Just Deserts
My father is estranged from my sister and me. When we were very young, he and my mother divorced. He did not pay child support or anything. Recently he came back into town and wants a relationship with us. He says he's changed. He says he is a Christian. He wants to get to know my sister and me better and be allowed to share in his grandchildren's lives.
As my sister and I are getting used to the idea of giving him a second chance, he admits to all of us he cheated on our mother repeatedly while they were married. He finally tells us he is presently involved with one of the women he had an affair with, and he hopes we'll get to know her and accept their relationship.
We told him this was too much for us to deal with. He thinks we're being selfish. Are my sister and I wrong for not being willing to accept this?
Paula
Paula, the most basic law of behavior is the law of consequences. If you don't study, you will fail the exam. In Christian terms, this law is expressed by "As you sow, so shall you reap." Your father is reaping what he sowed.
Justice means balancing the scales. Things should be fair. There is no fairness in what your biological father is asking. He wants to reap the benefits of having daughters and grandchildren when he was not there for you physically, emotionally, or financially. Justice does not require you to let him into your life or the lives of your children.
Perhaps you believe there is a higher requirement than justice. Forgiveness. Then by all means forgive, because forgiveness releases us from the pain and hurt which bind us. But nothing in the idea of forgiveness requires you to let someone who has injured you into your life so they can injure you again.
If forgiveness required that, you would never be permitted to escape people who do bad acts, and your life would be forfeited to them.
There is someone selfish here, and that someone is your biological father. He wants to use religion as a club to get his own way. The decision you and your sister made is just. It is in tune with the deepest law of behavior, the law of consequences.
Wayne & Tamara
(From the column for the week of February 7, 2005)
False Memory
Six months ago, right before our 27th wedding anniversary, I found out from my husband he fathered a child with a woman. The child is now 20. He confessed because I found receipts in his wallet that were child support payments made to the mother. I snooped because I knew he was hiding something and I was desperate to find clues.
This affair happened during a difficult period. We’d been married seven years, and he lost his business. I remember thinking how distant he was, but my religion and faith made me always believe the best about him. Although I knew something was up, I never imagined he’d had an affair. I always chalked his behavior down to depression.
He and the woman signed some sort of agreement whereby he would help her financially, but otherwise would remain anonymous. She kept it that way for years, but around 10 years ago, he says she “blackmailed” him into giving her more money. The receipts in his wallet were payments he made to keep her quiet and not tell me what happened.
He says now the situation made him “come to himself” and break off the relationship. They had only been together maybe three or four times when he broke it off, and a month later she told him of the pregnancy. I’ve met the girl, and there is no doubt my husband is the father!
In his eyes, he’s been “faithful” to me for 20 years. He took a lie detector test, and the results are he is telling the truth. I decided to stay married to him, but I’m struggling with trust. I wonder if he is the man I want to live with.
To his credit, he now seems to have changed many of his ways and attitudes toward the marriage. He is more concerned and attentive. He says he loves me deeply and wishes he had never done this thing. I know no one can read anyone else’s mind, but do you have any advice for me?
Julia
Julia, in Washington Irving’s tale “Rip Van Winkle” a man catches a nap in the woods and wakes up 20 years later. At first surprised to think he slept an entire night, he is stunned when he returns home and realizes he slept through the entire American Revolution. The whole pattern of his memory is called into question.
Exactly like Rip Van Winkle, you have 20 years of catching up to do. Your husband is attentive now, but you suspect the change in his behavior is the difference between you knowing his secret and not knowing. Cheaters often get to stay until the one cheated on gets their mind totally around what happened.
What will dawn on you as time goes on? You will think about the time you wanted a trip, and he said there wasn’t enough money. You will think about the time you felt especially close to him, and wonder if it really happened. You will think about the time he said he didn’t want another child, and know the reason why.
He took all the options for himself and foreclosed all of yours. If you had known the truth, you might have been married to someone else for the past 18 years. It’s hard to give credence to a lie detector test. Though the test is widely used in the US, it has very little scientific standing. In Europe it is regarded on a par with palm reading and astrological charts, and of course, the person paying for the test often gets the results they paid for.
Give yourself time before you decide what to do. A cheater usually seeks immediate forgiveness, which they equate with a pardon. They want a pardon before their partner has a chance to think things over. But like Rip Van Winkle, you need time to adjust your memory to what actually happened.
Wayne & Tamara
(From the column for the week of March 19, 2007)
Fool Me Once
I need your help. I have been going out with this guy for five months now. He is a very nice person, he treats me well, and we have fun together.
The main problem is recently he lied to me. We were supposed to meet, but he did not appear. He claimed he was carjacked. He has keys to my house, so he went and took money and pretended the carjackers did it.
I want to forgive him but I'm not sure what to do. He asked for forgiveness and promised that this incident will never be repeated. Can I trust him again?
Benita
Benita, he is a liar and a thief. Why would you believe this man when he promises not to do it again and asks for forgiveness?
This is like Aesop's fable of the scorpion and the frog. When the two met on the bank of a river, the scorpion asked the frog for a piggyback ride across the stream. "How do I know you won't sting me?" said the frog. "Because if I do," replied the scorpion, " I will die too. I cannot swim."
This seemed to make sense to the frog. Midway across the stream the scorpion stung the frog. "Why?" moaned the frog. "Because I can't help myself," replied the scorpion. "It's my nature."
Benita, leave forgiveness to a higher power. You don't need to be this man's frog.
Wayne
(From the column for the week of April 16, 2001)
Faulty Forgiveness
I am not sure I need answers, but I do know some comfort would help. I'm trying to come to terms with the fact my daughter no longer wants me in her life. I will keep my door open, as she well knows, and nothing can affect how much I love her. She will come to her own decision about what the future means for her and for me.
I had to love my daughter and grandchildren enough to let them go. I considered it selfish of me to want to know the children so badly that my attempts to reconcile with their mother only created trauma for them. I find peace in knowing in my absence my ex-husband's common law wife has assumed the role of mother and grandmother.
I try not to be resentful that my ex-husband is allowed to be grandpa. His violence with me was the reason for my decision to raise the kids alone. So I'm trying to be grateful my constant encouragement to my children to forgive him had a positive result. But every so often despair hits me and I sob for days.
Why is there forgiveness for the man who was violent, but none for the woman who loved them enough to go it on her own for them? What happened feels so unjust.
Wilma
Wilma, in Jane Austin's novel "Pride and Prejudice" Mr. Darcy knows what a scoundrel George Wickham is, but he conceals it. Elizabeth Bennet does the same. Both think they are acting from the best of motives, but their conspiracy of silence creates most of the problems in the book.
People need to understand that telling the truth is not the same as telling tales. Telling the truth is not gossip or calumny. When you know a plumber is dishonest or unreliable, you harm a friend by withholding that information. In the law it is called withholding a material fact.
We once knew a woman who was thrown down a flight of stairs by her husband. During the year it took to recover from her injuries, she divorced him, but she thought it best to conceal the reason from her two young children. Today her children blame her for breaking up the family.
Just as people mistake truth-telling for telling tales, so they often misunderstand the nature of forgiveness. Forgiveness means not holding hatred in your heart. It has nothing to do with allowing someone to resume an undeserved position in your life. Forgiveness is not a free pass which allows someone to come back in your life to harm you again.
The world works far better when people are known for who they are and bear the consequences of their actions. That is justice--the principle underlying every legal system--and that is why what happened to you feels so unjust.
Wayne & Tamara
(From the column for the week of April 17, 2006)
