Please compare :) I wrote this to reinforce your commitment to stay in touch. It is so important. I think I might have forgiven all the bad stuff if in the end he had wanted to be a father, and had sought forgiveness.

Your therapist is right. My mother didn't know all that stuff, but she had good instincts. It broke her heart, what he did, but she never said a bad word about him. She used to say she was grateful to him because she had her children. As is true with you, she cared about our emotional health.

I'm sorry this has happened to you. Life really throws us a curve ball sometimes.