Dear Sperm Donor
Dear David,
Fifteen years ago, you came into my life, and I had no idea I would one day look back on you as the biggest mistake I’d ever made. You see, I believe that everything in our lives strengthens us and prepares us for where we are now, and if we like where we are, we shouldn’t change anything.
And yet, I still would go back and wish I had never met you. That has to show you the distaste I have for you.
Worse than that, I still shudder and feel unclean, dirty, filthy when I think that I ever let you touch my body, and I feel guilty that I ever enjoyed it, relished in that touch. Worse yet, I feel ashamed that I ever thought I might have loved you.
The things you have done to me don’t even matter, though the lies, the using me to get what you wanted… they don’t matter. That doesn’t matter.
When our son… correction, MY son, told me what you had done to him, I felt as though a shard of ice and pierced through the center of my chest and the coldness began to spread through my body. I comforted my son, questioned him, carefully–after all, I’d been trained in victim advocacy. I knew what to do, right? Do you know what it’s like to have to do that with your own child?
The ice stayed in me, freezing my emotions enough to do what needed to be done. I called Child Protective Services, asked them what to do. They told me to call the police. I called the police. The officers who came to the house were nice, but they were obviously as uncomfortable as I was with the situation.
My son waited in his room while I talked to the officers on my front porch, so he could not hear, would not have to relive it. They arrange for him to meet a counselor at Harmony Home, an agency that helps children who have been sexually molested or abused. The appointment was set for 10am on Monday.
It was one of the longest weekends of my life.
Monday morning, we sat in the waiting room, my son, barely seven years old, was playing with a teddy bear they had given him to make him feel more comfortable, and was drinking a juice box. He was nervous and asked me what they were going to do to him.
I said, “Baby, they’re not going to do anything. They just want to ask you some tough questions about your… daddy.” I nearly choked on the word. Any man can be a father. A real daddy would never do what you did to a child, especially his own child.
How could you?
Then, they took me to that little room with the video monitors, where they were recording my son. I watched while they pulled out the dolls and questioned him. I watched him squirm in his seat, so uncomfortable. Then I watched him point to the penis on the male doll and heard his little voice say, “Daddy asked me to touch him there.”
But just when I’d heard what I thought was the worst of it, I watched him twist his little hands and say, “Then some white-ish gray stuff came out of it, and daddy told me to get some toilet paper. When I didn’t move, he yelled at me to hurry and made me cry.”
He was too young to know how a man’s penis works during ejaculation, David. He shouldn’t have known that for many years to come. But to yell at him for not moving fast enough to clean your cum off? How could you?
Then, the reason it had taken him four weeks after it happened to tell me came out. He said, “Daddy told me that if I told mama, he would get in trouble and wouldn’t get to see me anymore. He said if I told anyone at school that I would get in trouble and go to the principal’s office for swats. Am I gonna get spanked?”
Tears streamed down as I quietly sobbed in the dark observation room. When my son came back out, I was in the waiting room, drying my tears. He said to me, “Why you sad, mama?”
How could you?
The cops believed him. I believed him. My entire family believed him. But you, you said he lied. You denied every bit of it. You told your family I had made it up because I was jealous and angry that you had recently remarried. You told your church that I was using it to deny you the right to see your son, but still get your measly 200 bucks per month in child support.
You can keep your goddamned money, and I’d gladly pay that and a million times over if I could go back and erase what you did from my child’s heart and mind.
That was in November. By next June, the case had been filed with the DA, and we were waiting to go to court. I was driving back from an off-site job in a nearby city when my cell-phone rang.
It was you, David, calling me. I nearly drove the car right off the road in shock. I pulled over and sat and talked to you. You admitted everything. You said you’d signed a confession. You explained how you had lied to your congregation and how it was false prayers they were praying. You said you’d told your wife everything.
Then you asked me how my son was.
Then… you asked me to please have mercy on you, that you had talked to the DA and he was willing to drop the case, and all I had to do was sign an affidavit of non-prosecution.
My hands were shaking. My heart was racing. If you’d been standing in front of me, I might have punched you.
I might have killed you where you stood.
As it is now, I don’t remember what I said to you. I don’t remember anything else about that trip back to the office either. I don’t remember calling the DA to confirm, but they said I did. You did tell the truth, finally.
But I was still furious. The ice I had felt to get me through it all had started to crack and white hot flames filled me with a rage unlike any I’d ever felt.
