How Do We Respond When Someone We Like Does a Horrible Thing?

First off, this is not about politics. This is a true story that left me unsurprised but incredibly sad.

I mentioned in my first blog post that an adult family member groomed a minor child for sexual abuse until it was brought into the light. As is the case in almost all cases of sexual abuse the perpetrator was well liked, always willing to help and trusted by everyone completely. As is almost always the case, no one would have ever predicted this was happening. It is important to understand that perpetrators work very hard, either consciously or subconsciously to hide the abuse beneath activities that seem totally on the up and up and again, helpful and caring.

When the abuse came to light the response of family members was textbook and crushingly disturbing for the victim's family who was also close to the perpetrator, an in-law. The response by one particular family member illustrates how much our feelings toward those who do harm to others affects our response which then affects the victim and the family members closest to them. What makes the situation even sadder is that the family member in question was trained in the process of grooming for sexual abuse as a church employee.

So here's how it went down...

When the victim's mother informed this family member of this tragic series of events and the initial shocked silence passed, she said, "Well, we never liked him anyway." Now, there is a whole lot to unpack in that statement but let's focus on the "like" aspect for now.

As I mentioned, the perpetrator was well-liked by most and that was definitely true in this case. In fact, the two couples regularly got together socially. So where does the statement come from? Misunderstanding of an important fact. They thought the perpetrator was a different family member with the same first name and also close to the victim. THAT person was generally not liked by family members. You might still be bothered by the stated response and thinking, "What does that have to do with it?" A part of you even knows this is not an atypical emotional response but let's find out what happened when the misunderstanding was corrected.

So when the victim's parent cleared up the name confusion, the response was something like, "Whoa! That's something altogether different." So NOW are you asking yourself, "Why is that different??" Why indeed? The obvious surface level reasoning is simply that it is easier to believe someone you dislike did something bad because it supports your opinion. That's an obvious conclusion and no doubt right. However, let's go just a little deeper into meaning that likely causes more pain than the surface stuff.

If you let the response, "Well, we never liked him anyway." and "Whoa! That's something altogether different." perculate for a while, like I ended up doing, you would likely notice that NOTHING about the statements reflected any concern for the victim's welfare. Let that sit a minute. Concern for the victim was never expressed. That doesn't mean it wasn't there, but it was not expressed. In fact, very few of the family members expressed immediate concern for the victim (or the parents). Huge props to those that understood the harm to the victim which was likely helped by being more emotionally removed from the perpetrator himself, but also having a greater understanding of how abuse takes place.

My own big picture understanding is this: Our response to bad things done by people we like has more to do with how it affects ourselves than any harm sustained to victims and maybe even perpetrators.

What do you take from this? Please share in the comments. Conversations are important! Then, where do we go from here?