A little something a sex offender's wife CAN do...a Survey to help researchers understand what happened to us and to our families

From Sharon Denniston, Ph.D. Candidate in Public Policy and Administration
Walden University, College of Social and Behavioral Science
Filipek Scholar to Not The Life I Chose...via WAR

Dear Janet Mackie,
Your help is needed to participate in this research study.  If you are eligible, your participation by taking the survey is very important.  Whether you are eligible or not, please share this survey flyer with others that might be eligible, or that might know of eligible persons.

This research study examines mental health impacts of registering individuals as sex offenders for 1 or more offenses that occurred at less than 18 years of age.  Potential consequences of this policy after these individuals have reached adulthood are studied.   The survey is taken online and is anonymous.  (Person distributing the flyer do not provide any names of potential participants to the researcher, and they do not have to collect any data from the participant.)

Even though this study is called the “Juvenile Sex Offender Registration Impact Survey”, eligible participants must currently live in the United States, are currently between 21 and 39 years of age, and meet one of the following criteria:

1) they have never had to register as a sex offender (it doesn't matter if they have a criminal record or not--just as long as they have never had to register)

2) they are currently required to register as a sex offender for 1 or more offenses that occurred when they were less than 18 years old (the offenses may have been handled in juvenile or adult court)

3) they were previously required to register as a sex offender (but no longer have to register), for 1 or more offenses that occurred when they were less than 18 years old (the offenses may have been handled in juvenile or adult court)

This study gives participants a rare opportunity to contribute to scholarly research regarding the potential impacts of sex offender registration on juvenile offenders.  Please take this study if you qualify for it.  Also, share this with other persons who may qualify for this study or with other individuals that might know of persons that qualify.  The flyer about the study is attached.  I'm also including the link directly to the survey to make it easier to participate.  After the first few pages of information at the survey website, participants that qualify for the study should have about 70 - 80 questions.  You must press "Done" at the end for your study to be complete.  If you have 5 or less questions it means you did not qualify for the study.  If this occurs and you really do fit the criteria for the study, you may take the survey again, taking care to read the questions carefully, so you answer correctly (especially question #5).  

* 5. Are you currently, or have you in the past been required to register as a sex offender because of an offense that you committed when you were 18 years of age or older?  (For persons that have had to register, this is referring to your age when the act itself occurred or was alleged to have occurred--not your age when you were charged or convicted.  If you have never had to register, your answer should be "No".  Also, if you have had to register, but you committed the offense when you were less than 18 years old, your answer should be "No".) 
No or Yes
 
If you meet the criteria and are willing to take the quick survey a link is provided below. For those participating, WAR will enter you in a drawing for a $50 gift card after you complete the survey and click on "DONE" then send a screen print of that page to contact@womenagainstregistry.com

We will have the drawing at 6 PM CT on July 31, 2015.  Now an important question....how many on-line surveys can you participate in for a chance to win a $50 gift card for 20 minutes of your time while helping impact an important component of this issue.

You must press "DONE" below to complete the survey.  
Thank you for your participation in this very important study.
If you feel you need mental health assistance after completing this survey, please call or go on-line to:

The National Hopeline Center         1-800-442-HOPE or http://hopeline.com/gethelpnow.html

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JSORSurvey

Sharon Denniston, Ph.D. Candidate in Public Policy and Administration
Walden University, College of Social and Behavioral Science
Filipek Scholar


WAR Admin

Regarding the Question of Re-Marriage, of Re-Building after Betrayal, especially when as wives and mothers we never saw it coming...

It is pretty well known that wives of Alcoholics learn to behave in certain ways, in fact the  word "Enabler " was coined (by some "mental health professional" no doubt) to point out the part wives learn to play in their continuing attempts  to cover up "the Problem."  I have come to see that as a sex offender's wife, I too "Enabled" even though I clearly did not understand just What I was "Enabling."

Even after we recognize our betrayal some of us continue to "enable"

As "Wives" we  don't want our husbands/ our family exposed, fired from their jobs. W e dread the loss of social standing. We say it's unfair! Society is "unfair" And it's true, we don't want our  children pointed out, our  family ridiculed,  pitied or God Forbid, reported to the police, for any reason. "Good" wives know, we  are expected to be eternally supportive, Not matter what the family "problems" we think if we just try harder. We think we should be able to fix it...and if not we blame ourselves.  .

We may make  make  every effort  to avoid facing "the problem" in our relationship whatever we think "it" is, we don't want to think about it.  To wish  to avoid having the family Exposed as "different." we minimize (He's not a drunk. He just drinks a little too much. or in the case of sexual abuse: we tell ourselves "Pornography isn't really a sexual offense. etc. Sexual  addiction is a disease and it's no one's business if my husband...We say It's "Family Business" just keep quiet. ... Whatever..".it"  was, it's just... . We fool ourselves. "I'm not really the sole support of this family, I'm only helping out a little.Just until...this court stuff blows over...he works/ed when he could....We tell ourselves "The others  lied/ the child lied/ he says he didn't do "it" He's not really a drunk, not a sex offender, not unfaithful etc etc It's all just SO unfair we tell ourselves..."It was only once...)

