What has Janet Mackie been up to lately? Trying to understand both sides and stop the cycle of abuse from cycling down into the next generations of children growing up abused and struggling on into adulthood...

I commit to blog at least once a month and to answering comments and questions as best I can in response to the community of women, wives, mothers, and adult children still in pain, people in search of  a community to support them in their quest to understand child sexual abuse and what happens afterwards...

I have kept my hand in by responding to comments on Not the Life and by adding a post at least once a month.  I have also been involved in finishing up my Memoir Sex offenders Wife a Daughter's Life, a Mother's Voice Breaking Silence. (I am on my way to my writers group this morning to finish the final edits before I try to find a publisher.) In the process of writing my memoir I have realized that not oly were my own children (and I molested) as chldren but that sexual abuse is a cycle that often does not begin with us.  (My own father was molested as was my husband but that is a long story too and part of the memoir that was hard to deal with since it's easy to just hate our molester without realizing this is a cycle of abuse and we not only need to recognize and hep the abused child in our own family but make certain the abuse stops with our own generation. Often we only think abuse "happens' to girls but while 1 in 4 girls report they were molested before they turened 18, 1 in 6 boys also report they too were molested and few of them report because boys as much (or more) than girls are shamed into silence which has far-reaching consequences for the future...the future of all our children.

One of the things I now realize is that we don't have to be forever victims and neither do our children whether they were molested by a father or family friend or by another child (perhaps) another child who is our own child.

I have come to believe that we need to provide immediate effective treatment for both sides in the equation of child sexual abuse if we are to stop this cycle from 'cycling on down into future generations of children because children who are traumatized when they are young ( some who are sexual abuse but struggle on into adulthood and then molest others when they reach adulthood.

Writing my memoir I realized that my own sexual abuse blinded me in many ways to seeing the abuse that was being perpetuated in my own marriage, It also blinded me to the membory of my  own brother's sexual abuse and how each has struggled (successfully) to avoid passing down their own abuse onto their own friends children and onto their own children. The did not but at a great cost to them selves and their subsequent marriages and families. Writing my memoir helped than understand their own lives and helped them understand and be successful in engaging in their own therapy issues.  My son as well as my daughter were molested and my other son has dodged the bullet only because his older brother knew what was happening and was vigilent in protecting his younger brother.

May of us are in recovery ourselves, have found happy lives in spite of what we experienced in our own marriages, We like Evie have gone on but I believe as Wives and Mother we have experience and knowledge which we mush share in supporting all the wives and mothers who find themselves in need of our support no matter what choices they make when confronted by the "Knock on the door"

For that reason I hope you will keep coming back to this community of women who ALL want to learn not only how to survive their own "Knock on the Door" but who as women and as mother ALL want to protect ALL our children with effective and early interventions which may help to stop the Cycle as it cycles down into harming fur=tur generations of children.

For all of these reasons I welcom Evie Back. For all of there reasons I too will continue to blog  about my own "Adventures in Recovery" About ways we can save all our children and future generations from this horrendous cycle of sexual abuse  I know it sounds like an impossible hope but as mothers and women tasked with the love and lives of children if not us then WHO? If not now, then WHEN?

So let us begin. Please, let us begin to join together in a community of women to end this endemic harm visited upon ALL our children. Janet Mackie

  

Wives of Sex Offenders - A Place to Share

Wives, girlfriends, partners, siblings, parents . . . whoever you are, if you have been shocked to learn that someone in your life is a sex offender, please share your story in the comments of this blog post. I also strongly encourage you to read at least one other person's story and give a supportive reply to them. 

Before you share your story please read these guidelines:

1. Be respectful to each other (and yourself!). There are many types of stories and many types of decisions made. 
2. Do not make excuses or try to explain the crimes committed. This is your story, not theirs. 
3. No victim shaming or blaming shall be tolerated.
4. Child abuse of any kind is detestable. If you don't agree with that statement please find another blog to share on. 

I am a warm, kind person, but if you can't follow my guidelines I will give one warning before coldly deleting your comments. Except there will be no warning for breaking #4. I hope you understand. 

Evie Pruett, where have you been?

I have been living a full and happy life. That's the biggest and best reason that I was away for so long. I have a life again and it is - get this - NORMAL. My daily complaints consist of trivial things like messy rooms and forgetting to pack lunch for work. I have been sleeping peacefully during the nights, which also really cut into my blogging time. This is some kind of dream come true, right?

I also have a not-so-great reason for disappearing. I became intimidated by my own blog. I realized that a lot of women were coming here for help. I wanted to help, so I made an effort . . . and then I chickened out (I've thought about it a lot and "chickened out" is the best way to put it). I could try to explain it more, but I don't want to waste any more time.

