Pulling back the curtain of shame

Among the many pressures that we face as the spouses/girlfriends/exes of sex offenders is that sense of being judged by others, especially in the first days after the offense becomes public knowledge. Suddenly you are put on a stage, your family's name on the front page of the paper, and you just know that you are the talk of every social circle you ever touched. You are heavy with shame . . . and yet you did nothing wrong.

I remember the fear of leaving my house and facing the community. When people looked at me, I thought I could hear their thoughts as they wondered if I was as deviant as my husband. I heard whispers whenever I walked past a group of people. I dismally expected the vast majority of people to snub me or carefully avoid me.

And some people did exactly what I expected. There were just a few that had once smiled and waved who suddenly made a beeline out of whatever place I walked into. There were also some who just seemed to not ever look my direction, as if they always missed seeing me in their midst. But I have to say that these people were in far fewer numbers than I imagined.

Strangely, a large number of people still looked me in the eye and greeted me respectfully. For a while I just assumed that anyone so polite and normal acting must have missed the news. But it kept going like that. I went to the grocery store, the bank, church, the coffee shop (where the owner didn't like me much to begin with), and they all greeted me like they either didn't know or didn't care. After a while I realized that they couldn't have missed the news for so long since it was a town of less than 1000 people - news spreads fast. They were, well, just decent. It was a surprise.

But there was something even more surprising: I gained some of my dearest friends in the middle of the storm. One in particular stands out who invited me over for a play date within days of it all coming out. I needed to vent to someone and she was willing to listen, so I took her up on the offer. In the middle of my rant, I had this awful thought that maybe I was just putting on a show for her. Maybe she was just soaking up a good story to tell her friends. I started picking my words more carefully and glazing over more sensitive bits of information. When I had run out of words, she did something I didn't expect. She told me about a member of her family who was struggling with a different problem, an addiction. My friend had experienced a lot of stress from supporting this person. I could sense a deep love, but also frustration and anger. I would never had known any of it if she hadn't told me. She maybe was risking herself by opening up to me . . . and that meant so much to me. I knew she could empathize with many of the things I was experiencing, including the social stress of being linked to a damaged person. And also the confusion of loving that damaged person.

As the months and years went by, more people revealed their dark histories and sad burdens to me that they usually kept carefully guarded. One couple told me mournfully about their incarcerated son. I learned about another couple's struggled together against an addiction. One man was hiding his sexual orientation from his family. A woman related her reunion as an adult with her father, only to learn that he just wanted her money to serve his addiction. I discovered that some seemingly upright figures were really gamblers who lost all their family's money, more than once. I heard the tales of too many women who had been abandoned by their children's fathers and had to pull it together on their own. And, of course, I heard from women and men about the abuse they had suffered as children. So many problems.

I was making connections with people, very real connections that were supportive and empathetic. I appreciated it so much . . . and yet it seemed that the world had suddenly turned dark. What had happened? Where had all these problems come from? When did everyone get so damaged? Of course, the answer was that it had always been that way, carefully concealed by everyone who was scared of the shame that would befall them. Before all of my own problems started, I was living in a fragile false reality thinking that people with real problems were rare. And then the curtain was pulled back. I "joined the club", so to speak. The most depressing club I never wanted to join.

Well, I like the curtain pulled back (and I'm not just saying that because misery loves company). Why are we supporting a false reality? Who does that serve? It's just a shame factory. Let's drop the shame and pull back the curtain. I'm not saying you should announce all your family's troubles to every passing stranger. But when you happen upon someone who is going through a similar circumstance, let them know you empathize. And when you come across someone ignorant of the real problems in life, educate them a little (politely, of course). I think if we lived life in a more genuine manner we would realize that shame is a useless thing. I think we would find that the life we are experiencing, while unique, is not so different from our neighbors. I think if people were more willing to reveal the damage they have experienced in life - those things that we hide in shame - we would be more likely to find genuine understanding from our community instead of the humiliation and banishment we expect.

If you are a woman who is experiencing the first shock of learning that your loved one is a sex offender and you are putting off that grocery trip because you fear the public shame, then I encourage you to face your fear. Wherever you need to go, go there knowing you belong there. You have the right to feed your family and access your bank accounts. I think you will find that most people will act as normal as ever. I think you will also find some who are kinder then they have ever been. I hope you don't find any unkind, but if you do, stand tall. You are the one who has seen behind the curtain. You know that this is a damaged world where good people, like you and most of the people around you, are unfairly hurt. The rude people who snub you are still looking at the curtain (heck, they wove that curtain and hung it proudly!). You don't need to bend to such blind individuals. Look at them with pity and act nice. If you do it right, you'll leave them questioning their reality a bit. Frankly, they need it.