Forgiveness - is it always bad to not forgive?

[phipps]

I will never forgive my mother for things she has done. We have no contact and never will. Day to day it has no effect but I wonder what it would feel like if I said I forgave her (just out loud to myself) but what would the point be?

I have never sat down and thought I accept my mother didn't want me or had the capacity to always make sure I was safe and happy. She has never put me first. I have always known that.

It's not a matter of accepting that what she said was ok. "Acceptance" is not the same as "agreeing with".

It's a matter of accepting that what she said and did really happened and that nothing you did then or can do now will change that. Don't bother trying to get her to agree with you about it or to properly apologise. Don't waste your emotional effort in brooding over it or wondering what is/was wrong with her for her to do what she did.

Accept that, for your own health and security you have made a decision - a decision that you as an independent adult are entirely within your rights to make - to break off contact.

NorthernSky I can't believe what that ow put you and the kids through. Hidous. She is one sad woman to keep on attacking you, the innocent party.

I have just reread your post perfumedlife and it helps a great deal, thank you.

Thank you to you too, Snorbs, that is just what I needed to hear I think.

Do you have children phipps? And an adoptive mother?

But maybe you can be on your death bed and forgiving her.

forgiving in your heart doesn't mean that you have to have her in your life, or even to tell her that you forgive her. Your feelings and peace of mind is what is important here, not hers. She is on her own journey, suffering her own guilt or forgiveness, or excuses or whatever, you can't know or understand that. If she desperately wanted your forgiveness then surely she would make more effort to get it?

I do have children, perfumedlife, but no mother.

bundleberry - I don't think she cares either way. It is always about her. Threatening me with her suicide if I didn't do things, saying she has a "right" to see my children.

For me, having been abused and treated violently by a brother, it was over a decade after I'd left home before I could even say his name (when referring to someone else), never mind talk to him.

What made a difference to me was actually becoming a parent and understanding why he behaved the way he did. Once I understood, the pain left.

However, I still can't talk to him (haven't spoken to him since I was 8.) Interestingly, he can't remember any of that time.

If you can't understand how someone could act the way they did, I really think forgiveness isn't possible.

I will never understand why she abandoned me .

I know a friend of a friend who sought out her birth mother when she was thirty. She didn't tell her mother, she worried it would hurt her, make her feel she wasn't enough because of lack of blood ties.

The initial meeting with bm was great, fun, dinner, reasonable understanding, mainly due to the adoptive mother being very generous with the info and discreet with the painful stuff. Subsequent meetings were not so rosy, and this girl felt utterly torn, guilt ridden, as though she was cheating on her mother, with her bm. We all wondered if she shouldn't be honest and tell her she looked up her bm. She didn't want to, for reasons she couldn't quite work out. She did know that her mother would be very understanding and accepting of the relationship, but she just couldn't tell her. Two months later her mum dropped dead suddenly, at home, getting into bed.

The girl was utterly devastated, and says she knew in an instant why she had not told her mum. She knew her bm was not her mum, never had been, her adoptive mum was her true mum. Contact with the bm came to an end, she felt she knew enough, and had no wish to see her again.She is happy, she feels she finally knows deep in herself who was the real mother. She is just sad it took her mums death to make her see this.

What did she tell you was the reason phipps? Did she ever give you a reason? Who raised you, if thats not too painful to discuss?

I can't recall her ever telling me why she didn't want me. I do remember her saying she must have wanted me as she decided not to have a termination but she had opportunities to have me back but always chose her latest man. No one raised me really.

That has to be the saddest sentence I've ever heard - "No one raised me really." It makes me want to give you such a big hug.

Phipps, do you have a family of your own, now?

I have a lovely amazing husband and children who are my life but I don't feel I really belong.

What's saddest of all in this, is the need and desire for a mother, a mum, never seems to leave us.

You must know how rare and wierd her actions are, being a mum. Do you believe this is about you, or her? She left you behind, it was nothing to do with you, phipps, the baby girl, it was what you represented to her, a need to mature and care for others and not fixate on one's self.

Her lifestyle and decisions maybe explain all you need to know. She is missing the neccessary selfless part of her nature, to care for her child. It's that simple, and sad. She probably can't explain her reasons to you because she doesn't know. You can't miss that part of your nature if you never had it. She is an abberation, because nature provides mothers with the needed hormonal imperative to protect,, and she didn't have it, or not enough of it.

You must feel like you are grieving the mother you never had. At least now you can give your children everything, all the love, you never had. The best revenge really is living well.

I do believe it was my fault though, to do with me. She wanted a boy.

I know her parents and step mother weren't very nice to her and so she had no idea about being a mum and was very selfish, but I am trying my best without any role model at all.

I said to my dh last night I want my mum and he said things aren't that bad and we had a little giggle but I would love a mum.

You belong to your choldren now. That's your family. You created that, be proud of what you achieved. You know where you came from, you wouldn't want to be there now. I feel so sad reading that too, but you do belong with your family, the one you made, chose and stayed with.

Children, sorry.

I don't know whether this has happened to any of you, but there have been many times, bringing up my two children (they're now at university) where I felt so empathetic towards them, that in a way I felt I was the mother to my own self as a child. Does that make sense? I could identify with them so clearly, it was almost as though I was them, or they were an earlier version of me.

Phipps, I feel I belong to my own children far more than I felt I belonged to my own siblings etc. You do belong to them - your husband has chosen to spend his life with you and to your children, you are everything.

I don't know if this is what you mean but sometimes the children get a look on their face and to me it means X but they are feeling Y. X is me remembering how I felt when I had that look on my face. Y is just them being miffed because I told them off or any number of other feelings.

Does that make any sense?

phipps, I will be a mum to you, I am quite sure all of us on this thread would happily take on the role, we have love to give in abundance.

I remember dad and his sisters walking behind the hearse of their father's coffin. Their mother had died years earlier. Dad was crying and held his sisters and said 'thats it now, we are orphans" and it made me so sad. Sad to see my dad, in his forties with five kids and a wife, and still he was a little boy missing his parents.

That need is deep rooted.

I have never felt wanted or good enough. I nearly feel wanted by dh but never good enough for him, for my kids, to have friends. Don't feel equal.