Thanks for your thoughtful opinions - delivered so non-judgmentally, I would add. You guys are awesome big sisters to me. I am learning so much in my journey. I have visited Cali's thread and reviewed the lengthy discussion on forgiveness. I have also scoured the resources that the web has to offer. I learned that there are 3 types of forgiveness (per Dr. Steven Marmer at UCLA): 1) Exoneration: this is the one we commonly associate with forgiveness. It is reserved for cases where the offender shows true remorse and accepts full blame. It restores a relationship to it's former status. Clearly not the case here. 2) Forebearance: When the apology is incomplete and still blames the offended party. It would almost seem to apply here, except, my W is continuing her actions. 3) Release: This is the one I am truly pursuing. It is reserved for when the offender makes to effort to apologize. I would add that it may be beneficial in cases where there is no sincere effort or when the offense is on-going. To quote Dr. Marmer:
Quote:
Release does not exonerate the offender. Nor does it require forbearance. It doesn’t even demand that one continue the relationship. It does ask: instead of continuing to define your life in terms of the hurt done. You release your bad feelings and the preoccupation with the negative things that happened to you. It allows you to let go of the burden – the silent tax that is wearing you down and eating away at your chance for happiness. If you don’t release the pain and anger and move past dwelling on old hurts you allow the ones who hurt you to live rent free in your mind, reliving the persecution. It liberates you from the tyranny of living in the traumatic past.
Release is for my benefit. It means letting go of the anger. I think it is what many of you are getting at. I am just not there yet. I saw how it took job (the DBer, not the biblical character) three years to get over her anger. I also noticed how everyone does it in their own time. Vs reply resonated with me the most. Validate, without commenting or speculating on her motives/intentions or being overly sympathetic. That said, I am still leaning towards not replying. I thought long and hard about it. I even had a good cry. I am still, admittedly, on the fence about it.
Regardless, I hope I took a baby step today, and I will continue to make a sincere effort to be civil with my W.
