[Little]

Do you believe in forgiveness, Mag? I didn't before I had to deal with my sexual issues - and maybe I still don't - but treating my experience as independent from the continuing actions and being of the person who did it has been very freeing for me. I'm no longer socially obligated to hate him, I don't have to be afraid of him. I can treat him as a human who is learning and growing and reacting to a "rape culture." I could even discuss it with him. It was almost surreal. Maybe my situation is unique - I think rape in an adult relationship is perhaps more forgivable and recoverable than other situations.

I don't think that the public, non-survivors, can understand why we would want to continue to be a part of the abuser's life. They're too busy calling rapists and abusers "monsters" to cover up the fact that they are our parents, siblings, family, friends. They are human beings, terribly flawed human beings, not rabid dogs to be shot behind the barn. If survivors have to keep living, so do offenders - and survivors have to keep living knowing that offenders are living. Treating with the offenders, trying to find the human in them, trying to find forgiveness or something like it, is very meaningful. It's a very good way to heal, or at least was for me.

[Latindiva1982]

If you have forgiven your parents and everything is ok with them now why tell your horrible past to your next partners? You've seen the reactions people you cared about have had with the story why tell the next person? It you forgave your family and it's something you have put in the past then leave it in the past.

[CHANDLERS WISH]

I think that it's not healthy to leave something in the past unless you have had closure and I believe that, that is a very strong key.

Sometimes telling everyone is done because there is no closure, and so, you hope for forgiveness but by the wrong people, when it was the person in question that you needed to forgive, as Little has outlined, then you can have closure and move on with your life, no longer with non-understanding, instead, understanding.

[CHANDLERS WISH]

I'm with you Stillness.

It was a brave move that you did but someone had to do it. I appreciate the after effect you must have left but I hope you do feel good about it, not with regret.

It is strange how some abusers either scare the shirt out of someone so they don't tell, or sincerely show enough love that, that person, almost sees it as that? Not wrong?

If he thinks he is God and can beat anyone, maybe this may be a wake up call for him that he can't.

[notlikethenormal]

You just have to find the right man. I would think that keeping that from the one person you should be closest to would be unhealthy. You could carefully feel him out during dating.

From my experience it was unhealthy, but I hadn't even admitted it to myself yet. When I finally did tell my boyfriend, things got more intense for me because I was facing what happened. I had nightmares about killing my offenders, I was extrememly paranoid about any physical touch from anyone, had flashbacks of things I never remembered before... it was very difficult for me for a few months. I saw a therapist a few times, just enough to learn some coping skills cause I couldn't afford to see him for an extended period of time.

Telling my boyfriend was probably one of the best things I've ever done for myself. He knows and is still learning alot of things that will trigger thoughts of my abuse and he stays far away from them.


Truthfully though... he has used that information against me at times, just to be cruel. I'm still glad I told him but always be aware that whatever you tell him could be used against you at some point.

[notlikethenormal]

I don't think that the public, non-survivors, can understand why we would want to continue to be a part of the abuser's life. They're too busy calling rapists and abusers "monsters" to cover up the fact that they are our parents, siblings, family, friends. They are human beings, terribly flawed human beings, not rabid dogs to be shot behind the barn. If survivors have to keep living, so do offenders - and survivors have to keep living knowing that offenders are living. Treating with the offenders, trying to find the human in them, trying to find forgiveness or something like it, is very meaningful. It's a very good way to heal, or at least was for me.

Sorry for the double post...

I completely agree with this. When I told my mother about the abuse she suggested we tell the rest of our family but I didn't want to and still dont want to. What happened was between me and my abusers, I dont want the rest of my family to look at them like they are dogs... what happened is none of their business. Now, with that being said I will tell those abusers future girlfriend or wife (when the time is appropriate and necessary) because I feel that is information you need to know if you are potentially going to have children with that person.

[Hugo-B]

The only thing that I would like to add - from my perspective - is this: do you consider forgiving someone letting them get away with what they have done, in the sense of not reporting them to the police?

Forgiving someone and not reporting them to the police is potentially leaving them free to re-offend. Forgiving them whilst they are in prison in another thing. The individual is free to choose how they deal with their own issues and I respect that, but allowing someone to get away with something can be allowing them to offend again, and maybe even again. I do believe in forgiveness, but I also believe in protecting the innocent from the dangerous and predatory.

I agree that not hating people is liberating, and I understand that sometimes we can find ourselves in a situation where we need to choose the lesser of two evils: holding a perpetual grudge and letting anger, bitterness and resentment contaminant our everyday thoughts isn't appealing when we can choose to forgive , let go of any anger and move on with our lives.

Another thing I do accept, or have learned to accept is that many of the people guilty of such offenses as the ones we are discussing didn't ask to be born with the inclination to commit the atrocities they have, sometimes they were victims themselves continuing the cycle of abuse. From this perspective I am becoming more inclined believe they need help as much as punishment, but if they are dangerous, measures need to be taken for the innocent and vulnerable to be protected from them.

[Little]

I don't think reporting rape is necessarily the healthiest thing for a survivor to do. Get your name out there, get everybody's opinion on the situation who was never there, have to defend the truth until you're blue in the face, with no physical evidence, your word against your abuser's. Supposing the cops actually take you seriously, you get to go to court and have the defense attorney call you a slag and a liar and anything else he can do to make you look bad and blame you for the rape. No, thank you. Rape is harrowing enough already.

I wish the reality of reporting and prosecuting rape was very different. It's not, though. Stranger rape is only a tiny, tiny percentage of all rapes, but it's prettymuch the only prosecutable one.

[Stillness]

Little beat me to my response, but I'd like to add that even on the perpetrator's end, not reporting something to the police does not equal getting away with something. Things can be handled on a familial, congregational, or community basis - shaming, shunning, restricting privileges, etc.

Near where I live it was discovered last year that 11,000 rape kits had been shelved away going back 20 years without ever being touched. So after those women had been violated in the worst way, they had the presence of mind and courage to allow the police to gather this very intimate information. What did they do? Sit on it. It's a widespread issue in the States. This kind of thing is the very reason my cousin didn't want to deal with the system. It's unreliable and very rarely administers any real justice. Her daughter had been through enough.

[Little]

Obviously, cases where both perp and victim are adults capable of consent are very different from cases where children get abused, and that's an important distinction when you're talking consequences.

About two years after the rape was when I confronted my former partner. He never realized he had done anything wrong (!) and never realized that what he did constituted rape (!!!!) or that I would react to it as rape. He was sorry, and his apology really did mean a lot. Now he has to live knowing he has seriously damaged another person (and maybe more, maybe my confrontation made him reassess other situation he'd been in.) And as he continues to live and probably continues to have sexual relations, due to my confrontation he will have a different idea of what constitutes consent and what to do if that consent is retracted.

I can imagine that my situation is not unique - that many rapists don't really comprehend that what they have done is wrong, and certainly not that it is rape. After all, don't we live in a culture that teaches us when women say NO, they really mean YES? A culture that wants women to be unwilling when it comes to sex? A culture that thinks sex is a reasonable way to pay back good deeds (help a girl move - she better give it up!) Certainly nobody here thinks that, and nobody WANTS to believe they think that on a conscious level, but listen to the jokes your friends tell and the situations that sound reasonable. Our culture as a whole is OKAY with rape when it happens between adults who know each other. Part of my healing has been fighting against that idea.