Yes, Michelle, I understand that. As I said, I am not criticising you. I know that many, if not most, would have a similar response in similar circumstances.
Your reaction, as is true for most of us, will spring from the conditioning and experiences of your life. That is perfectly natural and normal, at least in my view but I think in the view of most.
There is nothing inherently wrong with that. It is, indeed, effectively a learned response and one that is unconscious and autonomous reaction rather than conscious choice, again, at least in my view.
However, what you've written about this indicates a courageous and resilient person who has overcome major crisis, apparently unqualified, unexplained and selfish rejection by someone who probably at some stage claimed to love you.
That is an amazing achievement, especially given that through it you continued to do the very best you could for your children. In the vernacular, I suggest that most would consider you rightfully to be an 'awesome' person.
I simply suggest that you will find greater freedom and fulfillment by moving from 'absolute' views and statements and instead letting go of judgment and accepting, even embracing what you have learned from an unfortunate and undeserved traumatic period in your life.
Being 'furious' about anything is natural but, in my view, never useful and more often than not far more damaging to the one feeling it than the one who may be considered to have caused it.
An intrinsic message and probably the most important one within the article to which we have both responded is that once one avoids absolute determinations and judgments it is as though the curtains are opened and the light shines through. It allows a clearer view of all facets of a scenario, including those relating to ourselves.
Growth, independence, sincerity, freedom and confidence in 'self' is derived when one accepts that. where human relationships, behaviours and actions are concerned, rarely if ever is a single person solely responsible for what transpires and its consequences.
There are no 'absolutes'. Life is complex. Human beings are complex. Relationships between human beings are even more complex. Our schooling, which is misnomered as education, is not designed to prepare us for or teach us about how to live with one another or how to communicate with one another effectively. I doubt you or your children or indeed most of us have ever heard the term 'empathy' used during our schooling. Yet it is empathy that is at the heart of understanding - at the heart of giving, rather than taking - at the heart of forgiving or even better, never blaming or accusing.
When any relationship results in friction, regardless of how convinced we are that the problem is or was the behaviour of another party, we will still attribute some part of the blame to ourselves. It is a reaction of the subconscious and normal human behaviour.
If forgiveness is necessary, it is for you to forgive yourself and that will happen when you let go of any blame and free your subconscious self to focus again on your own worth, rather than someone else's lack of it.
Are you not now in a far better place than you were? My impression is that you must be. So, my advice, and you may as well take it for it is no good to me :-), is look forward and let the past and all its associations lay.
Again, I wish you a peaceful, satisfying and rewarding future. I will not bother you further and apologise if my words have upset or disturbed you. I have meant and mean well and what you take from what I've written is for you to decide - accept it or reject it - it is *your* life.
