Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask if you have ever had to forgive yourself?

142 replies

Fallingintobird · 21/10/2018 14:38

13 years ago when I was 16 I did something horrible. I had sex several times with my Dm's best mates DH. We were caught one day and as I live in a small town it was huge news for ages.

My Dm's best mate passed away at the start of the year from cancer. The whole affair scenario has reared its ugly head again since she died with alot of comments on social media about me saying that I didn't help and i contributed towards her death etc.

I am now married myself and I keep having these dreams that my husband will cheat on me or something bad will happen as I don't deserve to be happy after what I did.

I've been to see a councillor who said I need to forgive myself. I just don't see how I can. Have you ever had to forgive yourself for something?

OP posts:
Original poster
Fallingintobird · 21/10/2018 15:31

Thankyou all for being so kind. I've never had anyone say it wasn't my fault

OP posts:
Urbanbeetler · 21/10/2018 15:33

This happened in my then-town. Guy and his wife running a very popular cafe. He has an affair with daughters teenage friend, goes back to wife. Believe me, we knew who was responsible and it wasn’t the child of 16.

MrsJayy · 21/10/2018 15:34

Of course you consented he promised you everything but you were no more than a kid

Original poster
Fallingintobird · 21/10/2018 15:35

urban I just wish the people in my town thought the same. I haven't met anyone who said it wasn't my fault and the comments on the internet are devastating

OP posts:
Gemini69 · 21/10/2018 15:37

you were 16 lovely.. HE on the other hand was 40 years old... this is not your fault ... block everything you see or hear .. it's done.. His wife forgave Hand they coped.... anyone digging this stuff up is cruel and twisted .. and looking for drama... Flowers

Clandestino · 21/10/2018 15:37

If my 16y old were sleeping with an older man, I would be certainly very angry - but only with him, not her. I hate what the myth of Lolita has done to the people. Young inexperienced girls getting exploited and groomed by men who should know better and have all the blame heaped on them. Awfyl.

AmIRightOrAMeringue · 21/10/2018 15:38

Oh OP you were not to blame. A few months earlier and he would have been put in prison!

He was married, you weren't. He was much older and in a position to manipulate you. A teenager's brain at that age isn't fully developed in terms of giving in to impulses and thinking about consequences. And even if it was, no one would ever think of it leading to being blamed for someone dying 13 years later!

It must be so difficult to hear everyone around you blaming you. I don't think there is anything you can do apart from rise above it, he is a complete shit for letting someone who was 16 at the time take the blame for the affair. It died down once before and it will again.

Urbanbeetler · 21/10/2018 15:38

Maybe that’s the loud ones. But they would be wrong. Please forgive yourself - you were a child. You weren’t married.

Imagine that 16 yr old you in tears. Gather her gently in your arms and tell her it’s going to be ok. Because it is.

DrowsyDragon · 21/10/2018 15:39

God. I have a baby girl and if one of my friend’s partners had an affair with her in 15 years time I would want to end them. I’d certainly tell you it was not your fault because it wasn’t. Those were the actions of a predatory man and at absolute worse you are guilty of being charmed by someone you shouldn’t have been. As for the town, i’d Tell them all to fuck off. You poor poor woman. I feel so sorry for you and his wife. He played you both for fools and somehow got away with it.

CoolCarrie · 21/10/2018 15:39

Not your fault in any way, he was to blame, you were young and naive girl. Get off social media for your mental health sake, and there isn’t any such thing as karma. Could you move away at all? You should need to, but it would make your life easier.

kaitlinktm · 21/10/2018 15:41

Do you believe in karma? Do you believe that if you have done something awful it will come back to haunt you.

No I don't - but if I did, I would imagine the karma descending upon him - not you.

I find it incredible that a whole community has blamed a 16-year-old girl for having an affair with a 40-year-old bloke - and also that it is remembered 13 years later. It sounds too reminiscent of the Scarlet Letter. How could it have anything to do with your mother's friend's death - it was more than a decade ago?

Your mother is still annoyed with you - unbelievable. I don't think much of her attitude as a parent at all.

As a pp said - is there any chance of moving away?

earlybyrd · 21/10/2018 15:42

Listen to us....we all 'forgive' you, can you please hear the chorus and join in 

Original poster
Fallingintobird · 21/10/2018 15:46

The whole blaming me for the cancer was because apparently cancer can be caused by stressed. He told everyone when she was diagnosed that the only stressful thing in her life was having to see me around and know I slept with her husband

OP posts:
PositiveVibez · 21/10/2018 15:48

It sounds like the town you live in is absolutely backwards.

