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How to Forgive – Letting Go

Do you ever find yourself going along thinking you know something or that you’ve resolved something, letting go and all of a sudden there’s more to learn or you discover you just resolved it a bit more?

My ex-husband is in my life. We share four children and one grandchild and live a few miles apart. It’s taken a lot of work on my part to be in a state of forgiveness because A lot of letting go. We had a very difficult marriage. We were too young and too unsuited to each other to have anything but a contentious relationship for a good deal of the four years we dated and the 15 years we were married.

I’ve been going along thinking I had forgiven him for the hurt I felt but wouldn’t you know it, I learned just how much internal protection I was holding onto when it came to him. And I am sure he could feel that.I wasn’t letting go.

Maybe some people who grow up being abused never learn how to fully relax and fully trust others. Or maybe it happens in degrees over the years. I’m not sure but what I’m sure of is that I sat next to my ex at a holiday performance at our grandson’s school on Friday and I felt completely open to him for the first time – probably since we met in 1961!

The way it happened is quite amazing. I had put up a webpage with some cursory copy many months ago. It has completely changed since that time. For some reason he found that copy and protested (rather politely) that he didn’t enjoy being seen as an abusive man – particularly if his children or family saw what I had written. I was able to find the page and with some help, have it removed from the internet. But it really taught me where I was with him. I had still cast him in the role of abuser – which therefore means I was the victim! Oh, no. Don’t I teach others to take full responsibility? Haven’t I proclaimed to myself that I do?

Life is a wonderful teacher and I feel lighter and better about myself with this burden dropped – or maybe they’ll be more to drop someday in the future.