Those are the really tough situations, abusive relationships. I do not have direct personal experience so I can’t extend my conviction out that far on that basis. I had a sponsor who had been sexually abused by a priest, and he said that he could not come to a resolution on that until he realized that while he was not responsible for what happened, he was responsible for his reaction to it.
I do have experience with having a resentment toward someone and being unable to resolve it until I was able to develop some empathy for him. He did hurt me in that relationship, but after it was over, I carried that hurt and anger around and just let it fester. When I was able to understand, however grudgingly, that he was just a lonely and frightened individual, that I could then set aside the continuing anger I was feeling.
I don’t think I came to peace with it, but I did stop letting it drive me. And when I saw that I had chosen to continue participating in the relationship, then the idea of forgiveness kind of evaporated. It was replaced with acceptance that we both had a role in what went down.
This seems muddled to me, but I hope it will help at least describe what I mean a little more.
The “tough love” part of this has to do with emphasizing the work we must do to recognize our roles, to accept that we did have some choices either before, during, or after the relationship. Forgiveness is not some immensely heroic act of self-sacrifice. The letting go starts with our own responsibility, and when we’ve reached closure with that, generally the whole episode loses its strength.
@Englishd, I can ask the mods to move this to the lounge if you would like to tidy up this topic.
My concept and practice of prayer is quite fuzzy and not well defined. It’s certainly not in line with any religious dogma, I am more inclined to question and doubt than to accept. The book I read from daily does present me with this challenge regularly, as the spirituality it expresses is an odd mixture of early 20th century spiritualism, Christian dogma, and the personalization of the divine as male. It is much easier for me to accept the writings about the stream of goodness or the box of space and time, than it is for me to accept at face value that a prayer is a request straight to some divinity who will grant my wish if I am judged good enough.
Know I’m replying to a months old post. All the “find the people who have what you want and do what they do” stuff I heard in early recovery eventually clicked for me.
This realization that the people I hated cuz I saw them as better than me and felt like they were flaunting it? That wasn’t them being an asshole, it was me being jealous and them being happy.
Now when my eyes turn green I ask, what do they have that I don’t? And if I hang around or even ask them how they got it, they’re usually happy to tell.
Granted half the time I realize they worked their ass off to get it and maybe I’m not up to the task. But now at best I grow, and at least my envy turns into respect.
And either way, least I’m not salty about it anymore.