It still hurts, and I'm about 3 yrs into this, and looking at another 27 yrs without him. I miss him terribly, but this has become a new normal for me. I no longer cry every day, but it still hurts. Our children miss him. Even our daughter who was his victim misses him and wishes he was home. She just wanted the abuse to stop, and him to get help...but that is a subject all of its own.

I wish I had some words of wisdom for you. Your son in law sounds a lot like my husband, a good man who used horrible judgment for a brief period of time and now everyone is paying the price for that lapse in good judgment.

We are 13 months in to his sentence and in the beginning I was such an emotional mess. Even now, there are days that I wonder if I am strong enough to survive this roller coaster ride. But, then I remember all of the wonderful qualities he has and how our life was before he was incarcerated and that helps put things in perspective.

Time is the answer here. Time heals all, don't get me wrong...it doesn't make the heartache or longing go away, but it does help with adjusting to the new "normal" which has now become our life. Take time to grieve. Take time to be angry. Take time to be sad. It will take time!

Keep your chin up! :-)

Hi, West, Honestly, it just takes time. This is like a death. Although you know your SIL will be out in 10 years, that is such a long time that life will have significantly changed. Many opportunities will have passed. Your daughter may have moved on.

We have so many ideas of what our families should be. When the shock of something like this hits us, its kinda like the old fashioned TV losing its signal. By the time you get the darn thing tuned back up the show you were watching is over.

Be kind to yourself. Congratulate yourself when you see joy in something. Take good, deep breaths. Its all hard, but it does get better.

Still, there is that nagging question. Why did he do it? Why did he do something that he must have known would ruin his own life and cause tremendous pain to those he loved? Most people will give you a simple answer and wash their hands of it. Most people would say it was about power and leave it at that, meaning there can be no other discussion. But I don't agree with that. There has to be more to it.

I frankly believe that there is an evolutionary reason for this kind of behavior. Your SIL did not decide to do this with a rational, thinking mind. What was he thinking? What happened? How did he make the decision to go beyond what he KNEW was right?

I ask myself this question every single day. The confoundedness of it all is another reason you cry. I so darn frustrating and there is no way to answer the questions.

So, it gets better. You get past the grief and more on, but I don't think you ever get past what I call angry frustration. Like WTH? It makes NO sense. Besides crying over the loss of the person, you cry from the feelings of WTH?!!! From my experience, sometimes that gets worse as you learn more and more about what sex offenses are, how little we really know about them, and how asinine the laws are.

Its a roller coaster.

Sometimes the things we cherish most in life are things we have to let go for a period of time. I know you love your SIL, but everything needs to be taken in perspective.

He will be away close to 10 years, but he is alive and you can communicate with him through visits, letters, and phone calls. He is still here on earth, but just in a different world as your are.

Very few people get through the first several months of these situations without crying---and crying often. Some cry for years. The emotions you are feeling now is a grieving period, just as if you had experienced a death of a loved one.

You are also having problems understanding "why" this happened to you. I am a very analytical person with a scientific background and I was always taught that two plus two always equals four, that we can learn the reason for everything, and logic can be applied to help us understand.

I was dead wrong.

But sometimes two plus two does not equal four in this game we call life and our finite minds cannot find the reason "why" no matter how hard we try. Trying to find out why was the most difficult aspect of my situation and one which drove me to almost the brink at times.

I was going through some pictures one day and I came across a picture of a buddy who was killed in Vietnam. I thought that he would never get to experience the things I have----falling in love, graduating from college, and holding his first newborn in his arms.

Then I thought of my situation and began to understand how selfish I had been. It truly humbled me. I was still here and he had to die in a small county 10,000 miles a way---before his life even began----for a war he did not even understand.

Sometimes things happen in life that we will never understand. I call it the "Mystery of the Ages."

You are grieving now, but at some point you will understand that life is not fair, we were never promised anything in this life, and the life we do have is precious. At that point it will be much easier to accept this situation.

Hang in there. It does get better.

God Bless you,

rewdiazepam

west, I can't add anything better than what some of the others have said. I hope their comments help you as much as they have helped me.

Ok here we go. You will stop crying and I am glad you forgave him. The problem is he spent that 45 minutes in the wrong place and society has deemed us monsters not able to be rehabilitated with some astronomical recidivism rate that's a down-right lie. we the s.o.'s of the world can be rehabbed and find fault in what we have done but again society or the people that scream the loudest at the law-makers to do something about us monsters get all they want. you the families of us don't SCREAM LOUDER!!!!

West I wish I could say it will stop hurting but the truth is I have found it does not - one thing I have learned in all of this is the depth of unconditional love. We are blessed to have it in our lives. You would not feel the way you do unless you had that for your SIL. It also hurts so much because of what you mentioned - for a few moments of human frailty everyone;s lives have changed forever. The dream of the future you had, I had, your daughter had, is gone in a few moments.

