And that’s okay. I know our society and Hollywood always preach that FORGIVENESS HEALS and blah effing blah, but that’s not always the case. Take it from me: forgiveness given off the cuff, when you’re still angry and don’t really mean it, is completely meaningless. It does you no good. And, if you’re never able to really forgive, that’s okay: as long as you recognize your anger, own it and don’t let it control your life or your future actions… That’s fine. You’re just not ready.

As for the dilemma, knowing myself, I’m not sure I would ever be able to forgive something like this. I guess I would probably just tell my dad that I wasn’t ready to forgive him, and that I did not want any future contact with him. Like Karen said, I think you can still have a full, wonderful, great life and not be able to forgive something like this. A parent kicking their troubled child out onto the streets is pretty heinous, imo.

If I met up with him years later, he would be fortunate if I didn’t have a baseball bat at hand.

I wouldn’t be forgiving. He sounds like a user who doesn’t deserve forgiveness and I’d be hoping in his next life, his dad booted his ass into the streets.

Edited to add: Manchester who?

Sorry to interject after all this time but why are we talking about books instead of talking about Manchester United ?

As Bill Shankly once said ” Football isn’t a matter of life and death – it’s more important than that !”

See you all soon,

Hugs,

M.

But, on the whole forgiveness discussion, I’m not a firm believer in just letting things go. When it comes to family, I’ve gone that route more than once to no benifit at all. In fact, it was rather harmful.

Forgiveness often means that the person forgiven thinks everything is hunky dorey and they’ll try to insinuate themselves into your life again no matter how hard you’ve tried to maintain a distance. All is forgiven, yes? So what is the problem?

The problem is that sometimes you can only be forgiving if you don’t have any contact with said family member. Or only very LIMITED contact. Like a once a year phone conversation or some such. (I’d add an LOL to the end of that last sentence, but I absolutely can’t. It’s not the least bit funny, which is sooo sad.)

And as Teddy pointed out, hanging on to the anger is destructive, and yet as Lori pointed out, remembering that anger is not a bad thing. At least if that anger shapes you in the right way.

I fight against any sweeping statements of forgiveness or not remaining angry because sometimes it’s anger and a lifetime of feeling angry that affects change.

Honestly, I think the forgiveness I am talking about is not the sentimental sniffing let’s have a hug type deally.

I think forgiveness can be just setting the “victim” feelings aside and coming to the point where you don’t forget it happened but you also deep down know you have moved on and will not give it any more of your time. Anger is just too much energy to maintain and going through life still reacting to a long past event can turn into serious issues.

I went through so much recounting things to a psychologist I just got bored with it. Maybe that is what you should do, Get bored with the past even the bad things.

Compartmentalized or not, holding onto the anger keeps it inside and holding on to it can eat away at a person.

Sometimes recognizing that you’re angry and knowing why and staying angry at that situation is a powerful thing.

I fight against any sweeping statements of forgiveness or not remaining angry because sometimes it’s anger and a lifetime of feeling angry that affects change. And it seems to me that there’s more packaging of let go of your negative emotions aimed at women because it also, IMO,is a let go of your power also.

Strong emotion including anger is what often works as our catalyst to stop being bullied, to speak up for ourselves and ultimately to not be victimized. There are many reasons to forgive and many forgivable offenses, but there are just as many reasons to remain angry and unforgiving and use that to affect positive change.

But this is a really strong issue for me. I truly believe that many communities preach forgiveness aimed at women to shut them up and tie them down. And I truly do not live in a seething pit of hatred and negativity (in fact I’m usually pretty happy with the world) but I hold my anger as close as any other emotion and never negate why I have it and the positive things it can also achieve.

Abandoning one’s child for anything less than murder, rape etc isn’t right imo.

Of course, it’s wrong. But it’s not about right or wrong for me. Somebody up the thread mentioned that the forgiveness isn’t about him-it’s about yourself.

Compartmentalized or not, holding onto the anger keeps it inside and holding on to it can eat away at a person.

I used to thrive on staying mad, holding grudges, but I finally realized that doing so only bred more negativity and when I let negativity brew too long, it takes too big a hold in my life.

I finally figured out the best way for me to move forward in my life is to not hold onto the negativity. It’s definitely still a work in progress because my natural inclination is get mad fast and STAY that way when I’ve been wronged.

But I’m also learning I find more peace inside by letting things go.

However, like I mentioned, forgiving doesn’t mean I’d welcome him back in my life. Forgiveness is something I do for me-establishing a relationship with him would be something we’d both have to work at and unless I felt some sort of connection, I don’t know that I’d bother.

Unless something like that happened to me, I don’t know how I’d go forward.

I think it would be hard to forgive. I think its possible to live well, without forgiving something like this. I would probably tell him to get lost, compartmentalise my emotions about him, and move on.

Abandoning one’s child for anything less than murder, rape etc isn’t right imo. What would have happened if that child had been killed on the streets because as a parent he decided he couldn’t cope, and would rather have his wife?

If I had a child, and TTG and I split, and I met somebody else, I can tell you, the child would always come first.