“My father was just not a good person. My mom never talks about it. The only thing she’s ever told me is that he raped her before they were married and then threatened her like “If you don’t marry me then I’ll follow you and hurt you”. She was scared and so she married him. Then he had multiple affairs and was extremely manipulative. He also sexually abused my sister and I when were very young. Just a lot of bad things. I can’t recall any interaction with him outside of negative ones really.
He didn’t go to prison, I can’t really explain why. I just knew we couldn’t see him for 10 years, and so I was like “Sound good to me! The longer the better! » Later, at his funeral people were talking like “he was always so charming and witty and the life of the party” and all this stuff. And I’m like “who did you know?”. It was a really interesting experience actually, to go to your own father’s funeral and feel like “who are all these people talking about ?”. I mean maybe, I hope, he changed at the end of his life.
What was hard for me was that the Christian church teaches that God is your father. But when you’ve had a bad example as a father… that sucks (laughs)! And if God is good, why do bad things happen? Thankfully, I had a really great church group that helped me understand how to forgive, and to have a healthy outcome. Even in some of the most painful things we go through we experience so much growth. I would never want to go through that again, but the lessons I learned and the empathy that it gave me… I feel like, God is always present with us in pain.
We can’t control what happens to us but we can chose to respond with openness and allow pain to teach us. Pain has taught me that pain… isn’t permanent. And that there’s always hope on the other side. And it also teaches you to be more grateful for normalcy (laughs)!”
(Pont de la Coulouvrenière | original English)
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“My father was just not a good person. My mom never talks about it. The only thing she’s ever told me is that he raped her before they were married and then threatened her like “If you don’t marry me then I’ll follow you and hurt you”. She was scared and so she married him. Then he had multiple affairs and was extremely manipulative. He also sexually abused my sister and I when were very young. Just a lot of bad things. I can’t recall any interaction with him outside of negative ones really.
He didn’t go to prison, I can’t really explain why. I just knew we couldn’t see him for 10 years, and so I was like “Sound good to me! The longer the better! » Later, at his funeral people were talking like “he was always so charming and witty and the life of the party” and all this stuff. And I’m like “who did you know?”. It was a really interesting experience actually, to go to your own father’s funeral and feel like “who are all these people talking about ?”. I mean maybe, I hope, he changed at the end of his life.
What was hard for me was that the Christian church teaches that God is your father. But when you’ve had a bad example as a father… that sucks (laughs)! And if God is good, why do bad things happen? Thankfully, I had a really great church group that helped me understand how to forgive, and to have a healthy outcome. Even in some of the most painful things we go through we experience so much growth. I would never want to go through that again, but the lessons I learned and the empathy that it gave me… I feel like, God is always present with us in pain.
We can’t control what happens to us but we can chose to respond with openness and allow pain to teach us. Pain has taught me that pain… isn’t permanent. And that there’s always hope on the other side. And it also teaches you to be more grateful for normalcy (laughs)!”
(Pont de la Coulouvrenière | original English)