Evil Stepfather

I just read an interesting article on “forgiving” and how men and women differ when it comes to forgiving.  One passage stood out:

“What we found is that when men recalled their own offenses, they were more likely to empathize and then forgive. But they had to do that emotional work first,” she says. “When the women started thinking about their own offenses, they tended to feel defensive and guilty, and that made it harder for them to forgive.”

The article gives advice on how to start down the road to forgiveness.  I’ve already forgiven my stepdaughter for what happened since she was not well.  I have yet to forgive my ex-wife.  Her reaction to my attempts to correspond with her always brought back the anger.

Here are the tips, but do read the entire article:

• Allow yourself to experience anger, but don’t hold onto it for months or years on end. When the anger starts to consume you, you’ve held onto it for too long.
• Express your feelings in a positive way through writing a journal or talking to a professional, close friend or family member who can help you make sense of the situation.
• Try to step into the shoes of those who hurt you in hopes you’ll see the situation from their perspective.
• Write a letter about your feelings to the people who hurt you. If you decide to talk to them, Exline recommends saying, “When you did X, I felt hurt,” instead of directly attacking them.
• Most importantly, have patience with yourself: “Remember, forgiveness doesn’t have to happen in a day.”

I’m having a tough time with the first one.  I get over the anger, then something brings it back.  Not good.  For the second point, I write this blog and I saw a therapist for a while.  The third one is tough, I did try to see things from my ex’s point of view.  I still could not come to terms with how she let her daughter control our lives and our marriage.  The fourth, write a letter, hasn’t worked out so well.  What I wrote probably did not conform to their suggestion.  That last one, patience, well, I think I’ve been damn patient.

Looks like I need to try a lot harder.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 25th, 2008 at 11:21 pm and is filed under (ex)Step-Daughter, (ex)Wife, Mental Health. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.