I thought the worst was over, though.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Just when things were calming down in our life and getting back to normal, I made a flippant comment to someone in my household that my daughter overheard. The comment was, “Sometimes, when we can’t control someone else’s actions, we can change how they react to us by changing our actions.”
Simple statement, but it somehow triggered something in my daughter.
When I questioned her, she began to cry. She told me, through a tear stained face, that when she was 9 years old, you had done the same thing to her.
Her guilt?
She felt it was her fault that you had done it to her brother, because if she had told, you would never have been around her brother, and I could have stopped you.
My guilt?
I had failed to protect both of my children from a predator… why didn’t I see it? Why didn’t I know? I WORKED in this field. I’m not stupid. I’m not one of those woman who stay with a man and pretend not to see.
I truly did not see.
How did I miss it?
How could you?
But the truth is, we’re not the guilty ones, David. You are. You are the guilty one. You’re the one who signed the confession and admitted to me what you did to my daughter.
She’s over 18 now. She can chose to prosecute you now. She has until her 23rd birthday to fry your ass. I don’t know if she will, but know this, beyond any doubt: I will support her 200% plus if she chooses to prosecute against you.
My son… he’s not okay. I make it as okay as I can, but there are issues now, because of what you’ve done. He doesn’t call you dad or daddy anymore, hasn’t in a long time. Been years since he’s seen you, but I can still feel the pent up anger in him when he snarls your name, “David.”
He thinks it was his fault. He was 7 years old, and he thinks it was his fault because he didn’t say no. He thinks it was his fault because, “… but mama, I kinda wanted to touch it.” He thinks it’s his fault because he wanted to make you happy.
How sick do you have to be to twist the mind of a child like that, David?
Do you really think the two weeks you spent in the mental hospital and the pills you now take make up for anything you ever did to my son? To my daughter?
To me?
You can repent. Maybe your God will forgive you your sins, but I’m not divine and I do not forgive you.
And you want to know what makes me the angriest, David? Do you want to know what gets me, deep down in my very soul?
You asked me to show you mercy. You asked me not to prosecute. You asked me how my son was and expressed relief when I said he was fine. You admitted the truth. You signed a confession.
But the one thing you didn’t do…. The one that pisses me off the most… the one thing that still burns deep down in my gut, deep into my soul…
You never once said you were sorry for what you’d done.
I can only conclude, David, that you truly have no remorse. Your only guilt is that you got caught.
When I think of you working on an abused children’s ranch, my blood runs cold and wonders what you did to those kids. When I think that you worked as a youth counselor and coach at the Y, I shudder. When I think about your niece and nephew you used to babysit, I want to cry.
Predator. Pervert. Asshole.
You make me sick. The thought of you makes me physically ill as I sit here and write this to you, knowing I’ll never send it. No good would ever come out of it. I don’t want to open up a dialogue with you. I am happy you are out of our lives.
But part of me wants to know… why did you never say you were sorry for the pain you caused?
I heard a quote awhile back that said, “Hate is a poison that does more damage to the vessel in which it is stored than does to the object on which it is poured….” After reading that, I let go of my hatred, I let go of the hate.
But I keep the anger tucked safely away inside of me. It is my strength when I need it. When things get tough, when my son has a bad day, I pull that anger out and let it fuel me to be patient and understanding of him, for him.
To be both the mother and the father he doesn’t have.
The father, the daddy, you will never be again.
To him, you are David, his sperm donor. This is what he calls you.
To me, you are evil personified.
One day, when my son is grown and successful and happy again, in spite of what you did to him, when he has a healthy sexual relationship with someone he loves and I can see you did not destroy that for him… maybe, just maybe, I will forgive you. But if I do, it will be forgiveness for myself, not a gift I extend to you.
Goodbye,
A Real Parent
PS: And no, David, I did not change your name to protect your privacy. You don’t deserve it after what you did.
~~~
The writer of this letter has chosen not to include her name and bio. We respect privacy on Unsent Letters.
There are no words to say how that letter made me feel, how I wish I could reach out and heal the hurt. Thank you for sharing because I know there are many out there who know exactly what you and your children have gone through and who continue to suffer and every person who steps forward shines a light on a dirty corner that too many people would rather not face.
You are incredibly brave and strong and I wish you all the very best fopr the future.
Wow. Very sad. This one must have taken some courage to submit to the site.
Hugs* May God have mercy on your family. Your children’s “sperm doner” deserves none.
The strength that it must take to deal with this situation has to be tremendous. My prayers are with your family.
