Well, That's Not The (insert name here) That I Knew

I want to scream “Stop it!” every time I hear someone push an abuse victim away and pull her abuser closer with a line like the one above.

It’s the line drawn in the sand that is meant to chastise and isolate the accuser. If the victim is a woman she can expect to hear this line from both men and women. But it’s not just about chastising and isolating the victim, It’s also about the speaker protecting him or herself from the discomfort of truth, humiliation by association, or the work of justice as a whole.

Most recently this line was used by an author who had written about Jean Vanier, and was advised of the investigative findings into his sexual misconduct against women over the many years of his work in L’Arche, and into his lying for and protection of his “mentor” who was also a predator.

It’s one thing to be shocked and to say you are, and that you are so shocked you need some time to process the facts and feelings that emerge. It is a process, for sure, if you possess the core values that point to this necessary work. But just like Jean Vanier who excused, lied for and participated in the predatorial activities of his mentor, not everybody actually has those core values, after all. They may pretend they do. But not when it will actually cost them something. As I have written many times, there is no such thing as “pretend” core values, or “aspirational” ones. Core values are about who you really are. They are revealed in what you really do.

So, when people show us who they really are with lines like the one above, believe them and protect yourself. They are not going to support or protect you. In fact, they just pushed you under the bus.

Many of us who woke up one day to learn that we did no know the men we married after all, have suffered terrible PTSD. On top of that we have been shunned, discredited, and isolated by people whose personal cowardice never moved off the shock of discovering snatches of truth about the same man. They pushed it back by smearing us, blaming us, silencing us, shaming us, abandoning us, and isolating us.

Furthermore, they ask why we didn’t leave, how we couldn’t know, etc as a way of discrediting us. Oh, the irony of that! They weren’t in love with him, raising a family with him, building a life with him, trusting him, often over decades—but they can’t face the facts of their colleague or friend, themselves! Still we are critiqued for the time it has taken us to figure out the deception and extricate ourselves and children from it, when these people NEVER DO! And they don’t have as much to lose as we do!

So let me just make this clear:

That’s not the (insert name here) that you knew,

because you really did not know (insert name here).

And that much is what we have in common.

When you want to talk about that, call me.

Meanwhile, here’s a really good article about this whole chicken tapdance:

https://www.villainesse.com/no-filter/it-doesn%e2%80%99t-matter-how-nice-someones-abuser-was-you?fbclid=IwAR2Q6zEYZKDzzJjTv7PM09p-kJogy8X20b-JINMX2NVPNwi35NYW5L7UFoU

with you,

Diane.

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