People giving you grief on social media fgs.

You were practically a child. A dirty bastard 40 year old creep, saw his opportunity to have sex with a 16 year old and promised you the earth.

You were the victim here and any of the people berating you for it, are thick as fuck.

I'd move away. I couldn't live anywhere like that.

DishranawaywiththeSpoon · 21/10/2018 15:48

Oh op! Flowers

You were 16, he was the one who was married, he was the adult, the onus is on him and you are not to blame. I dont even think I could say you had an affair with him, you were so young and presumably he had known you as a child if he was your mums bf husband? Did he just wait till you were 'legal'. He manipulated you.

If my DP cheated on me with a 16y old I wouldn't blame her, I would never speak to him again and think he was disgusting but not her.

diddl · 21/10/2018 15:49

"told everyone I handed myself on a plate to him."

And he just had to help himself?

He is utterly disgusting.

Do you still live there?

The people sound rather narrowminded & misogynistic to say the least!

Veganfortheanimals · 21/10/2018 15:49

I'd move far ,far away from such nasty minded people..you were a child ,he should take 100% of the blame..if he was any sort of man he would shut down the crap being spouted on social media..seriously,move away ,before any children you may have get told your mothers a....
Does not sound a nice place to live,they do not sound nice people .

Sallystyle · 21/10/2018 15:49

OP you were barely out of childhood really. It was not your fault. He took advantage of you and her cancer is not related to this situation.

I have had to forgive myself for something I did. I forgive myself because I was human and learnt from it. In your situation it is him who needs forgiveness, not you.

Lilic · 21/10/2018 15:50

You were just a child! It is sick that adults are blaming you.

kaitlinktm · 21/10/2018 15:51

The whole blaming me for the cancer was because apparently cancer can be caused by stressed. He told everyone when she was diagnosed that the only stressful thing in her life was having to see me around and know I slept with her husband

"The only stressful thing in her life was being married to a sleazeball who has sex with 16-year-old girls and then blames them - so she is always wondering when he will do it again!

Fixed that for you OP.

And I can't believe that nobody else in your community feels the same as we all do - you just know the wrong people.

roundaboutthetown · 21/10/2018 15:51

If you think karma exists, then the people being vile on social media have something horrendous coming to them, too. I'm not thinking much of the people in your town at the moment, OP.

CoughLaughFart · 21/10/2018 15:51

I just think that at 16 I knew right from wrong and I should have said no. He promised me a lovely life, he said he would leave his wife at Xmas and we would be together forever. I am so stupid for believing that asked it's ruining my life even now because people are still berating me for it

It makes me feel so sad to hear you talk about yourself like this - and to hear no one has been kind enough to say before that this wasn’t your fault. Of course you knew it was wrong, but when you’re 16 and vulnerable and an older man makes you all sorts of promises, it’s easy to start justifying it to yourself.

Your former friend blames you, as did his wife, because it’s much easier to tell yourself that poor old dad, a mere man with urges, couldn’t resist when a pretty young girl ‘put it on a plate’ than it is to accept that he was a shit who didn’t have to eat. I can understand that from someone who has just lost their mother and is clinging to the only parent she has left. What excuse those stirring the pot on social media have, I don’t know - but if I had to take a guess, I’d say they’re thoroughly unpleasant people desperate to create a bit of drama. They’re certainly no friends of the daughter, no matter what they try to pretend.

Please try to follow your counsellor’s advice. Good luck.

Original poster
Fallingintobird · 21/10/2018 15:52

As awful as it sounds, if she hadn't of died then I think it would have been laid to rest. It's only because there has been a memorial page set up in her name and people have been posting vile comments about me on there. It's so embarrassing

OP posts:
MrsJayy · 21/10/2018 15:52

The only stressful thing in that poor womans life was a shit of a husband

HerRoyalNotness · 21/10/2018 15:53

Erm you were a child!! He sounds like a creepy man taking advantage. I can’t believe what nasty people they are and the things they are saying! I hope you live far away. Block it all so you can’t see any of it and you have nothing to forgive yourself for.

Swipe left for the next trending thread