Oh my….my heart is in my throat and all I want to do is reach out and hug you all. What you have endured, all of you, is unimaginable but so real…Know you and your family are in our prayers for healing. You are such a strong woman and mother and your children seem to have an amazingly strong spirit, because of your raising, yours and yours only. Keep the faith!
This is a first step to forgiveness. Once you go through that process, it will make you stronger, happier and it gives you much relief. May the Lord bless you and your family. I know all too well where you are coming from and I pray that my own children will never go through this.
This sort of predator is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He wore the clothes of a husband and father. He wore the clothes of a counselor at a camp for abused children. He wore the clothes of a righteous Christian. He wore the clothes of a civic leader and businessman.
But nothing he could wear, no disguise he could use, nothing he could paint himself with will hide his true, sick, aberrant, ugly, disfigured, malformed, twisted nature for long. He sowed hell into the lives of many. Balance in the Universe portends that it is fitting that he should have a long, agony-filled, shame-filled, downtrodden, miserable existence which is unrelenting. And death shall not release him.
May your daughter find the strength to prosecute. May your children and you find complete healing. May love follow all of you and dwell in your lives and surroundings as well as your hearts.
Blessings, Love, and Light…
My heart goes out to the letter writer here. You’re a better person than I, because I’d have killed the son of a bitch! ALL pedophiles deserve to have it cut off and shoved down their throat, so it would be the last thing they experience before they die! Again, I’m sorry you and your son experienced this evil. This is the ultimate betrayal of trust!
By far the best letter posted here yet! Thank you for your honesty and courage!
Oh, and I am sorry for the careless omission of your daughter. The guilt she carries must be immense! By all means, she needs to prosecute (that way, she can play with boys his own age!)
You have no idea how much I understand the anger inside of you from this and the pain. No one will EVER touch our children or they will deal with me. I was abused for 4 years before it stopped. I only found out recently why it even stopped at all. My husband was abused for 10 years before he was big enough to fight back to stop it, but for both of us the damage was already done. No one stood up for us. We didn’t know who to turn to. We didn’t know how to make is stop. We were kids. We both figured somehow we deserved it. No one would believe us if we said anything. We were voiceless kids. I know i didn’t want to cause hurt or problems to other other people I loved who could have been affected and i know I was the only one it happened to, for a fact so I felt doubly defective.I was singled out for abuse, used as an experiment. In my husband’s case we believe there were quite a few others it happened to in other families at the same hands, but nothing was ever done. His abusers are gone. MIne apologized in front of a witness so I didn’t feel like I was imagining the whole thing anymore, constantly doubting myself because I could never speak it until then, but what he did does not go away with an simple few sentences. It burned too deep for too long with no release.
So I fussed over stupid little things to hide the really big ones that might hurt more people by finding out, a whole family. A kid, a young girl took on all of that on herself to keep the peace for everyone else and in the process felt herself melt inside because she couldn’t let it OUT.
We held it inside ourselves like a ticking time bombs. His time bomb went off and broke a lot of him inside into pieces. Mine melted me inside. We both managed to find a way to survive and appear alright on the outside, but with no one to guide us, no champion standing up for us, the pieces had not come back together in any semblance of completely whole, until we found each other.
We still pay daily for the horrors in our own childhoods and the damage our abusers did to each of us, the scars it left, the nightmares that still happen, how it affected relationships,self-image,trust, how we have to fight that constantly inside of us, psychological scarring that runs deep because no one knew, so we held it inside. Two different families, Two different places, Two scarred human beings.
Abuse may stop but like a pebble dropped in water, the ripples continue in one way or another. forever. I pray for your kids that theirs are smaller ripples than ours are. I think they will be because they had you instantly defending them, standing for them once you knew. You didn’t doubt them.That by you fighting for them, acknowledging the abuse, allowing the simple dignity of giving voice to their abuse and not denying it, of being their champion, they at least can see from a young age that what was done to them was wrong and there was nothing wrong with them because it happened, There was something wrong with HIM, not them. They had voice. It was and is you. I don’t know who you are but thank you for standing up for them and giving them a voice they could not find themselves, for loving them enough to do that.
I hope your daughter prosecutes. The SOB deserves the max.
I’m sorry your family had to deal with this.
This is a very powerful letter. It is a shame that good people have to go through so much crap in life. We never want to see our kids hurt that deeply. Words can’t say how sorry I am for you and your family to have to go through such a horrible thing. I shall keep you all in my thoughts and prayers.
I sincerely hopes she prosecutes too. I unfortunately let my molester get away with it.
