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    What Now?: Understanding the Sexual Offense in Your Family
    What Now?: Understanding the Sexual Offense in Your Family
    What Now?: Understanding the Sexual Offense in Your Family
    Ebook135 pages2 hours

    What Now?: Understanding the Sexual Offense in Your Family

    By Gary M. Duke

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    About this ebook

    Not long after I began treating sex offenders, I learned of the many challenges faced by their family members. I felt their pain as I learned of their plight. One case brought a new perspective into my view. An offender had molested his fourteen-year-old daughter. As a result, all three of his children were placed in foster-care and adopted. His wife had nothing to do with the offense. Her crime was being married to the offender and continuing to love and support him.

    A secondary victim is someone who is negatively affected by the offense but not directly involved. The consequences of being the family member of a sex offender are many. Society sees them as co-defendants at worse or ignorant losers at best. After all, why would someone choose to support and accept a sex offender? The partners and children of offenders often live under the same scrutiny as the offender himself. Many of the laws and restrictions affect them also. Even worse, few people seem to care.

    Secondary victims suffer in silence. They are in my eyes “the forgotten ones”. This is why I wrote this book. When a sex offense occurs in the home there are far more questions than answers. I imagined a wife or daughter of a sex offender whose world has been rocked by sexual assault reaching for answers. What Now? Understanding the Sexual Offense in Your Family is an attempt to bring some order and clarity to a home filled with chaos. It is filled with insight, answers, information and hope. In between the lines is a heart of passion beating for the men and women who society sees as expendable and the people that still love them in spite of it all.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThomas Nelson
    Release dateJan 7, 2020
    ISBN9781400328574
    What Now?: Understanding the Sexual Offense in Your Family
    Author

    Gary M. Duke

    Gary M. Duke MA, LPC, NCC is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Missouri and has facilitated sex offender treatment for fourteen years. Gary is also an ordained minister with the Assemblies of God. He and his wife Gina have been married for thirty-two years and have two married daughters and two grandsons. Gary owns and operates Bright Future Professional Counseling in Neosho, Missouri.

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      Book preview

      What Now? - Gary M. Duke

      Introduction

      It was in 2005 when I received the phone call from a small counseling agency in Neosho, Missouri. I had graduated the day before and my family and I were celebrating by taking a small camping trip at the Grand Lake of the Cherokee in Oklahoma. The journey to receiving my Masters in Counseling had been long and had required much sacrifice. I had submitted my resume to every counseling agency in the Neosho and Joplin areas. There were only a few. I hoped and prayed that someone might give me an opportunity. I was what they called a PLPC (Provisionally Licensed Professional Counselor) which meant I needed to be supervised for two years before full licensure. I needed someone to take a chance on me.

      That someone was Steve Briley. He and his wife Ginger owned Southwest Missouri Counseling. I was surprised since it was one of the smallest of the agencies I had contacted. I have a position open, but I don’t know if you are interested, he said. I guess he wasn’t aware how desperate I was to launch my career. I asked what the position comprised. That was when I learned that Steve provided sex offender treatment. I don’t know if you will work with those people, he said. I was willing to counsel Satan and his angels. The idea of trying to help sex offenders did not dampen my enthusiasm. I took the job.

      That was the beginning. It turned out to be much more than an open door. It became the bulk of my career. Those two groups evolved into four groups. Steve sold his agency, and I launched a private practice. Soon I was facilitating twelve sex offender groups across the State of Missouri. I traveled over one thousand miles for over thirteen years to meet with one hundred offenders each week.

      Three things occur when you are operating within your gifting. First is that you find fulfillment. Second is that you excel at what you do. Third is that others often misunderstand you. People often struggle to grasp your ability to commit to something they either don’t understand or value. All three has occurred in my life.

      My career has acquainted me with thousands of sex offenders. They have told me thousands of stories. I’ve gotten to know many of these people. There are some with deep seeded issues that will always need a diligent effort if they are to control their deviant tendencies. Those are the exception. The vast majority are people such as you or me. They are good people who did something terrible.

      Many of these folks find it hard to conceive that they could commit such an act. Offenders struggle to understand how it happened. Many question their mental well- being and wonder whether they are the monster that society says they are. Some fear it will occur again or they ignore that it could. Others dread what life will hold. Every one of them has received a life sentence of shame.

      This book is not for them. It is for the people who love them. Those people whose lives have been rocked by the unthinkable. The thousands whose future has been altered by the uncovering of a secret too dark to imagine. It is about what comes next. What should be the response of the offender’s family and friends? How will you reach a level of safety or confidence so this nightmare can end? Is it even possible? How did this happen and why did it happen to you? Can we fix the offender?

      Secondary victims are the people damaged because of a sex offense. They are the family and friends affected because of their relationship with the offender. The offenders leave the wives and children and others dealing with the aftermath of a sex offense. They often receive little consideration. This book is for you.

