I can narrow down my wife’s successes in building family trust to two important principles. The first was safety; the second, forgiveness.

Forgetting IS NOT a Requirement of Forgiveness

One of the most important things in effective families is family trust. I learned the most about that fact from a child who simply couldn’t trust anyone, no matter how hard she tried. My oldest daughter joined our family when she was fifteen. The first half of her life was spent in an extremely abusive and neglectful home family shack environment. The second half of her life, before joining our family, was spent in a remote orphanage in a small Russia village. There, it was also a scenario of “survival of the fittest.” Years later, Russian news would run stories of the abuse to which the children in this orphanage were subjected. Nothing in my oldest daughters’ life had fostered family trust. Nothing, in fact, had fostered “family.”

Family trust was something I grew up with.

I grew up in a traditional family, the oldest of six biological children. Dad and mom were always trustworthy. Their kids were taught to trust and to be trustworthy. Family trust was something I grew up with. Because my parents were stellar examples of family trust and trustworthiness, I grew up mistakenly thinking that kids grew up learning to be trustworthy, which worthiness came a step at a time until culminating at some specific (though unknown) time when adulthood was reached. What a sheltered life!

I learned what active attention it took for some people to develop effective family trust.

Of course my Brady Bunch-like understanding came apart long before adulthood, but it wasn’t until I started to build a family life with my wife, Amy, that I learned what active attention it took for some people to develop effective family trust. Amy’s early life was far from ideal. She grew up in a home with a father that was such a notorious sex-felon that (according to her mother) he was a suspect in murders that were later attributed to Ted Bundy. Amy’s mother was crippled by depression and prescription-drug addiction. She was known to spend days at a time secluded in her darkened bedroom.

I can narrow down my wife’s successes in building family trust to two important principles. The first was safety; the second, forgiveness.

Sometime late in my wife’s teen years, long before we met, her cynicism about family life wavered and she found herself longing for a family that she had long-believed mythical. Amy knew that she would never be the child in the family of her dreams but if a happy and functional family was not a myth, she wouldn’t miss having it through any fault of her own. Though Amy doesn’t view her endeavors as methodically as I do, I can narrow down my wife’s successes in building family trust to two important principles. The first was safety; the second, forgiveness.

This forgiveness, with safety, first, was our framework for developing family trust in our non-traditional family.

Henry Ward Beecher is attributed with the quote: ““I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I will not forgive.” I must respectfully disagree. I watched my wife learn to completely forgive parents that had harmed her while refusing to give them license or opportunity to continue to abuse her, or the ones she loved. This forgiveness, with safety, first, was our framework for developing family trust in our non-traditional family.

When my oldest daughter left Russia to join our family, she only knew of two kinds of people in the world. There were those who abused, and those who received abuse. She had left the ranks of those who were abused with no intent of ever returning to that position. That left only one place for her within her twisted understanding. One of Amy’s greatest dreams, to have a family where no one was ever abused, was sacrificed to give hope to a new daughter that she might recover from the abuse she had received, learn to love and respect others, and hopefully, so hopefully, come to understand family trust.

Family trust came so slowly for that child, particularly where “forgetting” what she had done on multiple occasions, would not have been fair or safe for other family members.

My daughter was blessed with a mother who understood what it felt like to be abused and how to get past it. She was given forgiveness again and again as an example as to how to forgive others. Family trust came so slowly for that child, particularly where “forgetting” what she had done on multiple occasions, would not have been fair or safe for other family members.

Enforcing precautions that did not allow for further abuse gave us the tools to repair the family trust that was damaged.

Because of conditions that came along with my oldest daughter (who in reality, was only a victim of her earlier circumstances) things happened within our family that caused family trust to weaken. Enforcing precautions that did not allow for further abuse gave us the tools to repair the family trust that was damaged.

Those days of darkness seem so far away, now. My oldest daughter is a loved and valued member of a family that she dearly loves back. It isn’t seamless. Families never are. Family trust is like a house. From time to time, maintenance is needed to keep everything in good repair. Because of the nature of some of the things that happened in our family, we still have some requirements in place to provide safety that would not be there if we were to completely “forget.”

Of course, like anyone, my oldest daughter wishes that she could make the consequences of her actions go away. She is saddened with the realization of difficulty that she put on others. Even so, she knows that she is loved. She understands that family members do not hold her past against her. And because she, like others in the family has come to understand forgiveness with safety first, our family trust will continue to grow and grow.

Often, readers receive as much help from other readers in the comments section as they do from the blog article, itself. Please be generous with your thoughts and experiences in the comments section. There are lots of people who need what you have to share. This is your chance to help them. Your comments matter.

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