For whatever "reasons"  as wives and girlfriends (mothers) we worry, excuse, attempt to cover up the extent of the damage that "Alcoholism"  (or those far less mentionable "problems we do not even want to "imagine") are wrecking/ have wrecked, upon our  marriage or relationship or children,  upon our  whole family even before the knock on the door, the police. Even when "our alcoholic" "Our Offender" the  "til death do us part" "the love of our life" goes to jail (for DUI or fighting ...or a Sex Offense)  We think we must be Ever faithful.  As good wives,we keep on keeping on far longer than love, /marriage vows or even reason would seem to require. We Enable. We blame ourselves...My mother did. I certainly did.

The   label "Enabler" (like "good wife") is well earned. Yet we do not see that we have been conditioned as good wives and mothers to  put forth such efforts. And because we continue,  due to our efforts to fix to "love away" the problems the "Harm"  goes on much longer,  In the process the entire family which we as wives  and mothers try so hard to keep together becomes infected, learns   a family pattern of   enabling . Our children learn these toxic patterns of behavior when they are abused, molested,  witness domestic violence and /or Alcoholism.  But what about the wives of sex offenders? As  wives and mothers, I believe, that we too,  all too often  assume the role of fixer/enabeler. to minimize the guilt in not having "fixed" whatever relationship "problem" infests our family.

Even when we don't exactly know what the "problem is", when we have been all too effectively lied to,  we assume blame fearing that "it" must be our fault because we never "fixed" what ever "it" was. But never fear, now  we will,  even while  our husband  continues  the process,  lying and betraying and taking advantage thereby mentally, emotionally and even physically continuing to abuse not only our children but us as well... But we "forgive."

We continue to minimize, to believe the power of our love will make everything "All right." We even learn to feel Pride  in our own endurance in the strength of our love, in our faith which keeps us   keeping on. We are after all "good women"  We pride ourselves in being "good/faithful/and forgiving" . We ,tell ourselves now he's been arrested (unfair as it is) we now know the problem and he says he'll change so, true to our marriage vows, here's our chance to "fix" everything. We still have a chance to be "good" wives etc etc etc...even standing in line outside the prison on visiting day ...don't we feel a certain pride.

Sound familiar?   We wives of sex offenders seem to behave in much the same way, before and after their  betrayals are exposed.. In much the same way, as wives and mothers  who don't even yet realize the harm being done our  children,  we continue to pride ourselves, upon our continuing love and support  for husbands (who are/were betraying the very vows we once  imagined they too  held  sacred.)   We all want to imagine that we can (unilaterally) "fix things" unilaterally love everything back together (even if we don't, quite yet, know exactly what went wrong.)

The problem is that even if we choose divorce we,(much like the exhausted wives of  alcoholics) as wives were conditioned   to meet  unreasonable demands, We learned to need to be needed.  Much like the wives of Alcoholics,  we are all to prone to run our and marry another "Strangely Familiar" man who offers us the opportunity to (this time) successfully "Fix" another "Strangely Familiar Relationship" so that we can, at last, live happily ever after.

The wives of Alcoholics have a place to go, to listen and learn from others affected by alcoholism. It's called Alanon.  Adult children of Alcoholics attend (you guessed it) Adult Children Meetings.
AA has been active for nearly 100 years and meetings can be located n every town.

 As the wives and children of sexual abusers, we could learn a lot from Alanon.  In fact in Alanon, some women and children are able to see family patterns  of "abuse" across all the spectrums of pain and harm injected into their own lives.  Some are even mentioning in meetings that they  were also sexually abused in childhood, They too witnessed  domestics abuse etc etc.

I am not suggesting that every prornographer, every sexual abuser is in fact and alcoholic, nor am I suggesting every alcoholic is an abuser... I am saying, Just saying, that we all have a lot in common. Child sexual abuse like alcoholism is a Family disease....

Just Saying,... In such families, we w omen and children learn early that its secret "Family Business' that it's our responsibility to  "fix" Family situations, however DIS-separate the cause of our own harm. These Family "symptoms" seem to be much the same. Once learned  in what ever abusive family,  we all may learn to react in similar ways, in addition to the harm caused during the commission of  child sexual abuse...families  all learn to feel guilt, to believe   that we shoulda/woulda/coulda   prevented/harm. We think we, abused and betrayed as we often are, we must /fixed our families...    So we all  learn similar patterns and  we carry into our next "relationship"

Just saying. There are Family Patterns... After all I was molested as a child,  My mother was not molested as a child but she learned early the role of good wife and enabler and fell for a man, my father, who molested me and my bothers. AND THEN, having also learned the lessen of  good wife and   I fell in love and married  a  man, (molested as a child ) who was himself "strangely" like my own father. My husband then sexually abused my children...

I tell you this because I believe there is an underlying pattern and unless, or  until I (like the women in Alanon) see my own conditioning as a wife and mother there is nothing to stop the harm spreading..even to the next generation.  We say Alcohilism "runs in families." Many wives of Alcoholics divorce one alcoholic only to marry another.

