How do you stop feeling angry with someone who has hurt you?

[poshsinglemum]

I don't want to turn into a bitter old hag but how do feel better about an abusive partner. Some might have read my threads about how an ex almost killed me by controlling what I eat and I can't find it in me to forgive. I don't want to live in the past.

Went to CBT and it is excellent but the councellor said ''so do you now think that you can forget about him and move on?''

I don't think I can tbh.

Lots of other complicated issues are preventing me from forgiving including a much loved but destroyed career et.

I basically feel like I was robbed. I have recovered well from said robbery but still am angry tbh.

And to those who tell me to forget the past: How exactly?

I have moved on in many ways such as new career (not as good but pays), I no longer have an eating disorder and of course my lovely dd and my self esteem has returned. I am also aware of bad relationships but he has left a legacy in that I find it hard to make relationships.

I kind of know how you feel except I am angry at my mother not an ex.

Like you, I cannot see a means of actually moving on from what happened.

Hopefully someone more helpful comes along and gives up both a clue as to how it's done!

Oh well, it sounds like you've made a fabulous start

I guess I am mourning my old career. The relationship damaged it so badly that I couldn't continue. I think that I could go back to it in the future but not atm.

I think this is an interesting topic and look forward to other opinions. In my case I wonder how you get over the terrible things somebody can say to you in an argument. My husband is quite a name caller when riled and I think the stuff he has said in the past has deeply affected our relationship which is kind of non-existent at the moment. He would say that things that I have done or not done have affected it - however I am not nearly as verbally aggressive as him.
I know your issue is a lot more serious poshsinglemum so I hope people come up with more good suggestions. Maybe a different kind of counselling - more in depth like person centred for example could also help.

When I was eighteen I fell in love hook, line and sinker. It was the real kind that took until last year to completely get over. I even married someone to try and get over it . Nothing worked. I can't believe how ingrained this person was inside my brain. He would get intouch every couple of years and I would bite until he ate me up and spat me out again. Anyhoo a couple of years ago I don't know why I did it, but I decided to write evry single thing I wanted to say to him down. I didn't even think about what I was writing I just wrote. Once finished I didn't even read what I had written, I just went out into the garden and burnt the letter. I swear to the high heavens from that moment I have NEVER been affected by thoughts of him again. Maybe this would be a helpful method to you also. I think the trick is not to read it back. No mulling over it. Get everything out and just burn.

Oops contradicted myself a little there. It was a couple of years ago. 2008 at some point lol

I have been thinking about this Posh, a lot.

We are shaped by our experiences and maybe with some, we can hope to come to terms with them, accept that they are a part of us but find a way to take control of the effect it has on us rather than it controlling us.

Sometimes, even at 40, I can not stop becoming the little girl who had some bad things happen to her, I can not change how my H treated me at times, but I can learn to feel, to react and then put these things back in a box and define my own future.

I am having Transactional Analysis, which is very positive for this. In giving the negativity in my mind back to the person and owning my own feelings. So if someone says or does something I don't have to revert to that small feeling useless person.

It is hard.

And sometimes I find extending a hand of support to someone in a similar situation can help me look at my own situation a little better.

I am trying to fill the present and my future with things that will overshadow the things that have troubled me for so long.

It is OK to be angry. But how it shapes your life can be your choice even if it doesn't feel like it sometimes. Give yourself new tools.

Well, it's a start.....

Have you heard of Byron Katie and her enquiry process called "The Work"?

Her books and lectures are fantastic. There are therapists who do it as well, if you can find one who is "in training" they will do it for free if they can use you as a case study, I was lucky enough to find one. They have a phone helpline so you can get a therapist to talk you through it over the phone. (poss only available in US, not sure)

"The Work is a simple yet powerful process of inquiry that teaches you to identify and question thoughts that cause all the suffering in the world. It's a way to understand what's hurting you, and to address your problems with clarity."

In my experience it is very powerful and helpful

can you accept that you dont have to forgive?

There are some things that you dont have to forgive ever - but you have to learn to live with what has happened.

You need to accept that who you are now is in part because of the past but you dont have to be tired to it forever.

Good luck and i hope you find the peace you are looking for.

Hi all,

thanks for your input. Some people regret splitting up with someone they loved. People like me regret going out with them in the first place!

The phoneline service for "The Work" is available worldwide and you can skype it. It is staffed by volunteers so is free other than call costs. You can just ring them with questions if you want to find out more.

One thing I tend to hold on to is the nasty things that people say.
This is because in the past i have been bad at sticking up for myself. I need to pull people up on it straight away or else it festers away.

or just stay away from people who say nasty things - just cut them out of your life.

I know i have been more harsh with so called friends who just werent really doing me any favours.

Do you tend to overthink? Because you dont trust that you have the 'right' answer?

