needed his daddy and kept asking me when my husband (still not ex) was coming to visit.
That's not even the end of the story, but it's far enough.
What I learned is... some daddies, their kids don't need. And that's the reason for my strong reaction against this particular aspect of it all.
I hate to see you torn up by an old dream of how it should have been. You need every bit of your energy to be focused toward getting through this, not trying to make him pay for his rotten deficiencies.
I understand the anger, frustration, grief... just wanting your husband to straighten up and see the wonderful family he has and be what he should be. It's so very difficult to accept that he's not... and that he never will be.
And I understand the desire to see him outed at last, after he puts you through all of this, only to walk away and leave you to deal with the children he's left behind. It's not fair. It's not right. It's not at all what you'd imagined for your family. But Lighter... there will come a day when you do not feel so horribly bad. That's all I want you to know, and I just wish I could fast-forward you to that point to see... it won't always be this way.
Love,
Hope