I have come to believe that if as the wives of sex offenders, we continue to hope for another/ better/safer marriage without ever understand our own  ingrained conditioning ( "NOT seeing" "Not knowing" pride in the power of our love to "fix" our family," belief in  a wife's "supportive" role in marriage.)...As wives (especially as wives of sex offenders) we  will continue (consciously or unconsciously to accwept even seek out the role of Enabler. We will continue to be attracted to strangely familiar men attracted to a  woman able to "enable" him at the expense of her children.

As the wives of sex offenders, we can't keep  "just not  thinking about it", We betray ourselves and our children when we depend upon  "luck"  to decide whether the next man who seems to "fit our expectations", the next one "who feels strangely familiar" the "good" one who wants to help us "Rebuild" seems strangely familiar because he stoo, somehow "fits." an already established family pattern.  bling.

Just saying...In  "I don't want to  think about "it" just "not identifying, not examining  "strangely familiar"  patterns in our own lives ...will not protect us or our children...

Fo In"Not thinking" the unthinkable... don't we just  re-expose our selves and our children, expose even perhaps future generations who pass along  broken family patterns

Even thinking such thought is terrifying.

What do you think?

Free online training:...As mothers, dealing with our own betrayal is far from easy..reaching out, talking to our own children feels impossible

Janet,
No one ever knew that when I was 10 years old, my babysitter’s son sexually abused me. My mother suspected something wasn't right, but she didn’t know how to talk to me about it.
Forty-nine years later, I still feel the effects: PTSD, panic attacks, low self-esteem. But since I shared my story, I’ve found that speaking out is helping me heal – and helping prevent the same thing from happening to another child.
Darkness to Light’s Stewards of Children^® online training teaches adults how to prevent, recognize, and react responsibly to child sexual abuse, including tips for talking about it. Nearly one million people have participated in this unique program. Through the powerful voices of survivors, you’ll learn how to see the signs of child sexual abuse and what to do when you suspect a child is being abused.
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My journey hasn't been easy, but I'm proud to have found the courage to speak out as a survivor. Now I'm working to make sure everyone knows what to look for, so that no other children have to suffer through what I did.
Please, take the time to learn what you can do to protect the children in your life.
Be empowered: Take Darkness to Light's Stewards of Children^® training TODAY for free. Follow the link, select "New Account" and check out using coupon code May2015.
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After the Police Knock on the Door what can we do in the months and years to come? I am posting this list for those mothers (like myself) trying to put the pieces of life back together for ourselves and our families, Mother's dealing with the "Aftereffects" of their own child's sexual abuse by a husband we assumed was trustworthy, (some of us dealing the unrecognized "Aftereffects" of our own childhood sexual abuse) the Incest Survivors' Aftereffects Checklist, by E.Sue Blume may help to make sense of our reactions (and even our choices) as wives and mothers. In any case I pass the list on to you in hopes it helps make some order out of the chaos we all go through

Secret Survivors’ Aftereffects Checklist, by E. Sue Blume

survivormanual.com/2009/11/checklist/

Angela Shelton

This list is from E. Sue Bloom, author of, Secret Survivors: Uncovering Incest and Its Aftereffects in Women

Author’s note: This list may be copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes without prior authorization, as long as it is not edited or altered in any way. That is, nothing may be removed or changed. For all uses for which a fee is charged, and other uses–presentations, education, publishing– the author must be contacted for permission.

THE INCEST SURVIVORS’ AFTEREFFECTS CHECKLIST

• Copyright © 1985–2004 by E. Sue Blume, C.S.W., Diplomate in Clinical Social Work

INCEST is any use of a minor child to meet the sexual or sexual/emotional needs of one or more older or more powerful persons in ongoing emotional relationship(s) with that child (parent, step- or grandparent, sibling, babysitter, mother’s boyfriend, teacher, rabbi, priest, family doctor, etc.). Although incest has traditionally been defined as sex and/or marriage between close relatives, above all, it is child abuse—an assault on the child’s sexual boundaries by the very person(s) entrusted with her care. It is a violation of a dependency bond, not of a blood relationship. And it does not require touch. A child can be violated through inappropriate photographs, the way she is talked to or by the way she is looked at.