Posh, I agree with whoever said you might benefit from a more person-centred therapy. I had CBT and it was great for helping me change how I react to new situations, catch unhelpful thoughts and challenge them, etc, but not so good for dealing with the crap in the past, which was stopping me move forward. I now have a lovely therapist who is helping me deal with all that stuff, in lots of ways such as role-playing (sounds cringey but can really work) and reliving the past in the present tense. I have an abusive ex-p too and although I am not interested in a new relationship eer again at the moment, my therapist is showing me how I need to be careful not to make the same mistakes again, or fall into the same patterns of behaviour. It is so useful. I am seeing this person on the NHS, got referred through my GP, and so it is not costing anything.

All this 'you have to forgive to move on' is bollocks!

You don't have...I will never forgive my mother for what she did to me, how she made me feel time after time!

I will never forget either. I decided that it can't rule my life any more, because in doing so, she is ruling me & I won't let that happen any more.

It will take time, but you will come to terms with & it will stop being such a huge thing in your life.

differentname, are you still in contact with your mother?

I understand sometimes we can't forgive nor forget, but can we still maintain contact and have a functional relationship?

I'm struggling to forgive my DH and recover from the last 3 years living abroad in literal hell, some of it's his fault, some of it isn't. I feel traumatised and have battled agoraphobia since coming back home, I'm hoping someone on this thread can come up with a way for me to try and put my best foot forward and move on.

Probabaly need to do a thread myself, but not ready to get that massive tome down in words yet..

poshsinglemum, I don't know too much detail about your story, but it sounds truly awful and I'm so sorry to hear you've gone through what you've described here.

I hope you do find a way to stop the bad things that happened to you from affecting you, and gain confidence to be more yourself, a happy and free self that will laugh and smile every day.

Perhaps if you can try to tell yourself that you don't need to forgive him, what he did was inexcusable and wrong. Perhaps you don't need to forget, but it may help for you to put it in a 'box' marked Beyond My Control At The Time, and use it as ammunition to prevent anything like it happening to you again.

Perhaps your counsellor used a poor word choice, in using the word forget. I don't think stuff like that is possible to forget, but leaving it behind and moving on sounds good.... If only we can achieve it eh?

agree with what was said - you cant forget. but you can accept that it is in the past.

you have to learn to live with what happened in the past but move on from it and put it there where it belongs in its box...

also thinking about anger and who it serves - it only eats you up. it doesnt get at him. it doesnt even reach him. it serves no purpose at all. it serves you no purpose to be angry at him - tho you can channel that energy into doing something positive for you (all cbt type stuff - do the exercise of sititng down without thinking too much and drawing pic of yourself then - and pic of yourself now. look at both pics. what do you see? )

i dont think you should be required to forgive either - if what he did was terrible.

but if the "punishment" is enough perhaps one can feel that justice is done? eg he doesnt have you to abuse anymore...

Through counseling, I discovered that for me I needed to be able to forgive. It was as simple, and as difficult, as a decision, that the man I needed to forgive, did not owe me anything, did not have anything to pay back or anyway make up to me the things he had destroyed, that it was for God/a higher power/karma/fate/legal process to judge him, not me. And then making that decision ("I forgive him, not for him but for me") again a minute later when I still felt hurt, and again ten minutes later. Over time I stopped having to make the decision multiple times a day, and made it once a day. I got to a place of healing inside that I never expected to arrive at. For me, forgiving was about me, not him. I realized over time that bitterness had grown in me, towards him but also towards a lot of life, and I've lost that by forgiving. I also discovered a shame in me. That I had gone through things that were not caused by me, but I still felt dirty and ashamed. I believe it was forgiving him that helped me to see that, and have more counseling, and free myself from the shame that his actions had accrued in me.

This is intensely personal, so much so that putting it into words is difficult. It may not work for anyone else, but worked for me.

Just want to make it clear that I don't believe forgiveness means reconciliation. That is the opposite of what I wanted.

I've had some really really shite relationships in my life... hideous mother and two rotten Exp (who were bad in totally different ways..)

But I just choose to distance myself from them and not expect anything at all from them.

If I get angry because they have said or done something to me recently then I write it down on an email as if I am going to send it, then I save it in drafts. I have loads of those

Afterwards I feel so much better for not sending it. For not letting them know. It just get's rid of the feeling for me then and there.

I really really don't want them to live in my head and in my life anymore.

Isn't there a famous quote about choosing to give someone consent to make you feel bad..?

You don't have to forgive exactly, or think what they've done is okay, but just don't let it rule every move you make now. Some people are nasty pieces of work end of.

Internally I just stick that label on those people who have said and done some horribly damaging things and then just tried to accept that's that. It's when you 'look' for the good or try to rationalise what they do is when you get more hurt.

Forgot to add that the 3rd thing that happened after I forgave him was that I felt the link between us was broken and gone, and I felt free from him for the first time.

I don't talk about this usually because I've previously had responses of people implying I'm a doormat, or mentally disturbed, for wanting to forgive. But something in your OP nudged me into it.

Lymond, thank you for posting that, it's resonated with me.

groundhogs, no...not for almost 20yrs.

She has nothing to offer me, my life or my children. So I don't want her in it.