Forgiveness

Forgiveness does not mean that you have to accept a person back into your life, or that you are condoning what someone did.


Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different.


                                                                                                                                      - Oprah Winfrey


I absolutely love this quote.  I've heard other things- For example, that forgiveness is something you do for yourself, so that you can move on.  That it's about letting go.  I've always thought of forgiveness as meaning you have to be able to wish the person well and mean it, that you don't want them to pay for the past.

And to be honest,  I've had a hard time with that definition.  I can honestly say that I do wish my ex well, that I do hope he finds happiness (in some ways), but I think part of the reason is selfish- because I want him to leave me alone.   If he finds happiness, he will get off my back.   And then when I realize that part of my reason for wishing him well is so I could have peace, I feel like a bad person for thinking this way.

A few days ago, I told someone that I would never wish pneumonia on anyone, except maybe my ex.  I know it's kind of mean, but truthfully, after all the cruel things he has continuously done for the past 7 years, without ever letting up, how could anyone be altruistic and wish someone happiness when they keep calling the police on you, or sending lawyers after you, or telling your children that you are a horrible mother?   And then (again), I felt like a really bad person because I realize that maybe I don't wish him well after all.

But this new definition is one that I can live with.  Because I think I have come to terms with the fact that there were things in my past that created my present.  That I wish the past could have been different, but I've accepted it and been able to move on knowing that good or bad, it is what it is, and that I just have to deal with the reality I've been given.  But most of all, I've accepted that the past could probably not have been any different.  My ex is who he is.  I really loved him once, and I didn't know about his temperament until after I married him.  If things could happen again, I probably would have done them the same way, because there was no way to know who he was until after we were married.  If I could have known beforehand, that would be a different story, but it couldn't have been any different.  Not really.  Except maybe that I could have left him sooner.  But those are events that I really cannot change, and it's time to stop analyzing why I let things unfold the way they did.  I let them unfold because that was the capacity I had at the time, end of story.  And by the grace of God, things are different now, I am different now, and so things in my life will unfold very differently moving forward.  Fair enough.

A good friend recently held me as I sobbed in her arms after my ex's last stunt.  She said "Oh honey.  You know what he's like.  Just accept that he will never change.  That you cannot have a civil relationship with this man.  Let it go and you will be OK.  It's the hope that's giving you constant disappointment.  You can't hope for a leopard to change his spots, or for a jerk to unjerkify himself.   Let it go...and stop wishing for him to change".

And it's true.

So I"m hoping to give up the "why me", the "why does this keep happening".  I'm even starting to give up the "when will it end".

Because quite frankly, it may never end.  Well, not until the children are 19, at which point the whole dynamics will change.

But at the end of the day, I can forgive...funny enough, and this realization made me cry for, honestly, like an HOUR.  I have been focusing so long on trying to see if I could be good enough to "forgive" my ex, that I forgot that he's not the one that I need to forgive.

I need to forgive myself.

For making the choices I made, for letting things unfold the way they did.  I am the one who needs to be forgiven.  By myself.  For purely kind reasons.  Because it's time to love myself again, and time to realize that at the end of the day, I have to give up the hope that things in the past could have been different.  The wish that I should have, could have somehow made them different.

I did what I could, and I survived, and my children survived.

So I forgive myself.  Time to let my heart at ease, to let it breathe again, to live life again.  And to let life unfold as it is meant to.  And to let the past be in the past.  Not an easy task, but I will give it a try.

And if every now and then I forget, well then, I can forgive myself and keep moving forward.  I think I've earned at least that.