Incest is such a traumatic experience that its victims may forget that it even occurred. But its scars live on, confusing in their seeming meaninglessness. Problems with sex, trust, touch, addictions, paralyzing depression, memory, shame and guilt can feel crazy and out of control, especially when the cause is unknown. This Checklist describes the consequences of incest trauma. It offers a profile of the post-incest experience in women (although many items apply to men as well), or “Post-Incest Syndrome”. It can be used as a guide to help survivors understand that there are legitimate reasons for their unrelenting difficulties—that, in fact, these “problems” are actually valiant attempts to cope with an impossible situation, and to meet healthy underlying needs.
Many of the items on this list can also apply to survivors of childhood abuses such as battering, or adult children of families where there is a history of alcoholism. Incest is especially common in alcoholic families, although not all alcohol-involved abuse is attributable to the disease of alcoholism. Incest perpetrators often apply the same defenses to their behavior as those used by alcoholics: denial, minimizing, and projection of blame. Additionally, perpetrators, just like victims, may dissociate the abuse. Still, incest is always the responsibility of the abuser. Although incest perpetrators are often described as “sick,” for the most part, this behavior is a choice—intentional, planned, and purposefully hidden.
Have you been struggling with problems that nothing seemed to help, for which even therapy could not find a cause? If the majority of the items of this list apply to you, you might want to consider whether you are a survivor of incest. Of course, you should never allow a checklist, or another person, to determine whether you have been abused. Only you can determine this, and the quest for such answers is long and painful. Even then, remembering is not the end of the process of recovery, but the beginning. If you are a survivor, above all, know this: you are not to blame. And healing is possible; with help, you can break free from the self-blame, isolation, and the entrapment of Post-Incest Syndrome.
This Checklist is based on an original list by New York Women Against Rape, as well as extensive observation of and communication with survivors. To all who contributed: your generous sharing of your experiences and pain is a gift to all survivors.

1. Fear of being alone in the dark, of sleeping alone; nightmares (especially of rape, pursuit, threat, entrapment, blood); night terrors.
2. Swallowing and gagging senstivitiy; repugnance to water on face when bathing or swimming (suffocation feelings.)lings)
3. Poor or distorted body image; alienation from, not at home in, failure to heed signals or take care of body; manipulating body size to avoid sexual attention; compulsive cleanliness, incl. bathing in scalding water; or, total inattention to personal appearance or hygiene
4. Somatization, stress-related diseases: gastrointestinal problems, GYN disorders (including spontaneous vaginal infections); headaches; arthritis/joint pain; fibromyalgia. Also internal scarring. Aversion to doctors (esp. gynecologists, dentists)
5. Wearing a lot of clothing, even in summer; baggy clothes; failure to remove clothing even when appropriate to do so (while swimming, bathing, sleeping); extreme requirement for privacy when using bathroom
6. Addictions, eating disorders, drug/alcohol overuse/abuse/or total abstinence; compulsive behaviors (including busyness)
7. Self-injury (cutting, burning, etc.) (physical pain is manageable) (this is an addictive pattern); self-destructiveness
8. Phobias, panic, anxiety
9. Need to be invisible, perfect, or perfectly bad
10. Suicidal thoughts, attempts, obsession (including “passive suicide”)
11. Depression (sometimes paralyzing); seemingly baseless crying; sadness
12. Anger issues: inability to recognize, own or express anger; rage; fear of rage (actual or imagined); constant anger; misdirected anger, intense hostility toward entire gender or ethnic group (“race”) of the perpetrator
13. PTSD symptoms, including shock or shutdown in crisis (stressful situation always = crisis); psychic numbing. “Hysterical” symptoms: physical pain, paralysis, numbness associated with particular memory, emotion (e.g. anger) or situation (e.g. sex). See also “flashbacks” in item 26.
14. Rigid control of thought process; humorlessness or extreme solemnity
15. Childhood hiding, hanging on, cowering in corners (security-seeking behaviors); adult nervousness over being watched or surprised; feeling watched; startle response; hypervigilance
16. Inability to trust (trust is not safe); absolute trust that turns to rage when disappointed; trusting indiscriminately
17. High risk taking (“daring the fates”); inability to take risks
18. Control, power, territoriality issues; fear of losing control; obsessive/compulsive behaviors (attempts to control things that don’t matter, just to control something!); power/sex confusion (see also #27)
19. Guilt/ shame/ low self-esteem/ feeling worthless/ high appreciation of small favors by others
20. Pattern of being a victim (victimizing oneself after being victimized by others), especially sexually; no sense of own power or right to set limits or say “no;” pattern of relationships with much older or more powerful persons (onset in adolescence); OR exaggerated sense of entitlement; revictimization by others (adult sexual violence, including sexual exploitation by bosses and “helping” professionals
21. Must “produce” to be loved; instinctively knowing, doing what the others need or want; relationships = big tradeoffs
22. Disturbances in attachment; abandonment issues; desire for relationships with no separateness; avoidance/fear of intimacy
23. Dissociation: blocking out some period of early years (esp. 1–12), specific person, place, event; creating fantasy worlds, identities (incl. women imagining self to be male, = not a victim); Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) (was MPD)
24. Feeling of carrying an awful secret; urge to tell/ fear of its being revealed; certainty that no-one would listen. Being generally secretive. Feeling “marked” (the “scarlet letter”)
25. Feeling crazy; feeling different; feeling oneself to be unreal and everyone else to be real, or vice versa; cognitive problems
26. Denial (no awareness); repression of memories; pretending; minimizing (“it wasn’t that bad”); strong, deep, “inappropriate” negative reactions to a person, place or event; flashbacks, which may occur as dreams, or sensory flashes (a brief image or feeling) with no meaning; or memories of surrounding details but not event or identity of abuser. Memory often begins with least threatening event or abuser. Details of experience may never be fully or accurately known, but much recovery is possible without full recall. Your inner guide will release memories at the pace you can handle (see also #13, #23)
27. Sexual issues: sex feels “dirty;” aversion to being touched; strong aversion to (or need for) particular sex acts; feeling betrayed by one’s body; trouble integrating sexuality and emotionality; confusion or overlapping of affection/ sex/ dominance/ aggression/ violence; having to pursue power in sexual arena which is actually sexual acting out (self-abuse, manipulation [esp. women]; abuse of others [esp. men]); compulsively “seductive,” or compulsively asexual; must be sexual aggressor, or cannot be; impersonal, “promiscuous” sex with strangers concurrent with inability to have sex in intimate relationship (conflict between sex and caring); prostitute, stripper, “sex symbol” (Marilyn Monroe), porn actress; sexual “acting out” to meet anger or revenge needs; sexual addiction; avoidance; shutdown; crying after orgasm; pursuit feels like violation; sexualizing of all meaningful relationships; erotic response to abuse or anger, sexual fantasies of dominance/ real rape (results in guilt and confusion); teenage pregnancy. Note: Homosexuality is not an aftereffect!
28. Pattern of ambivalent or intensely conflictual relationships (abuse is familiar; also, in true intimacy, issues are more likely to surface; in problem relationships, focus can be shifted from real issue of incest). Note: Partner of survivor often suffers consequences of Post-Incest Syndrome also (especially sex and relationship issues)
29. Avoidance of mirrors (connected with invisibility, shame/self-esteem issues; distorted perceptions of face or body, DID)
30. Desire to change one’s name (to dis-associate from the perpetrator or take control through self-labeling)
31. Limited tolerance for happiness; active withdrawal from/ reluctance to trust happiness (“ice = thin”)
32. Aversion to noise-making (including during sex, crying, laughing, or other body functions); verbal hypervigilance (careful monitoring of one’s words); quiet-voiced, especially when needing to be heard
33. Stealing (adults); fire-starting (children)
34. Food sensitivities/avoidance based on texture (mayonnaise) or appearance (hot dogs), which remind the survivor of abuse, or smell/sound which remind survivor of perpetrator; aversion to meat, red foods
35. Compulsive honesty or compulsive dishonesty (lying)
36. Hypervigilance regarding child abuse, or inability to see child abuse, or avoidance of any awareness or mention of child abuse; tendency to develop relationships with incest perpetrators
37. Personality disorders, characteristics; Psychiatric illness (NOTE: Post-Incest Syndrome is often misdiagnosed as these)

