WorkInProgress8

Many say that to forgive another person you must first forgive yourself. My struggle is that i dont how to achieve that forgiveness or where to even start. How do i forgive myself for staying in such a toxic situation w my XABF? How do i forgive myself for getting pregnant & bringing my son into this mess? How do i forgive myself for being so naive &holding onto hope that things would get better? How do i forgive myself for lowering my standards and self worth to give my love to someone so undeserving of it? How do i forgive myself period?!

Mizz

I think in all situations there is something that we are learning. I dont think you would have gone this far in the relationship had you known what the outcome would be. Please be gentle and compassionate towards yourself. Ive personally gone down many roads that i regretted. I learned, moved on and am walking something different now. The negative voice is not going to help what is. I think what matters is what you have learned. HUGS!

Mo S

Just my experience; i found a therapist who was able to help me with all that stuff which was a heavy burden to carry. I wish you the best.

m1k3

It's not your fault you were naive, no need for forgiveness there. There is no need to forgive yourself for loving someone, love never needs forgiveness. There is no need for forgiveness for having a son, that is a gift to be treasured. There is no need for forgiveness for hoping thinks will get better. All of us here have done that.

How I came to forgive myself is when I accepted reality for what it was and let it go. I did my best, I loved and got love then I loved and got hurt. It was what it was and it was simply time to move on.

Be easy on yourself as it is so much easier looking back to see how things went wrong than it is looking forward trying to figure out what might go wrong. You did the best you could with what you had.



Your friend,

marie1960

I have been struggling with the same thoughts this past week. I keep asking myself, why in the hell did I stay in a toxic situation. WTH was I thinking?

I knew the XA was a drinker, very social, always the life of the party, etc.....
I also knew he lost his career, and driver license because of alcohol......
We were kind of thrown together by circumstance, he was down on his luck, and I was in the mist of my own pity party.

The bottom line. I DID NOT CARE. At the time, I did not have enough self respect to get myself to a better place. I was not ready to deal with the facts. It hurt to much to get real, to take the bull by the horn and heal myself. I was being lazy, I was so angry, I was blind with grief. I was in denial of my own life, and self worth.

In retrospect, it was my choice and my actions, I crawled on that rollercoaster,
( thinking it was as good as any place to hideout) and road that ungodly ride for 5 years. It was all me. He never pretended not to be a drunk, I pretended, I did not care that he was a drunk.

Last week, Anvil said " There is a huge difference between feeling good, and doing good" She hit the nail on the head. We all want to feel good, but to do good, takes effort, and work, hard work.

I guess you could start by placing value on YOU, and your BABY.
Half the battle is done, you now know what you do not want in life. (alkie)
Turn the focus to you and your child.
Wishing you peace.

DesertEyes

What I learned in my own recovery is that I have to heal all my various emotional injuries "in order". I have to work backwards from what is causing me pain to the source of that pain, and then work on the source.

In my case, I was not able to forgive myself for all the things I had done because I kept doing them. Lowering my standards, accepting the unacceptable, etc. Basically, I did not trust myself to _not_ do it again, so first I had to work on trusting myself. Only then would I be able to forgive myself.

Trusting myself then meant I had to start doing trust-worthy acts. That is very similar to healing my low self worth. How do I heal low self worth? By doing worthy acts.

I have heard in meetings that recovery is a program of action. I don't heal just by thinking, or talking, or sharing. I heal by taking action.

What I did was to volunteer to help set up meetings, to bring the literature to meetings, to handle the donations and pay the rent. I went on panels, I put my number on the phone list and answered calls, I volunteered at the local ER, I showed up at funerals, gave people rides, helped gather donations for the shelters.

I did the things that are done by people with self-esteem. Little by little it rubbed off. I started feeling that maybe i was worth something after all. Maybe I was the person I wanted to be, and not the person I thought I was.

Took me awhile, but I got the hang of it. After my divorce I learned how to date again. Got back out in the world. I met a wonderful red-head, dated for awhile, and when we both realized it wasn't working out we ended up being best of friends. Dated again, same result but with a fantastic blonde this time.

Did it again, met a lovely biker chick out of the Marines and had a fairy-tale relationship for about 5 years. Ooops, turns out she has an addiction, and as much as it killed me I learned my lesson. Am not putting up with this. Not again. Told her to straighten up, go to counseling _with_ me or we are done. She did not want to give up the addiction and I did not want to give up my serenity. Was way too hard my irst time thru al-anon, I'm not going thru that again.

So we parted ways. Been a little over a year since that.

Today there is this lovely lady from the Navy that keeps popping in and out of my life, and there's is a cute blonde that keeps running away, then letting me catch up. Oh yeah and my sister keeps trying to set me up, but that's a whole diffferent story.

I have forgiven myself, but only because I have proven to myself that I am not going to hurt myself again by hanging on to the fantasy of a relationship long after it has stopped being a reality. When I arrived in al-anon I was a crying mess. Today I have Joan Jett and WhiteSnake cranking on the stereo. Life is good and I am living the dream.

Mike

WorkInProgress8

Thank yall so much for your kind words of wisdom! It is but i am trying!

Spes

...and you will succeed because you must for your son. I learned to forgive myself when my daughter started asking the same questions you are asking now and I didn't have an answer. As DesertEyes said....I had to start "doing" in order to have the experiences to help my daughter. One of the things I did was to start writing journals. In the process, I wrote a book and paid to print 2 copies. Many years later, my daughter asked the same questions again. This time I was able to tell her of my experiences and I also gave her the short story I had written.

lizatola

This is a wonderful idea. I would love to do this some day!

For me, I had to forgive myself for just being codependent, for going through his closet looking for the bottles, for checking his car, etc. I forgave myself by just letting go and repenting to my Higher Power that I know what I did violated his privacy, etc. Forgiveness has been a process for me and I don't believe that I forgive and forget. I believe that I forgive and then move on in a way that takes me away from the memory and from the pain that it caused. I am still working on forgiving my AH. It's hard because he's actively drinking despite getting a DUI recently. I guess I think it would be easier to forgive if he was working some sort of recovery. Oh well, it sure does give me practice on getting my own act together, LOL! Hang in there, stuff like this takes time. One thing I've noticed is that I'm too impatient with myself. One day at a time!