I hope that visitors here have looked at the articles on forgiveness at the links in the previous posts. Even if you don’t think of youself as the one who feels a need to understand forgiveness, these articles have something to offer. I got a lot out of reading them.<\/p>\n
My daughter has gone to the extent of calling me a fraud and a liar because in my journal\/blog begun on Estrangements.com I have said that I don’t understand why we are estranged. I had felt mystified. She is convinced that I had full understanding of why we are estranged. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In the recent argument with me in response to the Listening post on
\nLiveJournal, she began to list things that happened in 1995 and 1996 as
\nbeing the reasons why we are estranged. This is in addition to the
\nreason she gave in email sent to me last fall. That reason given in the
\nemail was that she did not like me, love me or find me appealing.<\/p>\n
Now I no longer would say that I don’t know why we are estranged.
\nHowever, I am surprised and saddened that these are the reasons that
\nshe gives for having estranged herself from me. I had thought that
\nthere must be something else, something more meaningful, something that
\ncould make sense to me. However, her lack of love makes perfect sense
\nof all the rest. Why would anyone go to any trouble for someone whom
\nthey did not love?<\/p>\n
Everyone makes their own decisions. Different things that people do
\nbother another person in different degrees. Some people let everything
\nroll off their back. Others are insulted if their father refuses to buy
\na house in their own neighborhood. I know someone who said he stopped
\ntalking to his father over that. Some people are very prickly. Some are
\nlike the princess in the story of the Princess and the Pea.<\/p>\n
I was mystified as to why we were estranged because I didn’t think
\nthat the things that had happened between us were serious enough to
\nmake a decision like that. They seemed too petty to estrange someone
\nwhom you love. There were other options, even if she was furious at me.
\nEven if I couldn’t and can’t understand where the fury was coming from,
\nthere were other options. Relationships between people who love each
\nother are worth some effort. But if someone doesn’t love me, then it
\nmakes more sense that she wouldn’t and won’t put in any effort. <\/p>\n
Now she is estranged from her stepmother whom I have never been
\nintroduced to and don’t know. And she is almost estranged from her
\nfather whom I did know and was married to for 18 years. I didn’t want
\nto be married to him any more but I never thought that he would be
\nestranged from our daughter. I would love to hear his side and his
\nwife’s side of the story. I have read my daughter’s side online.<\/p>\n
Going back to thoughts on forgiveness, the concept of forgiveness is
\nan important one. It relates not just to the obvious of one person
\nforgiving another for a hurtful action. It extends also to forgiving
\nthose who can’t forgive. It extends to forgiving ourselves for making
\nmistakes, for not being perfect, for not being all knowing. I think
\nMandela made a good point when he said that "Resentment is like taking
\npoison in the hope of killing your enemies." <\/p>\n
My husband and I sometimes talk about the act of forgiving when
\nwe’re watching a TV documentary where someone forgives the perpetrator
\nof a terrible crime against them. My husband is always appalled at the
\nidea of forgiving a murderer, a violent criminal, a rapist. I am less
\nappalled and understand the concept although don’t know if I could do
\nit if I were in the same position as the victim. I have thought many
\ntimes that I would like to throw the switch when the time came to put
\ncertain criminals to death. <\/p>\n
Of the two of us, my husband is the one who tends to be more
\nforgiving in his actions towards others if not in words. I am the one
\nwho tends to hold a grudge although I am not a particularly judgmental
\nperson. It takes something serious to get me riled so much that I
\nreally want to cut someone off. <\/p>\n
I have thought many times about forgiving my ex-husband for a number
\nof things. It has been really hard to bring myself to forgive him in my
\nheart. There have been many consequences from things he did and didn’t
\ndo. I have been very angry at him for a long long time. I was married
\nto him for 18 years and after leaving him realized how much I didn’t
\nknow him. It surprises me that I was in such denial about him. I was
\nnaive.<\/p>\n
Can I forgive him? I have wanted to forgive him. The consequences of
\nhis actions have been so hurtful. I hope that my desire to forgive him
\nis a beginning to forgiving him. I think I’ll get to that point one of
\nthese days, the point of being able to say that I forgive him and mean
\nit. I would like him to forgive me for my having hurt him. Perhaps he
\nhas but can’t tell me. I don’t think I’ll ever know. He may not want my
\nforgiveness but I would like to forgive him anyway. Forgiving him
\nwouldn’t make us friends. I don’t need to be friends and I don’t want
\nto be enemies.<\/p>\n
I forgave both of my parents for all the stuff that happened when I
\nwas a child. They were their own worst enemies and I am happy that I
\nhaven’t had to live in the shoes of either of them. They weren’t my
\nenemies. They were so caught up in their respective miseries and bad
\nhabits that they couldn’t be good parents. They were two of the most
\nunhappy people I’ve ever met. I have felt sorry for them both. My
\nfather died in 1988. My mother is alive. Even though I forgive her for
\neverything, I don’t want to have contact with her because she never
\nchanges and I’ve had enough bad treatment. I forgive her for this but I
\ndon’t want to subject myself to it any more. I wish she could restrain
\nherself. I accept that she can’t.<\/p>\n
I forgive my daughter for not being able to forgive me for things
\nthat made her angry. I forgive her even if she doesn’t want my
\nforgiveness or think that she’s done anything to merit needing
\nforgiveness. I forgive her. This doesn’t mean that I want our
\nestrangement to be over. Because of how she feels and how she has acted
\ntowards me, perhaps estrangement is the best solution for both of us. I
\nwill always love her. I might not always like her but I will always
\nlove her. <\/p>\n
She wants me to apologize but I have been there and done that and
\nnow it feels like that old cartoon with Lucy pulling the football away
\nas Charlie Brown goes to kick it and then he falls on his back. Every
\nyear Lucy did that. In this case I feel like I would be playing the
\npart of Charlie Brown and I’m not going to run and try to kick that
\nfootball one more time. At least not the way she wants me to. <\/p>\n
I will apologize here for the following … for not knowing how to
\nreact to her anger in 1995 and 1996 in a way that would make her less
\nangry. I am sorry for not knowing what to do and how to do it. It is
\npossible that if I did know the answer to that question, I wouldn’t be
\nWILLING to do it. I don’t know. But maybe I am just not wise enough and
\nthere was a way that we could have had a continuing relationship. Would
\nit have been a good one? I don’t know that either.<\/p>\n
I forgive her for estranging herself from me. I am sure that she
\nthinks that it is the best solution. From my point of view I am
\nthinking currently that she is right. At least as long as she feels the
\nway that she feels. I don’t need people who don’t love me to try to
\nlove me. Someone loves me or they don’t. When the person is a daughter,
\nit is important. I would prefer that she stay away from me if she
\ndoesn’t love me. But I forgive her for not loving me.<\/p>\n
For myself, I forgive myself for being naive, for sometimes being
\ndownright stupid, for not being all knowing, for being human, and for
\nnot knowing what to do ten years ago. I wish I were a wiser woman who
\nknew how to get along with everyone all the time but I forgive myself
\nfor not being that. I don’t know if even the Dalai Lama is capable of
\ngetting along with everyone all the time. Somehow I think he is capable
\nof forgiving himself if he doesn’t.<\/p>\n
Snicks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I hope that visitors here have looked at the articles on forgiveness at the links in the previous posts. Even if you don’t think of youself as the one who feels a need to understand forgiveness, these articles have something to offer. I got a lot out of reading them. My daughter has gone to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weblogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}