• Note to therapists and survivors: Some items on this list are strongly associated with childhood sexual abuse; however, over 25 items should be identified before incest is suspected. Proceed with caution!
• Survivors and partners, be gentle with yourselves—and each other.

Secret Survivors Paperback – January 20, 1998

by

E. Sue Blume (Author) › Visit Amazon's E. Sue Blume Page Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author

E. Sue Blume (Author)

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All rights reserved. No portion of this Aftereffects list may be copied or reprinted without the author’s permission. Requests may

be submitted to the author at the above address. Your thoughts and comments on this material are also welcome.


E. Sue Blume’s book based on this list, Secret Survivors: Uncovering Incest and Its Aftereffects in Women is available as a Ballantine paperback (at your bookstore, or through such websites as amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, etc.). Lectures on this and other material can be scheduled with the author.

E. Sue Blume, LCSW, Diplomate
P.O. Box 7167
Garden City, N.Y. 11530

A Misunderstood Bagel Thief or "just" a Convicted Sex Offender, an innocent Husband,or even my own Father, a Billionaire Banker, Bill Cosby or a Charming Prince,

The fire storm of disbelief and condemnation that greeted Lena Dunham's revelation of rape (http://mic.com/articles/106148/lena-dunham-just-summed-up-the-biggest-problem-with-how-we-talk-about-rape-in-america which she also talked about in her own memoir)  brings up, for me a related issue:  Dunham's detractors especially questioned  "how exactly to Define Rape" questioned whether she  actually  was raped or was NOT actually raped in the light of  their definition.)

The "fire storm"  brings up a related issue for me and most mothers like me caught up in the mailstrom that results when  our own child reports being molested. (never mind the legal definition of molest or the neighbors or the families "definition" of our child's pain filled experience)

What mother and wives run into is the buzz saw of  who and how they   
choose to define  Mother.  As in She was right there, how could she NOT know etc etc ad nauseum.) and then the judging and the self judging until we find a place like Not the Life where we must come to our own conclusions about what it means to be a mother to a molested child and/wife (or grand,mother mother related to the molester) Religious, or legal or social Definitions don't suffice.

Lately there seems to be a lot of discussion about whether to believe children who report sexual abuse or wait, redefine, allow an uncertain justice and expensive lawyers to define just "what happened." Mothers wonder which words to use to characterize those accused  (we also have to come to terms with who we are or thought we were before the knock on the door.) thus what to term the "crime" if they committed it, and if it is proven and.. Anyway,  what words, by whose definitions  DO we   explain "it"  to the neighbors, to our other kids,  never mind what words do we find  to explain "this" betrayal to  ourselves? Do we even define "it" as a betrayal of ourselves?)

