[SouthernT]

For those who have had experience with this, is it ever a good idea to write you abuser a letter now that you are an adult? In my situation, it was my stepfather that my mom married when I was 2 and then divorced during my freshman year of college. Im angry and I dont want him to feel that he can just get away with the things he did. Do the abusers ever have problems or ever feel bad years after the fact?

[TaraMaiden]

Does your mother know about this?
Has this come out in the open, or is this something you've concealed?

[quankanne]

I'm of the school that what you do with a letter once you've written it is not the important thing – the important thing is that you put down all those things you feel ... get all the poison, the anger, the hurt, the pain out of your system in a way that you are able to control, and imagine the person who's hurt you reading this, not being able to walk away or shut you out until you've said your piece. Because putting down into words what you feel can be very cathartic, in my experience; *this* is what you're looking for, even if it means not ever voicing this to the one who hurt you.

I've done it over the years in my marriage to vent the feelings so that I can calmly tell my husband that I don't appreciate his behavior, etc ... it saves a lot of misunderstanding and finger-pointing, and helps me to get my message across better ...

write it out, pour your heart into it, then set it aside. You may discover it's enough to write that letter, or you may realize that you need to give it to him in person. Either way, it gives you time to collect your thoughts to effectively communicate your feelings.

best of luck, I can't imagine this is an easy thing to address ...

hugs,
q

[SouthernT]

Originally Posted by TaraMaiden

Does your mother know about this?
Has this come out in the open, or is this something you've concealed?

Yes she knows, it ended up being part of the reason that she left him after 17 years. But my anger is also towards her because she found a letter that I wrote to a friend when I was in the 8th grade about it. And there was another incident a couple of years later that she found out about. Im upset with her because she stayed with him and I had to continue putting up with him. When she left him, she did it after I had moved on campus and was in the middle of my freshman year of college. And she left because SHE was fed up with him. I dont hardly feel that it had anything to do with the things he did to me...

[TaraMaiden]

so your anger is divided then, between him, mostly, but also towards her that she did nothing.
And that too, is actually part of the abuse.
If she believed or knew that the abuse was happening, and knew at the time, but did nothing - then she is legally guilty by association.

Do you want to do anything about this legally, or are you merely wanting to exact some form of payback from an emotive standpoint?

I'm just trying to also get you to think about the broader picture here.
Just to make you also evaluate your desires logically.

Although I can completely understand that this experience can in no way be considered upon anything 'logical'....
I'm trying to help you think, here.....
I wish you well....