When I was a child, I was sexually abused by my father. I never told anyone about it when it was happening. To this day, nobody in my family is aware that the abuse occurred. My mother is still married to him, and he has a good relationship with most of our immediate and extended family. In adulthood, I’ve chosen to continue keeping his transgressions to myself. I’ve followed this path not only to avoid familial conflict but also for the sake of containing the damage he has done. If I were to share these details with my mother, I’d risk destroying a decades-long marriage in a single conversation. If I were to tell my siblings, I’d do irrevocable damage to their relationship with our father. If I were to tell his mother, my cousins, aunts, uncles — you get the idea. Hearing this news would bring immense pain and sadness to the people I love most in the world. If I keep my mouth shut, the hurt and harm he caused stops with me. If I spill, the whole family feels the pain.
After many years of therapy, I finally followed the advice of therapists and friends and cut ties with him. I let my family know that I couldn’t be around him anymore. This wasn’t a complete shock to most, as he is a rather difficult person. He is incredibly manipulative and argumentative, and often bitterly condescending to anyone who dares to disagree with him. When I announced to the family that I would be taking a step back because of some issues between my father and me, everyone assumed that he had pushed things too far in our last argument and said some horrible things that couldn’t be taken back — that’s his M.O., and I wouldn’t be the first member of the family to say a permanent goodbye to him for that reason. But the longer our estrangement lasts, the more questions I get from the rest of the family. Everyone wants to know why I can’t just let his jerk-type tendencies go once he apologizes, as everyone else does. All I can do is tell them that I don’t wish to discuss the matter.
My family members think that I’m causing avoidable strife and selfishly ignoring their sadness over our estrangement. They often tell me how profoundly sad my father is that I won’t speak to him. My mother is heartbroken at the idea of all the future holidays, anniversaries, graduations and birthdays without me around. Now, I could continue to absorb these painful criticisms in silence. Moreover, I know that he’s sorry for what he did and that he didn’t mean to hurt me. I know that he was simply re-enacting the trauma from his own truly horrific childhood. I have tried to forgive him on this basis and let it all go, but the memories of his abuse continue to haunt me.
A few trusted friends have told me that I should consider telling the family about all of this. They say that if they had an abuser in the family, they would want to know. What is the ethical thing to do here? Should I continue my silence to protect the rest of my family from emotional harm? Or do I owe it to them to tell them the truth? As I write this, I’m also painfully aware that if I break my silence, he will try to manipulate them into believing that none of this is true, that I’m delusional — he has done it successfully before. I’m not sure I could survive that. — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
I’m so sorry about what you’ve gone through. There’s something particularly dreadful about being harmed by someone who was supposed to take care of you. You’re to be commended for addressing so thoughtfully the issues you face.
Now, an immediate issue is whether your father could be in a position to repeat his crimes with other children — that there aren’t others suffering in silence. If that’s the case, staying silent isn’t an option. You don’t raise this as a concern, but you need to be confident that it isn’t one. (Although data is limited, it’s true that researchers have found that intrafamilial sexual offenders tend to behave differently from extrafamilial ones, and pose a lower risk of offending with others.) I’m assuming too that you’ve had conversations about the abuse with him: That’s presumably how you know that he’s sorry, and why you think the traumas visited upon him as a child are connected to those he visited upon you. Yet whatever his expressions of regret, they clearly weren’t reparative; reconciliation may never have been possible. It clearly isn’t now.
So is there an alternative to the either-or you lay out? Suppose you told him that you’ll keep quiet if he tells the family that he accepts that you don’t want to see him owing to a serious wrong he did to you. The problem is that questions would arise about the nature of that wrong, and that he may not be willing to deal with them. Nor is it obvious that keeping the details vague would leave your parents’ relationship intact. Besides, your father doesn’t sound like the sort of person who could be talked into taking responsibility. Even if you reveal the truth, he may be confident, rightly or wrongly, that he can get people to believe you’re not to be trusted.