This  question of definition and condemnation is what we all deal with as Wives and Mothers and Victims  commenting on Not the Life I Chose.  How we chose to define this problem  largely decides what we do about solving our future. What words do we use?  Of course we probably would not marry a known convicted sexual predator but if we our husband was accused and we were already married  couldn't the crime be  other-wise defined? Couldn't we just rely on the religious definition of Good wife? Perhaps. Perhaps not. We dread labeling and perhaps condemning ourselves even in our own minds no matter the definition we "choose" others will certainly define us as failures and condemn us. By definition, no mother allows this to "happen" to a child she is sworn to protect. No omniscient loving mother could NOT know. Could she?

We tell ourselves that we are the Not-criminals but we're getting  treated like criminals.  Such crimes (and such re-definition) is not only confined to our own neighborhoods, not only to our own betrayed and misunderstood and grieving families. Some of us just choose to deny and  smile right along with our "I'm innocent" husband. W hat ever you decide about Bill, Camille Cosby has a wonderful smile and she has been smiling for Bill for going on 50 years.

As I began to edit the manuscript of  my own "incest" memoir  questions about language arose. I also asked myself over and over "Why didn't I just know?" After all I grew up in an incest family. Yet, I chose to marry a man strangely like my own Father who incested my children. (did you know that there is no such blunt word as incested? Nor does the  word "incester" exist to cleanly describe a father who incests his small son or daughter? I know, even incests does not exist, you must go around the bush and refer to someone who "commits incest.")

And notice sexual language becomes murkier (and more impersonal / third person  ) yet when you enter into the realms of religion and law and Polite Society. The language of Stranger Danger intrudes: Pedophile priest, Pedophile Coach or Scout master...but is a father or grandfather who has long preferred sex with his own underage family also a Pedophile or a serial/ generational incester? If a Child Pornographer only sells imaged of sex trafficked children to middle class surfers, does that mean that Daddy's who surf are only exercising their right to Free Speech?

Yet I followed scrupulously followed  directions in the same religious script laid down by church and society and by my mother and grandmother. How could I not have just known? Trained in dependency I happily put my trust in my husband. I would have said our marriage was "Happy." Given the words I knew how could I have even  imagined a Disney movie like Frozen in which my Prince Charming was actually the bad guy. My script said Cinderella married her hero husband  and they "Rode off into the Sunset"  They "Lived Happily Ever After." He was Prince Charming after all.

Writing my memoir,  made me  examine the language I was taught by religion and society and by the women and men in my family. I realized the denial of descriptors and action words and the alternate selection of "appropriate" words-to-describe or even characterize what my father did to me and what my husband did to my children made the pain  vague  and never-specific and above all my fault. How could I have reported  virtually, nothing in forbidden "words " I did not know? Children are taught NOT to say "No" to adults. The words we were taught allowed/ protected/ covered up /silenced even the knowledge of incest and sexual abuse rampant in my family (and in society) My father told me he was  "Giving me a good spanking " when he took me into the bedroom  and molested and hit. What was there to report? That my father spanked me because I had been naughty?  It was a spare the rod spoil the child world and the words came straight from the Bible. "God says..."

Our words demonize "them" too, as Stranger Danger (never as Fathers) they are blood thirsty Strangers Serial killers who could not be the upstanding husbands and fathers who only touched us down there while we slept or brought us up in the way we should go with an occasional "good spanking"  "They" are Not defined as fathers Surfing the internet who only watched pornography (or took trophy pictures of us) since pornography also is widely defined as a victim-less video crime (much as our permitted words would have us believe that whatever  our fathers "may have done" in the night was also victim-less because we had no words to describe our victimization and thus we should  erase ourselves and our inexplicable pain. ) "Don't think about "it." "Forget and forgive." "Be quiet, you will only embarrass yourself." So, you got-yourself-pregnant?" By our words or absence of words we participate in Un-defining even ourselves. Thus we also Un-define our children as having human rights as human beings worthy of the  protections owed all this world's children.

It gets so confusing. No wonder our heads swim.  But the Re-definition goes on.  For example Jonathan Turley ( jonathanturley ) in his blog about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein (Billionaire Banker, procurer and videographer of underage girls performing sexual acts with the world's rich and famous, Turley (read the entire post at  jonathanturley )  indicates that:

"Shortly after his release from prison, he (Epstein) was quoted as denying that he is a real criminal and said “I’m not a sexual predator, I’m an ‘offender’. It’s the difference between a murderer and a person who steals a bagel.”).   Apparently, by Epstien's definition, a rose by any other name is simly a bagel thief?

