How do I forgive them?

[bb99]

Last year I had another late miscarriage (I am also privilaged enough to have 2 living children and the 3 who never made it through pregnancy) We found out the baby had died at an extra scan at 18 weeks.

My in-laws were very supportive the first time this happened to DH and I, over 4 years ago, but have just blown me away with how useless thoughtless selfish unsupportive they were this last time (not that I am a very judgy person ).

OK, there are mitigating circumstances, 2 weeks before we had our terrible news, they had a new GC from their daughter, so had been busy supporting her family and other child and were possibly very tired, but their support for us extended to one 5 word text and then after I emailed a leaflet about how to support people after a mc (we were feeling very let down after this huge 5 word text) got a snotty and hurtful (IMO) email back, then nothing mentioned since. No offers of help with the kids, no phone calls to see if I had died in hospital no calls to see how their son ws coping with yet another horrid event, nothing. MIL stayed with us for business a few weeks after the event and even asked 'whose funeral' we were attending the following week when we mentioned we would be going to a funeral...it was our son's funeral she had forgotten .

I know and accept that we are all different and we all deal with life in many varied and different ways, but I just feel so let down by them and am struggling to move on from these feelings. I always believed that we had a good, supportive, loving, understanding relationship and I feel that the last decade has just all been a nonsense and that this relationship I believed we had was a lie. I do believe that actions speak louder than words and have tried to be a good DIL and family member as family does mean a lot to me. I understand their actions, in some ways, I just find it so hard to accept them. So now it is as though I am greiving for the end of this relationship with the laws as well.

I have always managed to focuss on the posative aspects of our relationship with the laws and the many kind things they do. I am now finding this very challenging, especially as FIL does tend to spend a great deal of time with his other GCs, even when we are around. He has even 'forgotton, been too busy with other priorities' to sort out my son's birthday gift from nearly a year ago .

In the wider scheme of things, they are good in-laws and grandparents, I just don't feel the same way about them now as I used to - it's worse than anger, which is still in the periferals of my feelings towards them, largely it is complete indifference, which worries me as I know indifference is truly the opposite of love and I just feel no love for them anymore.

Ultimately the only person I will hurt with all this pent up whatever is myself, because I am not important enough to affect them . Help please - what can I do to let go of these feelings , or non-feelings towards the in-laws? Part of me just wants to be spiteful and cause them as much hurt as I have received from them, but I know that is completely the wrong thing to do.

How can I learn to forgive them for the hurt they have caused both me and my DH?

I am so sorry to read your news. I have suffered a miscarriage myself and felt slightly let down by some peoples lack of support as well.
Looking at it from the outside though must be so different. It is in your mind constantly and only people who have been through it themselves can really understand how you must feel and the best ways to show their support, while for everyone else the truth is that life goes on and they literally just have other things on their minds.
I hope you find a way to put it behind you as much as possible, I'm sorry I can't help with helping to forgive, but time is a good healer.

For me, forgiveness is not about the other person, it is about you. This is how I think is is possible to forgive and move on from hurts caused by people who have died.

Forgiving someone may mean never hearing they are sorry, they may not be aware of what they have done, they may not even be sorry.

Forgiving someone doesn't mean what they did or said didn't hurt.
Forgiving someone doesn't mean you will forget it or the pain.
Forgiving someone doesn't mean you think what they did was right.

It means you don't haul it around with you, you don't let it eat away at you, change you, steal part of you.
It means that you will daily try and move on from how it made you feel.
It's about not letting what they did or said keep hurting you.
It takes the power they have away from them.

In my experience, it is something I have had to do over and over again with certain people and events. If I still get a pang when I think about it I know I need to keep going.
With different relationships, you may be able to sit down and discuss things, with others you may not. My mum died, so I have had to work things through on my own. My dad is alive and i have worked things through on my own. As I have found peace with certain things re my Dad I have been able to talk to him about it without the hurt feelings and have then reached a better understanding of why he is like he is.
It is hard work. I still have to keep forgiving a Headteacher at a school I worked at for sending a letter to parents saying I had suffered a miscarriage without asking my permission first, when some of my family didn't know. So right now, as I write this and still feel the anger and hurt, I have to decide to forgive. Again.

I am sorry for you loss, such empty words, but I do feel for you.