In short, I'm back. But what does that mean? Time is a scarce resource for me. This blog has to fit in my life somewhere after family, friends, work, after-school activities, and volunteering. I want to be upfront that I cannot be a consistent, predictable blogger. My goal is to be simply present. I will blog as I can. I will respond to comments as I can. In the long run, I want to modify the blog to give a better sense of community . . . but if I psych myself out with goals that are too big, I will disappear again.

So this is my modest start. I hope to talk to you all again soon.

"First, Be Good to Yourself" is wise advice especially when surviving "the police knock on the door"...Especially when Forgiving "him" is probably the last thing you had in mind! (from the Greater Good Science news letter/ website)

How Mindfulness Can Help Us Forgive Betrayal

By Kirra Dickinson  

According to a new study, mindful people are more likely to overcome the emotional turmoil and pain of infidelity.

• DECREASE FONT SIZETEXTINCREASE FONT SIZE
• COMMENT
• SHARE
• EMAIL
• PRINT

  

Is it possible to forgive infidelity and to overcome the emotional pain of betrayal?

It is, suggests a new study published in the journal Mindfulness—if you can feel some compassion for yourself.

The study—the first to examine the relationship between mindfulness and forgiveness of infidelity—surveyed 94 adults who had been cheated on by a partner. They reported on their levels of forgiveness, which involves feeling in control of their emotions, having a balanced view of the relationship (rather than vilifying their partner as wholly evil), and being ready to let go of anger and put the affair behind them. They also reported on their levels of unforgiveness—a separate measure that involves withdrawing from their partner, experiencing emotional upheaval, and desiring revenge.

By this definition, forgiveness is something we do for ourselves, to reduce our suffering; it doesn’t mean we condone the affair or even reconcile with the offender. In fact, over half of the participants in the study were no longer in a relationship with the cheating partner.

Ultimately, the study’s findings suggest that people who are more mindful tend to be more forgiving and less unforgiving—for certain aspects of mindfulness. In this study, mindfulness was broken down into five separate abilities:

• Observing your experience: your thoughts, feelings, sensations, and perceptions.
• Being able to describe that experience.
• Acting with awareness—deliberately and thoughtfully, rather than on autopilot.
• Being nonjudgmental of your experience.
• Being nonreactive to your experience, able to withhold immediate reactions (like lashing out).

Partners who had a greater ability to act with awareness—to be deliberate and thoughtful—were less likely to be stuck in a state of resentment. It was also important to withhold immediate reactions and to be nonjudgmental of yourself. In these ways, mindful victims of infidelity seemed to avoid getting consumed by negative emotions.

These results held even when controlling for factors that are known to influence forgiveness, including how severe the betrayal was, whether the partner was remorseful, and whether the victim was prone to empathy or anger.


So if mindfulness goes along with forgiveness, what might be the mechanism behind this link?

According to the researchers, self-compassion may play a significant role. Mindfulness is one of thethree aspects of self-compassion, which involves being kind to ourselves and feeling connected to others in the face of painful experiences. Those who practice self-compassion may ruminate less, experience less resentment, and exhibit higher emotional resilience. Although this study didn’t measure self-compassion, it’s possible that self-compassion was the path away from unforgiveness for these participants.

“Individuals higher in [self-compassion skills] may be willing to accept the turmoil and discomfort they are feeling without overidentification with these states and feel compassion for themselves going through this experience,” the researchers explain.

More on Resolution

Learn how to survive betrayal.

Discover how mindfulness makes romantic conflict less stressful.

How forgiving are you? Take the quiz.

So how might we cultivate mindfulness when faced with infidelity? Here are several tips to keep in mind when attempting to forgive:

• Allow yourself to feel any negative emotions that come up. Instead of fighting them, simply observe and sit with them. Understand that your negative emotions are not primarily coming from the event itself, but from the hurt feelings, thoughts, and physical upset that you are experiencing now.
• Alleviate your physical symptoms by practicing stress management to soothe your body’s fight-or-flight response. Consider taking a deep breath, or taking a walk.
• Make the decision to forgive, not only toward your partner, but importantly for yourself (if you feel this is relevant).
• View the situation from a different perspective and, slowly and in time, practice compassion towards your partner. Keep in mind that they could have been acting out from a similar place of pain and suffering. See him or her as vulnerable and human.

(These tips are adapted from two longer forgiveness practice, Nine Steps to Forgiveness and Eight Essentials When Forgiving.)

Ultimately, this study unearths some of the complexities surrounding how we view and manage our negative emotions. If mindfulness truly can help us cope with the great emotional pain of infidelity, it must be a powerful skill, indeed.

We tell ourselves and say to all the other anonymous women just like us, "We will get through this.We will."