In religious circles and nice neighborhoods, sexual predators are defined only as "Stranger Danger." Nice Girls living at home are at least technically safe,  Virginal in mind and body (or at least by reputation) Nice Girls do not know nor do they speak  aloud "dirty" words for sexual activities whic do not actually occur down there. Only Bad little Girls even imagine there might be something going on down there or posses/speak aloud  descriptive words to complain (in this society all descriptive words are considered dirty: cunt, butt-f**, suck, blow,  any service the famous F-word in any of it's manifestations might describe are proof-positive the Nice Girl is gone Bad.) Such f-words constitute all the descriptions any resident Bagel Thief might use to tell us exactly how to service them after mom leaves for church)

The very fact that we "imagined" Bagel Thief words only proved (according to the Bagel Thief himself that we were Bad boys and girls fantasizing rape to  seduce even our own upstanding father or coach or grandfather or....  Such a Bad Girl (or Boy) might certainly be dismissed as confused or crazy. Bad girls are subject to slut-shaming by good girls and silenced by their worried mothers.  We were supposed just say No, just to point to down there. And if the incest report were believed  WE were the children removed from our own home just as the bagel Thief had often warned would happen to us if were were bad and "told on" our father...   (Removal was Proof Enough that We were the Bad little Seeds, the rebellious ones who "got ourselves" pregnant, the liars, the crazy ones.) and therefore should never be believed or taken seriously. (even though the bagel Thief had told us that if we told he would kill our younger brother)

Then their are the Mothers (like my mother, like me  ) who taught me and taught our own children that the Bagel Thief's were indeed right. Mothers like my mother and mothers like me who shush up our own little boys and girls.. Mothers who teach Bagel thief words to the next generation. Mothers who warn over and over, "Now! Be Nice.)  We are the people who marry the Bagel Thief's who mother them and believe them and pass on the virus embedded in language, We are charmed, or engulfed or afraid...like we were in childhood.  When Real Language demands we call a Rose a Rose and a spade a spade we go along with the rest of Nice Society and agree to redefine offenders and take pity upon the poor Bagel Thiefs   We forget and forgive and vague out language  Before we decide whether to stay or to go. Before we decide whether to believe the Bagel Thief or the child, Whether to "mother" our  resident sex offender. or chose to put ourselves and our child first.

In my own experience, Bagel Thieves manage pretty well and if we fail to define ourselves as the sort of loving wife who steps up and put her husband  first, there is always someone  else waiting to define them as "innocent" and us as the ex-, the bad mother we ourselves often fear we were.  You know the mother who believed her child's story instead of redefining  "it"  as just inappropriate... well, maybe there was some inappropriate touching but surely there must have been some misunderstanding of the definition of whatever...

.

Discovering Courage to Claim (past, present or "possible") Membership in The Discredited Wives Club...and move on unafraid of "What People will think" ...

As the Wives, ex-wives, girlfriends and mother's with current or former family members accused, adjudicated, imprisoned or on probation, parole or "On the Registry" we have precious few ways to "connect" with each other either in person or even on the internet. We are divided by our own Shame and Denial and by the injustices imposed upon us as family member by  the "Justice System."

 Many of us will spend the rest of our lives trying  to outrun the stigma and the pain. We deny our own experience. We say "our Offender" did not committed the crime. We rail against the unfairness of the discrimination and prejudice we and our children face. We silence and hide and re-marry in hopes of Putting "it" all behind us. We internalize their prejudice and then ask ourselves how WE could have been so stupid?  As though we were at fault. We are indeed The Discredited Wives Club. But, in our shame, we deny ourselves the support,, the strength, the camaraderie of others because we want to return to our own prejudice against "Those Women" We do not want to ever, be one of those deeply discredited women.  You know one of Those women like they show on Netflix  you know one of those"Prisoner's Wives" as pre-defined by whoever made a bundle filming Those women.

 Recently I was talking to a woman heavily involved in "prisoners rights" per se.

When I mentioned the issues faced by women living with parolees...after release, (not even sex offenders) just simply parolees and dealing with parole restrictions (and Parole Officers) and the chilling effect that has on the lives of the women (and children) on women's lives, the Woman, Activist was indeed  amazed> She  said she had never even heard of the issue  (and she made it pretty clear that she still  wasn't at all interested in an issue involving  those women )

She quickly advised " just search the internet"...she was sure WE could find each other somewhere. 

I pointed out that wives and mother's with a family member "On the Registry" or "just" on Parole have no way to connect or discuss the effects of "association with stigma" on families and future... The "prisoner's rights" activist turned off, tuned out...ust went back to obsessing about  prisoners..
Prisoners Rights as an issue  is a  much more .acceptable "injustice" than the rights (or wrongs) experienced by the Discredited Wives Club.

Sex Offenders are required by Parole and Probation Departments in every State to attend Group / Individual Therapy programs...ever heard of a Discredited Wives Support Group?  Even a Discredited Wives Sewing circle?  Nope


The real problem is that unless we get to know one another, unless we "Share" as they say in or out of we are all too likely to just marry quickly and run right back into the same "strangely familiar" territory that allowed us to become the Betrayed Wives eligible for repeat membership in the Discredited Wives Club...  Child sexual abuse, incest, child pornography, is part and parcel of Generational child sexual abuse running through far too many middle class families. How else explain how the perpetrator became a perpetrator himself...how the Perpetrators Family kept the secret we all deny is hiding there.

