Can we talk?

Remembrances

      I have a relative who can't conceive that a good person is capable of bad things. Maybe it's a man thing. For instance, if a man is abusive to his children, but the children love him, then he wasn't a bad guy, maybe not so abusive after all. If a man is capable of being a good grandfather, then he must have been a good father. Right?

      I say that people in abusive relationships are not always abusive. That's how they keep the women or children or other men in their lives. They have to be good enough or at least good on occasion to keep them hanging on. Then, when the mood strikes, or their dark side, or the alcohol, or whatever, they can say horrible things, or throw temper tantrums, or throw things, or hit people, or punish severely. When the family has to walk on egg shells to avoid Daddy's, or Mom's, outbursts, then there's a severe family problem. When the kids or Mom lives in fear, despite the good times,it is an abusive relationship.
   
      I say that alcoholics, or anger-addicted people, have to work overtime to be good or loving to attempt to make up for the beatings, verbal or physical, and keep winning back the people they hurt. It's like fishing, reel them in close, then whack them again. They don't plan on whacking them again; they can't help themselves. But they don't want to lose them, so they throw out the line again with some bait and draw them back close. Women can be just as good at this as men. They just keep on hurting the ones they love.

      I resent these people. Ok, they love their spouses or their children. They love them back. But they still hurt them. They still have a sick personality and they hurt the very people they love. And those scars stay through a lifetime. I'm not going to gloss over those "bad" events because there were some good times.

      Some sons and daughters grow up hating an abusive father. I had a close friend whose mother helped her run away from home to another relative so that she could escape the cruel beatings from her father. She hated him with a passion. For some reason, he wasn't as tough on her younger sisters. If the younger daughters don't hate him, does that redeem him? If he was capable of some loving acts, does that make his cruelty to one of his children any less cruel? Should my judgment of him be nicer because two daughters didn't hate him?

        My relative tells me I've made myself judge and jury of the one we discussed. No, I know that God is the judge, but I can make an assessment based on what I know. This person was just as important in my childhood as his, but I was privy to conversations with his children, and know him from their view. We have to have some moral standards, despite the admonition not to judge. The behavior of the person under discussion was simply not acceptable, regardless of the high esteem of my relative.

        Good people are capable of very bad deeds.