My Clarification Letter

To anyone struggling with sexual behavior problems: Please get help before you hurt someone, not after. Jail is not fun, and neither is finally admitting to yourself that you were the problem all along. At least, that's what happened to me. Don't let that be you, and don't hurt the ones you love. Please don't. For everyone's sake, please get help.

What is a clarification letter?

A clarification letter is a letter to a victim written by an offender which acknowledges the role the offender played in specific harmful sexual encounters, and affirms that the offender is responsible for the actions which were harmful. These letters are written to show that the offender understands the wrong they did, and the victim may never read them.

Below is my clarification letter. This is about the fifth letter I have written over a treatment period of about 3 years, but only because the first four were complete trash. Let me know what you think.​

The letter:

2019.May.24

*** ,

I write this letter to affirm that I am responsible for forcing you to engage in sexual activities with me. I feel I owe it to you to admit that, and I hope you will walk away from this letter feeling safer.

I don’t expect it to be easy for you to read this letter, and I understand you may have had a lot of hard feelings over the years about what I have done. I don’t expect those feelings to go away after reading this letter, and I respect the emotional experience you had because of what I did.

When I first started harming you, I had to learn how to earn your trust so you would be more willing to be alone with me. Maybe some part of me liked your companionship, but mostly I just wanted to use you for my own purposes, and to do that I needed to be alone with you. So I used romantic gestures to take advantage of you. I acted like things I said and did to you were normal, but nothing about going against someone’s wishes not to be touched is normal.

I forced you to be sexual with me. I treated you like an object, like you only existed to make my acquaintance. As a human with real emotions, you deserved better than that. Just to clarify, I know that every time I touched you without your permission it harmed you inside, and I know that I never had your permission. I took that power away from you. I knew you didn’t want to have sex with me, so I forced you. What I did wasn’t right, and I know it hurt you.

I can’t imagine exactly how my unwanted initiations may have affected you, but I have a feeling you probably feel responsible for my behavior. I want you to know that nothing you could have done would have made me stop, nothing would have changed who I was at the time. No matter what you said, and you did say things, I wouldn’t have listened. I didn’t listen to you. I can never hide from the fact that only I had the power to do the right thing. It’s not your duty to bear that weight, but I realize I’ve given you a lot to think and feel about, a lot of pain that you were likely unprepared to go through at the time. I caused that pain. Not just from the abuse, but you trusted me, you looked to me for safety and security, and I took that trust and used it to do sexual things to you. Throughout the entire time I knew you, none of my actions spoke to how important you are, and I take full responsibility for forcing my sexual behavior onto you.

I want you to know I am putting in the work to change how I treat people. There’s nothing flattering about going to jail and being in a treatment program, but I am grateful for having the time and space I needed to realize how much I actually wronged you. I used that time to get my act together. I say this so you know I do not take what I did to you lightly and so you know I am not as crazy as I used to be. If we were in person, a medium pause would demonstrate the weight of my feelings over what I did to you. I very much regret the pain I caused you and your family, and these feelings have motivated me to stay my path these last few years.

Some of my feelings have to do with what I would have done differently. The past is gone, that reference has been overwritten, but moving forward I will always remember to listen to the ones closest to me. I didn’t do a very good job of that with you. I may have heard the words you spoke, but I didn’t even think about what they meant to you. I think this is the basis for all the ways I mistreated you. I was just too stuck in my own little, pointless world to pay any fair attention to you. Perhaps if I cared enough, I would have been better able to focus on you as a person, instead of just waiting for my next fix. You deserve so much better than that.

Back when we were together, I am afraid to admit I was jealous of you. You seemed to have everything I didn’t, and I didn’t understand why you were upset all the time. Regardless, it wasn’t right of me to assume you had things easy, especially since I was making things difficult for you. You deserve someone who takes pride in your accomplishments and who doesn’t project their insecurity onto you. So if I could do things differently, I would support you in everything you did, good and bad, better than me or no. You deserve at least that.

I hope this letter wasn’t too lengthy. It must have been difficult for you to read this, but even if it wasn’t, thank you very much for doing so. I hope this letter helps you overcome any difficulties you have in moving on from what I did. It has been an honor knowing you.

Sincerely, Nicename Wifi​

 

Is there any way I can improve it? I'm eager to know.

And thank you for responding. I honestly don't like saying I regret anything, because it presumes my knowledge of her experience after the fact, which is still valid. I'm not saying I would do it again if I had the choice, I wouldn't, but I think it is enough to say that I feel bad and see it as wrong. However, in the letter, I did use the word, 'regret', because I figured this was no time for semantics. I tried to be as respectful of her experience as possible while still expressing my ... regret. That's the only word I have for it, but treatment has taught me that it is just as crucial for me as it is for her that I move on, and regret is the opposite of moving on in some cases. Edit: I wouldn't be who I am today if I didn't move on, is what I mean. Idk. Maybe I'm over-thinking it, but I wonder where I would be if I didn't. Thank you.