Someday. We will even stop reliving that day, will stop hearing the police knock at our door. The barked orders. Stop remembering the day he called from the jail.  Even our  nightmares of that terrifying time will fade. Our kids will stop asking, where is he? There will be entire mornings when we will forget we were ever betrayed.

We will become brave and dare speak our secrets, We will find comfort in hearing the stories told by the wives of other sex offenders. How they got through it. Are managing to get through "it."  And we will suddenly know that we too are women who will also get through this. But maybe we are still women who for now also sign ourselves Anonymous when we tell our stories, when we like they also still sign our comments, Anonymous.

With 750,000 names on the National Sex Offender Registry there have got to be lots of us hiding somewhere. Reaching out in the dark. Finding each other amid the chaos of our lives.. Even a state like Nevada has 19000 sex offenders. The presence of so many Offenders server as  markers attesting to the existence of thousands of anonymous women and children...each holding tight to the self same secrets..lives torn apart but lately being pieced back together. Rising again from the ravages left in our lives by sexual obsessions  acted out upon the lives of our children.

The after effects  of  pornography, child sexual abuse, pedophilia, even rape. Each offense far more than it's mere legal definition. And all the women betrayed?  Where should they find us? Perhaps standing isolated and anonymous, unknown but next to each other in some long line or other?   In a check out line at the grocery store? Perhaps clutching or food stamps? In line looking for work? Registering the sex offender's children for school? Looking for a day care provider we can trust when we no longer trust anyone? Trying to keep a broken family together, deciding whether to stay or go, but if so where? Anonymously we come and go. Pass one another. Unknowing. Unless we see someone familiar standing, waiting once more in visiting.  As we are.

Perhaps we chose to Google our own address and find other families of other offenders living somehow close by. Curious, we might drive by.Take a look.  Only to see another anonymous woman, Alone, with a face much like our own, looking as though betrayal had made secret sisters of us all. Our sister standing there on her anonymous doorstep,

Just another women who secretly signs herself Anonymous late at night when her kids are finally put to bed. On the internet where she too is free to seek the kindness of other Anonymous women like hersllf somehow betrayed by their own once trusted sex offender..

We might see  a woman much like us, now isolated by secrets, up into the night searching for internet sites looking to find internet places where we may gather to hear each others stories, feel each others anger, staunch each others pain until some night each of us realizes its our pain falling down out of every story, our tears on the keyboard. And we realize we are no alone. ,

And at that moment we know that we will get through this in the company of so many.

Just women reaching out to each other. Late at night.Joining hands with each other because we understand ...

The Sex Offender we never knew we lived with until we hear the "knock on the door" Life After "our sex offender" is (fairly or unfairly) found guilty of child sexual abuse, sentenced to prison and then 25 years on the National Sex Offender Registry after that:

Back on the home front  we are in Shock.  Confusion and Disbelief Reigns! At home we are already experiencing the collateral damage since our address is being googled, our family members are hysterical and we are left to find and pick up what ever pieces we still think are worth saving. 

We are Pushed from all sides to take Sides. NOW. But what about us? Our relationship with this guy we thought we knew, the guy we had sex with? the guy we were pregnant by? (or planning to have children and live happily ever after...forever with?) Just the mice guy we trusted with our life and our children's lives and NOW realize spent a lot of time grooming and fooling us. AND we believed him!

NOW WHAT?  WELL...Sometimes it helps to take a deep breath and divide our  "situation" into 3 columns:

#1 What if this was not child sexual abuse  but "just" some (sort of ordinary?)  betrayal of trust maybe like adultery for instance (even if he met her on the internet? even if he was warned ahead of time  that the "woman" he was about to have sex with was 13 years old but he says he went to meet her anyway and maybe did stuff  (because he thought she/ the adult woman police officer?) was joking when they warned him before hand that she was only 13 and he went "anyway."

What if the you believe he thought she was an adult, that  woman he met (on the internet) and went and did "stuff" with, well  that might "only" have been adultery so...  (IF he had been committing regular adultery) this would probably be a private matter, not so much publicity, not a prison sentence, not a googling his/ your/ name and address on the Registry for 25 years after he get out of some very scary prison where the other guards and the prisoners join in pillorying child molesters? (and scare the life out of you and him with threats of what will happen?) 

What would be your response if this were ONLY ADULTERY??  Maybe try working through that with (or without) a therapist first. It might give you some basic perspective on how happy your "relationship" was even before the police knocked on your door. Was it worth saving? How much effort did he put into  grooming and lying to YOU as his wife/ GF/ significant other? If this was always a shaky relationship built on your not knowing/ turning a blind eye/ believing a wife should forgive and soldier on, Do you still believe no matter what a husband does in a committed/ religious relationship that it does not give a wife the "right" to stop being a loyal/good/ faithful partner. Do you believe you must try your best to help him come back to being the "good" husband and if that fails you must still soldier on as best you can. Do you have a right to unilaterally break the contract if he still holds out "hope" he will change? 

