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exFamily.org > chatboards > genX > archives > post #6341

Re: forgiveness, accountability and responsibility

Posted by my thoughts on December 09, 2002 at 11:30:27

In Reply to: forgiveness, accountability and responsibility posted by ethicist on December 08, 2002 at 21:24:38:

This is an excellent post and quotation. It generates lots of thinking, but then I have been doing that thinking for years.

"And the non-guilty must dissassociate themselves publicly from the guilty." (p.93)

I think this is extremely important. I would like to present an analogy that reflect a micro version as opposed to a macro: I was a battered woman in a battering situation for many years. That was withing the F structure. I know OTHER women who were in that situation, btw. It is one of the best kept 'secrets,' since these issues were not talked about much. The double standards abounded in the F. Gender was never discussed, if not in purely and simplistic chauvinistic Biblical terms.
Berg could slap Mother Eve and could allow Mene to be beaten black and blue. (Just 2 examples out of many.)
Whether it was ok for women to be kept into subjection with OTHER means ASIDE from keeping them barefoot and pregnant was a variable that changed according to where you happened to be, who were the leaders etc. or the most popular Letter of the month.
There were never consistent rules on these issues because the F itself was based on a principle of violence: when you have oppression (sanctioned by a God, on top of it) you cannot have freedom. You have to leave that environment to recreate something NEW.

Now my analogy: all of my children, but particularly one of my sons, have had issues with forgiveness, accountability and responsibility with ME for years. No matter what, and naturally so, from HIS perspective, even though his mother was also getting abused, beaten, humiliated in front of him, she was nevertheless the MOTHER, and the ONLY better parent he had, so the EMOTIONAL reaction to that is and will always be,
WHY didn't you HELP ME? why did you LET that happen?
(I felt that way about my own father who left me with an abusive, deranged, Mommy Dearest mother. He saved himself, but left me there, and I was just a child who had no power. It took me years to 'forgive' him for that.)

In my family we have been working relentlessly at resolving this through the years, since I took a firm stand and created a safe environment with incredible effort, and I have done EVERYTHING I could to change my life, leave that environment, do everything I could to provide help and healing, make myself accountable in every possible way, and I have made this public in my life. It takes a stand and it takes a lot of strength because it is so tiring psychologically and emotionally.

My son has needed years to work out these emotional issues and it is not over, it is a work in progress. Sometimes it is still difficult, but we have reached an understanding as he has grown up to be a man and has come to accept the fact that the past cannot be changed and that I, in the extremely disempowered position I was in, did what I could do WHEN I could do it. That takes maturity and can only come with time, and after all other steps to make amends have been taken.
It takes action and change to try to mend such huge life issues and it takes the conviction of showing with facts and not just with words, that behavior and actions matter, and that such issues are taken seriously enough to move toward a better future where forgiveness CAN become a reality. It takes time and effort to get there.