Oh and don't worry about me taking on too much if the responsibility. No risk of that. I'm über conscious of how much damage the father of my children has caused them AND me. Every single day. But I'm working hard on letting it go. I can't do anything about it. So why carry it?
I think of the story of the two Buddhist
Monks who came upon a woman needing to cross a stream. Their brand of Buddhism forbade them from touching women. The older monk thought for a second, then lifted the woman up and carried her across. Then the monks continued in silence. Until the younger one could stand it no longer and asked "How could you touch that woman and break your vows? She was unclean!" and the older monk just smiled and said "I set her down way back there on the river bank - are you still carrying her?"
I don't for a moment claim to have victory in that struggle - of letting go of the hurts of the past. And it's not so much about forgiveness as it is about self-preservation: I simply do not have the energy to carry it all. So I've got to lighten the load emotionally somehow. Might as well drop the anger, because it weighs a ton...