Think about it, If this were "just" adultery what would that say about your relationship and what would your "obligation" be to yourself? to your children? to him? Think about it please. Because we will support you whatever decision you might makes. We have been there, done that, and searched the internet for other women who didn't choose this "life" either but may (or may not) chose this life going forward.

Just saying....
  

After the Knock on the Door: Some of us visit someone in prison or jail (especially if your "offender" is your son or grandson or a husband who takes responsibility for what he's done, or if you have children who still need to resolve issues with the person who took advantage of them)

Even deciding to keep in touch is complicated. Many "offenders" face long sentences and the shock of visiting can be almost as great as the chaos we experience after the initial arrest. 

I wrote the post below to comfort and encourage a woman whose son is in jail awaiting sentencing and who is trying desperately to keep her connection with her son alive because in spite of everything she loves him.

*********

I don't know how old you are or how much other family you have to help you through this but as I get older, I'm not thrilled at the inevitabilitys I'm facing as I age. I for one, can't think of much worse than to outlive everyone I care about and end up alone among strangers when I am old and can't fend for myself.  

I don't know what kind of sentence your son faces but he sees the old guys on the yard and the graying couple/ mothers in visiting and it's like looking fate in the face. 

Your son faces the prospect of (perhaps) quite a long time in prison and the loss of not only a lot of his productive years but perhaps the loss of his mother who, it sounds like is his life line during this time. 

If he calls you a couple of times a day from jail he needs to hear your voice and know you are still alive as much as you sound like you need to hear his voice and know he's still alive and relatively safe. So what if you sit in silence during visits? Just try to make it's a companionable silence when you visit. As long as you can hug him and see his face? What you say to each other doesn't matter nearly as much as that you don't take all this hurt and anger and betrayal out on each other and make a bad situation worse. Don't cut each other off. There is a lot to work through and it takes time to let go of negative emotions that have power to corrode life long after the initial harm has been done.

There is a verse in Job that matters to me: "There is this of a tree, if it be cut down the tender branch there of shall rise again." Stop focusing on loss. Talk to your son about how both of you will (eventually) find ways to rise again. There are useful things he can find to do inside. That verse applies to us all. 

For now, maybe ask him what music he wants to hear and see if you can play a few minutes of a favorite song for him next time he calls you. Tell him you are in for the long haul. Tell him you aren't goi ng away any time soon.    Tell him what they/ we too are going through  too not as a way to guilt him but as a way to include him as you and your family grow past the huts.  Read comments or comment on sites like this or on sites like Daily Strength Families of sex Offenders  and discuss how we/ they handle what they're going through in visiting and on the outside. Ask his opinion. Tell him what others say about their situations how they handle this and other stuff that comes up because we are you and he are all in this together now.  

See what he thinks about what you read. About what others go through and how they handle things.  Ask him how he thinks you (both) could handle this, or ask him if he has a suggestion to offer someone about how they might handle something they are going through and post his ideas and tell him what the response was. 

Include him in this life.

Grow a better, more honest life between the two of you so you will have a better more honest life in the future with all the people you love and who love you. If you decide to make the attempt to grow past this make him part of it as he grows. He needs you and you need him and we all need each other. And if there are children involved they already have too much to deal with. They don't need more secrets, more unresolved guilt.  We all need people who understand the joys and sorrows of this life after the Knock on the door.  Listen and then do something to make your life and his ( and your children's lives) better. 

I suggest you find a way to let go of your anger and be glad you can still hear the sound of his voice. Be glad you can visit often. Even if you visit so often that you sometimes run out of things to say to each other. Decide to be glad you are both alive. Decide to make the most of the time you have together and apart. 

Do things on purpose. Take care of yourself. Get up and go read all the funny greeting cards on the wrack at the grocery store. Send him the funniest card. Write I love you inside the card. Then go get your hair cut. Some people search the internet not only other women like us so they will know they are not so alone in making hard decisions but they look for jokes and funny jokes/ pictures to print off and send in (cheaper than a card)  Shop the thrift stores and find something "new" in a pretty color.  Watch a comedy and if that doesn't cheer you up watch another one! 

Make a list of what makes you feel better and actually get up and do it and then you'll have something to talk about.

Get on with constructing your new life. Include him if you decide it best for you not to cut him off.  A woman recently posted on Not the Life who said after two years she has decided to participate in therapy with her husband. She doesn't know if she'll ever be able to trust him again, but sometimes it's worth finding the answer to that question because all of us need / have to make the same decision, if not with him, at least down the road with someone else....

Take Care, Janet Mackie.