G
Guernica_S
Guest
Legend, you looked that thread up? Yeah, it’s pretty soap operatic, isn’t it? At the time I had several members of my husband’s family frantically defending Steve even though he admitted to my husband that he did in fact grope me in exactly the way I described. So the man wasn’t even denying that he’d sexually assaulted me, but everyone was trying to convince me to continue to associate with him ANYWAY.
I felt like I was David holding the line against a small crowd of loud, insistent Goliaths with no weapon except the conviction of my principles. You know how the saying goes, “If it happens once, you’re a victim. If it happens twice, you’re a volunteer.” And there was no way I was volunteering to be some kind of girlfriend surrogate for my husband’s crusty bachelor older brother. I’m married to ONE man, and the wedding vows say “forsaking all others.” I don’t see any exception in there about “yes, you’re forsaking all others at the altar here, but nonetheless we’ll expect you to accommodate your husband’s brother’s wandering hands because it’ll upset your MIL to refuse to see him again.”
Nope, it’s “forsaking all others,” folks. Full stop, end discussion.
What else could I have done except refuse to see the man again? His behavior was simply outrageous, and I felt like he was making hypocrites of everyone who professed to be a good Christian, and who knew about his grabby hands and expected others to just tolerate him. Christians are called upon to be charitable and forgiving, but we’re also supposed to have standards for our behavior as well. After all, there’s such a thing as “forgiving, giving second chances” but also such a thing as being “willfully foolish in exposing yourself to a known danger.”
But at least having cancer gave me an airtight excuse to pass on the funeral last March. That went on during the very beginning of the pandemic – my husband actually caught one of the last planes out of the Midland airport back to LAX before the airports were all closed down the next day. My oncologist urged me not to travel at that time, because I was still immunocompromised and would have been particularly susceptible to contagious disease. So they can’t chew me out about missing the funeral, at least.
I felt like I was David holding the line against a small crowd of loud, insistent Goliaths with no weapon except the conviction of my principles. You know how the saying goes, “If it happens once, you’re a victim. If it happens twice, you’re a volunteer.” And there was no way I was volunteering to be some kind of girlfriend surrogate for my husband’s crusty bachelor older brother. I’m married to ONE man, and the wedding vows say “forsaking all others.” I don’t see any exception in there about “yes, you’re forsaking all others at the altar here, but nonetheless we’ll expect you to accommodate your husband’s brother’s wandering hands because it’ll upset your MIL to refuse to see him again.”
Nope, it’s “forsaking all others,” folks. Full stop, end discussion.
What else could I have done except refuse to see the man again? His behavior was simply outrageous, and I felt like he was making hypocrites of everyone who professed to be a good Christian, and who knew about his grabby hands and expected others to just tolerate him. Christians are called upon to be charitable and forgiving, but we’re also supposed to have standards for our behavior as well. After all, there’s such a thing as “forgiving, giving second chances” but also such a thing as being “willfully foolish in exposing yourself to a known danger.”
But at least having cancer gave me an airtight excuse to pass on the funeral last March. That went on during the very beginning of the pandemic – my husband actually caught one of the last planes out of the Midland airport back to LAX before the airports were all closed down the next day. My oncologist urged me not to travel at that time, because I was still immunocompromised and would have been particularly susceptible to contagious disease. So they can’t chew me out about missing the funeral, at least.
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