MadBill - I agree with you to some extent. I agree that things will not improve until more and more of the public learn the truth and accept it - that they have been fed a bill of goods that is inaccurate and just plain wrong - but - and it is a big but ... I have found that so far no one is listening - they hear and might even sympathize but most people do not see or accept the injustice of it all. even when people that are not affiliated with any registered citizen speak out no one really listens - instead laws are created based on faulty statistics and even non scientific media tabloid reporting (last year in FL) -

It is like that poem that has been posted here many times and I am big time paraphrasing

When they came for my neighbor I did not and then they came for me ...

Should say ... When they came for my neighbor I did nothing and then they came for me ...

Good point, Advocate. I read an article recently where the author was saying that 70% of us have done something that would land us in jail. Not all of us were caught!

This is the bottom line truth. The potential to do what a sex offender has done is in all of us. I, myself, had a 17-year-old boyfriend when I was 22. But that was more than 30 years ago. Back then, it was looked as "coming of age."

Someone who used to be my friend (moved away) was very condemning of my husband. Yet, his father was 21 and his mother was 14 when his older brother was born and he condemns my husband to this day..

How many of us have done things that we regretted later and were relieved when we weren't caught? How many of us have given in to the heat of the moment and done something that crossed the line? How many of us have addictions that get us into trouble but we keep doing the behavior, no matter what it is, anyway?

I'm not saying that there aren't people who simply don't care about what they do to others. I know those people exist. I've met a few. We have to be aware of their presence. But we also have to stop treating EVERYBODY who crosses the line like they are a psychopath and will repeat these behaviors over and over again without remorse. (Think Ted Bundy.)

What I'm saying is that it is time to stop condemning people and, as West has said, start forgiving. It is a long process...like peeling away the layers of an onion. Every time you forgive (let go) one piece, you find another piece to release.

I forgave my husband immediately. I am still working on forgiving my stepson. I am still working on forgiving society. I am still working on forgiving the psychology profession, who I think has settled for looking the other way. I am still working on forgiving the legal system. I am still working on forgiving myself.

We are blessed when we understand this because then we can move forward out of our own judgments against others. As families of sex offenders, we are not victims. We are the peacemakers because we can see beyond the sharp divide of condemnation. We see the shades of gray. We see that there is good in each of us and that society's so-called "solution" to sex offense only creates more and more pain for everyone!

@madbill: I understand why you want us to scream, but the reason that has not happened is because it just spreads the condemnation farther. As Advocate said, this is more about getting people to listen...

This may take a long time, but we need to keep plugging away at it. In the meantime, we need to find a way to find peace within ourselves. Forgiveness offers that. And, if you don't think this will help you, think of what is there when you've peeled away all the layers of an onion....NOTHING. That is when we find peace.

Blessing to all.

Peek; you stated " As families of sex offenders, we are not victims". i feel that i have to disagree with that statement.

we might not all be the 'original' victims? but we end up being victims. we end up as victims and are victimized by association. just as a lot of us end up being looked at and considered guilty in some far fetched way, because of that association.

Just to recap what I said on another thread about this, I do agree with you, EchoMoon. We are victims in a sense. Our lives are drastically changed. I went through a long time feeling like a victim. My life will never be the same.

I thought about changing that statement, but I didn't because being a "victim" means being stuck. Perhaps that is why many people refer to themselves as "survivors" instead.

To me, I think we families and loved ones can be more than survivors. Madbill said we should scream loudly, but I think forgiveness will show us another way.

All i have to say is thank you. You all have made my day a little brighter. I had his parents over this afternoon and it was nice. His mom told me he loves getting my funny stuff in the mail. I wont be able to visit him until he gets out of the "warehouse".

And Peekachu you have many good points. Got to be honest here. People have asked me how i got into LE. I told them. I spent half my life running from the law thought i would try the other side. I grew up in a big city on the "other side of the tracks".

Yes...i have done some stuff that would have sent me to prison. My first encounter with the cops was a ride in the "paddy wagon" at the age of 12. You all know what i am talking about. The only reason they caught me was because my friend was a little slow running!

Perhaps the reason i can understand and forgive is because i have been there. I have a good repport with those who i deal with on a daily basis.

Its funny in a way. My brother has been in and out of jail his whole teenage and young adult years. I rib him now and then. Then he says to me...the only difference between you and me is cuz i got caught and you didnt!"

So to make a long story short...i appreciate all of you!

peek, very true. we may be victims, but we don't have to be stuck!

Echo I agree...as family of the SO we are also victims. That's how I feel anyway. My son made a bad choice and I also have to pay for it as my god daughter will never be apart of my life again. We had a tight bond, I treated her as if she was my own and now she's gone. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't feel pain in this situation.

I'm so sad for you, Family2. I lost both of my granddaughters...kids I'd helped raise from babies. If I ever see them again, they will be adults. Such a huge loss...so sad for both of us.