What I Lost, What I Gained, and What I Learned
Fighting through a lawsuit is an incredibly gut-wrenching experience. If you’re like me, you never wanted to be here. You didn’t want your private life aired in legal filings, you didn’t want to surrender your privacy, and you certainly didn’t want to relive the trauma that caused the damage in the first place. But there comes a moment when justice demands that you stand up — even when it means being torn apart in the process.
For 35 years as business owners, my husband, Craig, and I routinely analyzed difficult decisions. When weighing options, Craig’s guiding phrase was often, “I have one bad option and another bad option. Give me a third option!” Five years ago, when attempting to stop a handful of individuals from repeatedly contacting my childhood abuser and providing him with my private information, we realized a terrifying truth: there was no third option.
We had exhausted every alternative, sending four separate cease-and-desist letters to the group—a group that included a bitter ex-wife, Craig’s estranged son, and surprisingly, Craig’s own sister. Their response, after multiple appeals, was simple: they had “no reason to give in.” I simply couldn’t live with the relentless torment. I told Craig I felt like I was being backed into a meat grinder with no way out. In my mind, the choice was stark: stop them, or die. That may sound dramatic, but to anyone who understands the fragile nature of recovery from childhood trauma and the fear that I carried into adulthood, it was the reality of being targeted and terrorized.
What I Lost: Privacy, Dignity, Trust, and Justice
From a legal standpoint, our lawsuit is largely over. From a moral standpoint, justice never arrived. We lost nearly every motion that mattered, not because we lacked truth, but because the truth was ignored. The opposing parties deleted over 100 text messages to conceal the truth. One of them committed perjury, while another provided deposition testimony that directly contradicted sworn testimony from a criminal trial two decades prior. They conveniently suffered mass memory loss regarding a “Revenge” book and the subsequent campaign that appeared to mimic its principles.
Meanwhile, our evidence — security system videos of my panic attacks — proof of my suffering — went unmentioned in the judge’s Summary Judgment order dismissing our case. He made no allusion to the harm, nor did he mention the independent medical examinations I was ordered to undergo – which ultimately confirmed the emotional and psychological damage. It was as if my pain didn’t exist.
A post-mortem analysis is in order.
I clearly lost my privacy. I also lost the sense of dignity I had worked 30 years to establish after overcoming childhood abuse. When you are gasping for air during a panic attack, thinking it might be your last breath, you realize you aren’t as strong as you hoped. You learn there are people who, for twisted and perverse reasons, will enter your life just to tear you to shreds, simply because they can. This ordeal has shattered my faith in most people outside of my immediate and extended family. Where I was once open to trusting others, I am now permanently guarded.
Perhaps the most crushing loss was my trust in the “justice” system. In my view, the phrase “with liberty and justice for all” is a whitewashed ideal. In reality, defense attorneys appear to have one goal: to get their client off. The truth doesn’t matter; guilt is irrelevant. They will say whatever is required to win.
Judges are often former lawyers. They know the game and how to protect their own. The Court of Appeals was supposed to review everything from scratch — de novo — but instead they echoed the same flawed reasoning. Three times we appeared before panels of three judges, and three times we watched truth get replaced by convenience. Facts were ignored, and prevailing case law was overlooked. It became painfully clear: protecting judges mattered more than protecting victims.
What I Gained and Learned
In spite of all this—the humiliation, the shame, the lack of accountability, and the systemic failure—I have found times of enrichment and great gain.
I have discovered deeper relationships with my siblings. I learned that some of them truly understood what I went through – because they went through it, too. I gained a deep compassion for them and a regret for not being more aware of their painful scars from the past. Shared pain has a way of stripping away the polite surface and revealing what’s real. They now look at me with new eyes, seeing a broken individual who is actively working on finding healing and peace, while I look back at them with new eyes of understanding.
Most powerfully, I gained a broader comprehension of just how deeply my family loves me, especially Craig. Working together through the lawsuit was incredibly rewarding for us as a couple; we learned even more about each other’s strengths and how we complement each other day by day. Outside of the lawsuit, going through a cancer diagnosis together was life-changing. We were in love before, but the cancer amplified everything. Not a single day is taken for granted. Whether we work, play, talk, or laugh together, a golden holiness surrounds every moment.
I also gained a profound appreciation for victims who come forward—those whose only fault was being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and who decide to be overcomers. They fight through their fear, humiliation, pain, and grief to tell the truth and bring a perpetrator to justice. To those who have walked through fire in this way, you are my heroes for your grit and determination.
And finally, I learned that even in the darkest season, God remains. Jesus Christ has been my anchor in the storm. When everything else was stripped away — trust, safety, fairness — He stayed. I still pray for truth, for justice, and for the healing of what was broken.
Because while I lost so much, I refuse to lose faith.
And faith, I’ve learned, can be stronger than fear.
Marie Stevenson
Fergus Falls MN