The need for forgiveness when nothing else works

Mr. Ed

Mr. Ed

Be what you is not what you what you ain’t
Location
Central NY
I was told I should forgive my father/parents for the state of my life today. I've held such a grudge against my dad that hatred has prevented me from moving on. The more I learn about the choices he made regarding our family, specifically my brothers and me infuriates me to no end. if I could have a conversation with him perhaps I would understand his motives for avoiding us kids and ultimately family interaction?

I have trouble with church and baptist preachers as it was the church my dad chose over his family. Taking him away from me when I needed him most and using his position as a preacher to condemn me for looking at a girlie magazine. Overreaction to say the least but enough to destroy my life living in schizoid land. Childhood trauma has a tendency to cause the victim to be stuck within the frame of time trauma occurs, not allowing the mind to precess the trauma like an ordinary event, so the victim relives the event like a snapshot in time.

I've lived with this 53 years without peace or reconciliation. As I grow older, I hope to let him go as my source for restitution and get on with life. happier than before. I started praying again, I used to pray all of the time but when hatred becomes your primary focus in life, praying to god doesn't seem the same.

 

We forgive for ourselves Ed, not for the ones who wronged us. We let go for our own well-being. It is hard to forgive someone who hasn't asked; who continues to think they are right, or who is dead and can't be reached. Letting go may be more appropriate than forgiving.
 
I understand this from the viewpoint of hating my ex-husband for his treatment of me, and even more importantly for the way he treated our children. Like possessions, to be dominated and controlled at his whim.

It took me a long time with a lot of therapy to let go of that hate and find peace. One of the key things that set me on the road to recovery was the realization that forgiveness was for ME. Forgiving my ex didn’t absolve him of his heinous behavior, didn’t mean there needed to be a reconciliation between us, didn’t mean I had to like him. It simply allowed peace to the churning foment inside me that was turning me toxic and bitter,

It was very liberating to retire all that toxicity by allowing that forgiveness to flow from me. I was finally able to rest in the present and move forward into the future rather than being anchored in the past where all that hate had kept me.

I hope you find your peace. It’s worth the work.
 

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@ Mr. Ed.....I'm in a comparable place as you, my father has been dead for 22 years, I'm 70 now and every day I still think in my head what he would be saying to me if he were still here. The guy derived an illusion of validation by discrediting other people and blaming them for his perceived misfortunes. I was his most available target. As an impressionable and vulnerable boy he was without a doubt the worst influence on my life and he did damage the young person that I was back then. I've never been able to forgive him but I know that it's an important task for me to just let it go and do well for myself in the time I've got left.

I think that forgiveness works best when both parties are still present and the one who inflicted suffering expresses genuine remorse and the one who was brought to suffer lets go of the grudge and both can heal.
 
Every situation is unique, so you need to decide what seems to be the best option for you. As you can tell even from the few comments in this post, some of the parental problems are hateful and damaging to young people. I am not sure I could forgive these sins....

Your situation, where your father was so dedicated to the church and Christianity that is lost focus on his family. Just as hurtful to you, but his intent was not hateful in anyway. I think forgiving him is important to your mental and physical health going forward. You could start this process by sharing this with you pastor. From that you may be ok and need no more. Or you may learn from that to speak to your dad and openly forgive him. He may have no idea what he did wrong...
 
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I know how you feel. What you have to reconcile is that every-time you think about him, it all comes back fresh in your mind. You relive it, trying to make sense of it all....STOP.
Don't let his actions/inactions define you. He taught you a valuable lesson of what not to be as a father, as a person.
The best weight you will ever lose will be the weight of other people's opinions. Don't try for acceptance from him. The guy that gets you lost in the woods isn’t the right guy to find your way out.
Be better than him.
Live different. Old keys don’t unlock new doors
 
An advantage to forgiveness is that it helps get the resentment out of your head. I used to carry those resentments, many toward my father, around like precious jewels. The bag of jewels gets awful heavy. As Pepper said, we do it for us, not the other person.

It changes nothing about the other person, but it chances us.
 
I’m so sad for you. Truly. I had a less than ideal childhood, and it is hard to move on. But I did. Moving away to college and then moving 12 hours away from my family helped.
 
To some degree I think it helps to understand why people are the way they are. I used to think that people who were in prison deserved everything that happened to them and they were scum. But that was before I began to educate myself about personality, character development, and the complexities of the mind.
Almost no one has any say in their genetics, who their parents are, where they are born, the schools they attend, and the culture they are immersed in. Almost all of that determines who you are because your personality and character are molded in those formative years.
If you were able to look back into the parenting and culture that formed your father, it would most likely reveal some of the things that led to his behaviors.
It can take a great many years, as you have learned, to heal and overcome the damage sometimes done to us in youth. He didn't set out to ruin your life, he was just understanding and behaving in a way that was congruent with his beliefs and experience. Many books have been written on how to raise children, but I think a lot of that comes from learning how NOT to raise children (Mistakes many have made).

The bottom line here, I think, is to realize that we all make mistakes, including raising kids. Often that can leave lasting scars. Your father made some costly mistakes, but he was a flawed and damaged person himself. So if you had been born as him, raised the way he was, and had all the experiences he did, and interpreted them the way he did, you might have acted similarly.

Fortunately, somewhere along the line, you discovered or learned a better way. Just be thankful you did.
 

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