      I prefer to see this book as a survival guide for secondary victims. I did not write this book for therapists. I wrote it for wives and children and grandchildren of offenders. I wrote it for those who are grasping for answers and hope. I pray that it will be a source of strength because knowledge often produces power. It sometimes produces peace.

      This subject is hard to grasp. It is difficult to separate your emotions and preformed beliefs. I encourage you to read this book with an open mind. You are likely in one or two camps. You either are in total disbelief that this occurred or you are so full of anger and rage you find it hard to think straight. Both responses are very typical and expected. In either case you are grasping for answers. The truth lies somewhere in the middle of that battlefield in your mind and heart.

      I encourage you to do your best to distance yourself from those emotions long enough to absorb the truths I want to share. You might need to read this book in small increments to allow your anger to subside or to allow your mind to process what it is being conveyed. Read the book with a highlighter. Make notes and then give yourself time to consider how it applies to you.

      Much of the information shared assumes the offender is a male. Though I have provided treatment to a number of females, the vast majority of offenses are committed by males. However, the interventions suggested in the various chapters are often applicable to both genders.

      I offer you something few authors will do. I want to make myself accessible to you. I am including my email address in the back of this book. I encourage you to write me if you have unanswered questions. I will do my best to respond quickly. Last, I am a person of faith. I have faith in a God who sent His Son to free everyone from guilt and bondage. My prayers accompany each book. That prayer is that you will find help and hope within these pages.

      CHAPTER 1

      Denial

      Most people cannot grasp the devastation which occurs when a family experiences a sexual offense. It usually comes out of nowhere. The allegation is often made to a school counselor or a friend of a friend. Suddenly the home is filled with police or members of Child Protective Services. Often times the children in the home are placed in foster care regardless of their level of involvement. The spouse of the offender is scrutinized and at times placed under arrest for child endangerment.

      I have listened to the accounts of offenders who describe what it was like for their sin to be made public. They often describe the shock and horror which accompanies their apprehension. Their wives are filed with anger and disbelief. Their children are filled with fear and anxiety as they watch their father carted out of the house in handcuffs. They are made to gather what clothes they have handy and moved to a safe place in a strange home. At times they are being rescued. Other times it feels as though they are being kidnapped.

      The victim is filled with guilt and shame. He or she is often seen as the source of the trouble that has suddenly come upon the family. They are often ridiculed. They experience angry looks and verbal assault from their siblings and at times the non-offending parent. They are displaced and often spend the first night away from the crime scene lying in a strange bed in an unfamiliar place. They wonder why they ever allowed the abuse to stop. At this point, they may prefer molestation over disclosure. They believe they have destroyed their family and they are the ones to blame. Nothing could be further from the truth.

      Often the offender is in complete denial. He stands in the living room in front of the police and glares at the victim. He rails at the victim and questions what possessed him or her to make such allegations against him. He looks at his wife with pleading eyes looking for her support and appealing to her devotion to support his unwillingness to admit his wrong. Often times she complies. I have seen mothers who literally abandoned their children for the sake of their husbands. They refused to believe he was capable of sexual assault. She had caught her child in lies previously. Surely there must be something seriously wrong with her daughter for such a tale to be concocted. She can’t believe that her husband is capable of such an act.

      I recall a client who fought his case for three years before he pled guilty to statutory sodomy. His stepdaughter was age eleven at the time the crime became known. It had been occurring over a year. His wife stood by her husband. She was convinced her daughter made it up because she didn’t care for her stepfather and his rules. The victim was placed with her grandmother and the wife was denied access to her child. She was made to choose between her spouse and her daughter. She chose her spouse.

      The abuser began treatment in a state of complete denial. This is common. In fact, it is rare for a client to begin group therapy admitting his crime. He continued to deny his wrongdoing in spite of the fact that his story had holes in it he could not explain. Then he was administered a polygraph. Polygraphs are administered on a yearly basis. It is a great treatment tool. It aids the therapist in discovering past sexual misbehavior not previously discovered. It helps to keep the client on the straight and narrow path should he consider indulging in risk taking behavior. And of course, it is a method of clearing up unanswered questions. It is often the catalyst for the client to take responsibility for his actions.

      When asked concerning his offense, this client failed miserably. During the next group session he admitted everything. Clients often want to admit, but are afraid to do so. The crime is a chain wrapped around their heart and mind. They are rarely far away from the guilt. The knowledge of what truly took place in the child’s bedroom haunts them. The truth stares them in the face each time they look in the mirror. He shared the real story with the group as tears flowed. Afterwards he described the sense of release he experienced as the weight of deception was lifted off his shoulders. Well, it was partially lifted.

      Three years had come and gone. He had hoped to beat the case in court. He had

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