My brother-in-law did something quite similar, imagine my surprise when my three year old daughter said Uncle S’s tail made her throw up. I was livid.
You see when I brought my older son home from the hospital and my daughter noticed his penis, and questioned it I told her it was his tail.So when she said his tail made he throw up I knew exactly what she meant and I was pissed.
Like David in this letter my brother law hid in the mental hospital and claimed he did not do it. You cannot hide from us we all know the truth and so does God.
My sister divorced him once my daughter’s story got out, and then her own little boy who was also 3 told of stories when he’d curl up on the couch under blankets with his dad and daddy would touch him.
My daughter and nephew are 22 now, and both are recovered and doing fine. Neither child has seen that man in 19 years… Both had trouble growing up esp as teens and doing the normal teen stuff with relationships. They were scared to death because of what my brother in law did…
Anonymous August 3, 2010 You did the right thing. I wpuild have done the same and even more than that. I would ahve slpeapd his face with my id.He deserves it for not only being stupid but irresponsible.Don’t ever feel guilty for such persons.And I will not aologize. He should know better.
Very powerful letter. I hope your children find the peace they need and deserve.
I am a very gentle, loving person by nature, but if someone did this to my son I’d probably be with Justice and kill the bastard!
Y’all stay strong and hold to one another. I know you’ll get through this together!
Oh God, that bastard deserves so much worse than what he got. I am angry that he didn’t serve jail time. I think this is a much much worse crime than any murder.
The fires of hell are burning bright for him. I can’t wait for him to join them.
Your poor family. Your kids are blessed to have you. You believed them without question and protected them for any further pain or harm.
My prayers are with you.
My thoughts and prayers are with you and your children.
Now I have to go dry my eyes and wash my face. This was truly emotional. Thank you for sharing it.
It took me a while to figure out exactly what to respond to in regard to this letter. After wiping my tears and choking down the lump in my throat, I now know what I want to say.
I believe that this is the meaning of unsent letters. This letter, because of the anger and emotion, makes us all more aware of the people around us.
It can be anyone!
When I was first married I used to worry about my huband giving the kids a bath or dressing them, even leaving them alone with him. I wondered if I was a bad person for wondering this. but NO, I was and am a good mom for wondering, for being aware, and for looking for the signs. sometimes it will get passed us. But I believe that its people who are strong enough to let others know and to confront that person, that are helping others prevent such things from happening.
I want to rip that mans throat out for hurting those kids, how dare he!! Thats how I feel about it. Thankyou for sharing this with us.
I know what you have been through, I’ve been there when my ex-husband messed with my daughter several times over the years when I was at work. She has anger issues and, of course, I didn’t know. I was working while he was being a lazy bum. Always out of work because of his attitude.
I know what it is like to say I would kill the SOB. In fact, I was going to do just that, until my daughter he molested begged me not to. And when I went out the door after him, she begged and begged. She said it wasn’t worth me going to jail for the rest of my life, leaving the other kids without, at least, one good parent.
She is right, in fact, they didn’t do a thing to my (then) husband even after the reports because they told her she would have to get up in front of public court and tell what he did to her. (if I had killed him and he lived, I would have went to jail and he would have got the kids.) Anyways, they said if she couldn’t go public in court, then they couldn’t do anything to him. So she kept it to herself, so everyone in our town didn’t know what happened to her. She and I both carry guilt. Her because of what he did to her and not being free from the shame he put on her and me because I wasn’t able to protect my daughter from him. And my guilt to the fact that I chose to live my life with an animal I thought I knew and could trust.
You are in my heart. Just take it one day at a time.
*Correction to the above comment. If I had TRIED to kill him and he lived…instead of what I wrote. (Sorry for the typo, but it is hard to talk about….without getting very angry and upset.)
Please… God PLEASE tell me that your daughter prosecuted….
This is my biggest fear with my children. I have both a boy and girl. I thank the Lord that my husband is of SANE mind. However there are so many other SICK, perverted, disgusting, souless bastards like “David”.. I pray for your healing and the healing of your children..
The writer of the letter actually IS in the process of prosecuting David at this time. The DA in the county where this happened has handed it over to the DA where the kids live now, and both children are now adults and are both banding together to file against the perpetrator/defendant. We don’t have to say ‘alleged’ since David singed a confession–it’s not alleged. So now, we wait while it goes through the process. David is going to be quite surprised when he gets served process… I’m sure by now he thought he was safe.
this took me twice to read and i am so sorry for your pain and sorrow.