You can consider telling people yourself that you’re working through personal issues between you and your father and asking them to respect your decision regardless of whether they understand it. But again, half-disclosures are bound to invite further questions. So I fear there’s no good option here. Whatever you decide, though, you shouldn’t be motivated by the thought that you owe this truth to anyone. It’s not that there isn’t reason to care that they know the truth. Many people in your family have relationships predicated on ignorance. They might even feel, were it to come out, that you should have told them before, precisely because we want to live a life in which our important relationships are not based on a failure to understand what our intimates are like.
Yet these reasons to disclose what happened don’t impose a duty on you of doing so. You may judge that they are outweighed by the fact that sharing the truth will cause pain and disruption to many lives without doing enough compensating good. Nor are you obliged to subject yourself to the pain and disruption that your father’s manipulations may bring you.
Which brings me to my final thought: Taking measures to protect your well-being isn’t selfish when you are, objectively, the wronged and wounded party. Will your well-being be best protected by your admittedly painful policy of steering clear of both your father and the tumult of disclosure? That’s the sense I get from your letter, but it’s a forecast you’re better positioned than anyone else to make. Mainly, I’m glad that you haven’t had to bear this burden alone — that you’ve had the support of friends as well as a therapist to help you take stock of the past and think about the future.
Readers Respond
The previous question was from a reader who was concerned about violating a dead author’s requests about an unpublished manuscript. He wrote: “Gabriel García Márquez said that his last manuscript, ‘Until August,’ ‘doesn’t work’ and that ‘it must be destroyed.’ Now the novel has been published against his wishes. I love the work of García Márquez and would love to read this book. But I wonder if I owe him a duty to respect his wishes.”
In his response, the Ethicist noted: “García Márquez may have said that the manuscript should be destroyed; the fact remains that he didn’t destroy it. The decision of whether to publish was, legally, for his sons to make, and they thought that by the time he turned on the book, his memory was too far gone for him to judge. What’s the right call? Err on the sign of preservation, I’d say. Although the wishes of the dead should carry weight, the interests of posterity count, too.” (Reread the full question and answer here.)
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I think the response was correct. Ethically, you can read it. But realistically, this manuscript was sad, short and very incomplete. Reading it gave me a worse impression of García Márquez’s overall work. For that reason, I’m sorry his heirs published it. I hope the letter writer doesn’t have the same reading experience, but that’s the risk he’s taking. — Larry
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As a writer, I have always understood that author’s intent is strictly one lens through which a work can be viewed — a worthwhile lens, to be sure, and one that can offer lovely and interesting insights into a piece. But the piece, once crafted, exists. It has, immediately, a life and story of its own and a relationship to build with every reader who encounters it. — David
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Absolutely not. This manuscript should have never been published. I am against destroying it, though. A happy medium would be to donate the manuscript to a worthwhile institution, perhaps a library or university. — Jade
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I read “Go Set a Watchman,” Harper Lee’s other book, which some claimed she never wanted published. I have to say, I found it well written, and it was an invaluable and interesting follow-up to “To Kill a Mockingbird.” I’m glad I took the plunge. — Pam
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Banned books: Maybe that’s why writers were created. Whether they are rejected by a system or government or by a public with refined moral and ethical thoughts, they are books that allow us to dig into our pasts and consciences. “Until August” shows us the mirror of our reality as insatiable beings, in search of our own identity. — Carlos
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I understand the Ethicist’s arguments, but I do not share them. I consider that what the dead man said should be respected. Period. Any other alternative may be tinged with other interests, including those that are fundamentally economic. Gabo’s children (whom I admired) remind me of J.R.R. Tolkien’s son Christopher, who published drafts that his father did not consider ready for publication. Clarifications do not count. These apocryphal works obviously have an important economic revenue, as they attract the followers of the original work. No, I will not read “Until August,” just as I did not read the posthumous Tolkien books. — Olga
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Do the dead have agency in the world of living? Yes, to the extent granted by law, like through a will. But everything else is at best in the (loyal) hands of one’s descendants. Let’s say that a newly dead person did not want a funeral, but the family wants an opportunity to mourn in the custom of a funeral. I’m a rabbi; the advice I gave at such times was, said appropriately, that the dead have no absolute agency and that the living need to proceed with the work of the world. So too with material and intellectual property. These now belong to others. — Robert