Failure to acknowledge and deal with our membership (however blamelessly acquired) bleeds directly into the next generation of Family Secrecy and destruction..

Elizabeth: "I chose."

This is a story that was emailed to me. I love it. She made wise choices to protect her children and let them speak. ~ Evie

An email from Elizabeth:
It was four years ago today when I was changing my sick infants diaper that my oldest age 6 told me that her and Daddy had a secret.  My response was that we don’t keep secrets in this family. I guess I should have said I don’t keep secrets in this family. Trusting child that she was she told me her secret and I froze. That’s when Kurt came home; he had been at the store getting medicine for the baby before he had to go to work. He came up stairs handed me the medicine, got dressed for work kissed my forehead and said I love you and walked out the door, I was silent the entire time. Those were the last words he ever spoke to me.  For an hour I stumbled around the house.  I loaded the dishwasher, folded some clothes, and contemplated packing bags for me and my kids and driving from Ga to Wa. Instead I called a local friend and told her that she had to come over or I had to come see her. She said to come over, she later told me that she thought I had found out Kurt had cheated on me, that detail didn’t sink in til almost a year later. The first thing she asked after I got the courage to spit out the words was “are you going to stay?” Honestly that thought never crossed my mind. I fought hard to keep my oldest alive as a premature infant. I lost all but one of my friends and a few role models when I choose to keep her instead of giving her up for adoption. I was NOT going to tell her when she grew up that my love for her Daddy was more important than her safety. My friend contacted CPS, they talked to me over the phone and an hour or so later I found out Kurt had been arrested. 3 hours later they had a written confession from him. He went to jail that very night. I gave the police everything they asked for, coming in and writing down what happened that day, going to CPS to have my oldest and her almost 3 year old sister video recorded interviews so that they could get any evidence they could. I hid at my friends house for a month, god bless her for taking us in like that.  I never spent another night in the house we had shared. I moved my and the kids stuff out and into a new apartment. We were divorced within 3 months and when the school year was over we moved to CA and in with my parents. It took a year from his arrest to the trial. My daughter and I both had to testify. I wasn’t allowed to be in the court room when she had to testify. Kurt’s parents came to support him. They asked for liency after he was found guilty. I told them that they could have contact with Kurt OR the children not both. I haven’t talked to either one since that day. Even if the judge wanted to be lienet the minimum sentence was 25 years with no chance of early parole. I am grateful for this for a few reasons. One because by the time he gets out my children will be 31, 27 and 25 year old adults. They will have established their personalities and have done a lot of growing without him and if he chooses to try and contact them, they will be at the point where they can make that decision from an adults prospective rather than a child who wants a father or a teen who is searching for identity. Another reason I am grateful is because it gives me no opportunity to rethink my decision. Because even though I didn’t even think about staying and I have had absolutely no contact with him, I still love him and that is so hard for me. Some days I wish for the life I had before the secret. I had an involved parent in my children’s life, I had an understanding partner who helped around the house and helped me find my self-respect. I had some one who loved me and listened to me. We had dreams of a future. We rarely fought. And now all that is gone. I lived 3 years with my parents who after a while weren’t so quiet about not liking that there were 3 children in the house. My mom and I have a fragile relationship and living with her again torn at me. I am not allowed to talk about feeling or even show sadness. So trying to make sense of this situation was impossible for I had to push everything into a box and tape it shut. I am currently living with a friend as they are going through a divorce but it’s hard, because some days all I can see was the life I was suppose to have, the one we planned, and how it’s not the one I am living.  Now I have to decide each year if I tell my children’s teachers at the beginning of the year or wait for something to be said (so far every year something has been said). I have to explain to adults that my children are allowed to talk about what happened and they are not to shame or make my kids feel guilty for talking about it. I’ve had to explain to my oldest that when you tell people personal stuff that you have to trust that person to keep it to them-selves or risk them telling everyone (which has also happened). I have to trust that the teachers won’t look at my daughter any differently after they find out (which has not always happened).  I’ve had to figure out a way to explain to my younger two where their Daddy is, and why it’s a good thing that he’s there in a way that is age appropriate and without going into detail and still respecting my daughters privacy. I’ve had to deal with people getting offended when I won’t tell them why my ex is no longer in our lives.  I’ve had to deal with well-intentioned therapist who just didn’t know how to connect to my daughter. This isn’t the life I choose. No, that’s not true. I could have stayed, I could have told my daughter she was lying, or just ignored what she said or confronted Kurt and “worked it out”, I could have left with out reporting it and then wonder if I would ever go back.  I chose to report him. I chose to work with the police. I chose to let my daughters make video interviews so that when the caseworker was a victim of a DUI murder, there was still hard evidence that could be used to convict Kurt. I chose to testify. I chose not to contact Kurt. I chose not to have contact with his family if they were going to contact him. I chose. I chose my children. That’s a choice I would make again.