Can people who hurt you in the past suddenly become good people? Should you forgive?

I always think that my parents both made a lot of mistakes when I was little that deeply scarred me...but I honestly believe that none of it was intentional (misguided, but not malicious), and these days they are much better. So, I want a relationship with them, BUT how can I really forgive and not blame them for the way they treated me and all the problems I have now as a result? I mean, how can you really have a healthy, genuine relationship with a mother who kicked you out of the house at age thirteen and a father who spent your teenage years ignoring you in favor of his new wife when you needed him most after this huge, crushing abandonment? Can you really just move on from something like that?

I know that's what therapy is about, and I think I CAN forgive them and have a healthy relationship with them. I think my relationship with them is pretty good now. I guess sometimes I just wonder if I SHOULD. Especially because I know that especially when I'm with my mother, 99% of what comes out of my mouth is tailored to what I think she wants to hear, because I don't want to uncover old wounds and ruin our relationship again.

It's complicated.

"Can you really just move on from something like that?"

No, you would do yourself a disservice to overlook or push away harm done to you because you felt so needy for connection now.

There is a vast difference between parents healing, growing, working hard to improve and making amends, and parents who can sort of toe the line if you don't say anything honest that might bother them.

Your deep desire to make this right no matter the cost to yourself is common. I understand it. But I think you rightly sense that it's not so simple- you'd be sacrificing your sense of self and worth to write off that treatment as being irrelevant because it was in the past.

I think they are honestly, genuinely just not self-aware enough to realize they ever did anything wrong. And part of me is very against blaming people for their own ignorance...on the other hand, they sort of OUGHT to have known that their behavior was wrong...but they just don't have the capacity to see that, I think. So, stalemate?

You're saying your parents were too stupid to not mistreat you.

And they weren't responsible to try and become smarter.

I guess I don't think the reason matters much.

If you're more evolved than them, I'd want you to stay evolved- if you're homo sapiens, don't hang with neanderthal.

Harsh, but important I think.

I literally felt I was more evolved than my parents. (My parents acted dishonestly and vindictively with each other. My parents abused me.) And I still miss having them, or at least, having good parents.

But I couldn't really stomach a relationship with people like them, in the end, it did not matter if they *would* not be kind or if they *could* not be kind, it's all the same.

We all make mistakes. My parents did raising me and I know I made mistakes raising my kids. I think you should have a relationship with your parents because one day they will be gone and you will then wish you had. Like I do now since mine are gone.

Mistakes and abuse are different.

And I haven't heard the OP say that her parents made the choice to improve- to get help, to make amends, to take care of her, to heal the breach.

But my feeling is that "a mother who kicked you out of the house at age thirteen and a father who spent your teenage years ignoring you in favor of his new wife when you needed him most after this huge, crushing abandonment" is more than just a simple mistake. It's harmful, it's neglectful.

Also, I remember some of the other awful things you've written on this forum that your parents did to you, and I would never call that a mistake.

Mistake vs. abuse can be a matter of perspective. (In some cases - others are very clear-cut, but in some cases, it just depends on how you look at it and who you ask. I think mine falls into the "matter of perspective" category. And yes, even after years of therapy now, I still think that.)

If it was just a mistake, your parents could have repented, gone into family therapy with you and spent the necessary years to make amends. Have they done any of that? Changed in a significant, meaningful way to do their duty to you?

I think my mother, at least, has tried to make amends in her own way, just by having a motherly relationship with me and trying her best to be a good mother the only way she knows how. Has she acknowledged the pain she caused me? No, but I think it would be incredibly painful for her to acknowledge that, and I don't blame her for it at all. I think it would destroy her if she realized what her actions did to me.

I think you need your parents. And you really really want to justify that need.

Why not just accept it for what it is? You ask can you forgive and not blame- why even try that? Why not just accept what happened but realize you don't feel wronged or like being without them enough to write them off?

Your parents mistreated you, but they didn't murder you- you're still here and you want to be with them, because who doesn't want to be with their parents. It's hard not to be.

So, why not consider that you can accept what there is. Some pain and enough good to keep you there? It doesn't have to be neat and tidy.

You sound conflicted, but you seem more willing to sublimate your pain so as not to pain your mother. Because having her take real responsibility and make deep change would hurt her, you can choose to spare her- that's your choice to make.

I think the difference between abuse and a mistake when you refer to the "perspective" things is whether they would be willing to apologize if you told them how their actions affected you.

"I'd been feeling suicidal and I told my dad that, and when he completely ignored me and told me to get out of his office and leave him alone so he could get some work done, I got really hysterical and couldn't stop crying because I just really wanted him to hear me and be there for me and understand me. Which he did not want to do, so he told me he was going to have to take me to the hospital, which I was terrified of and did not want to do (I was really sick when I was a little kid and in and out of the hospital a lot for blood/platelet transfusions and am terrified of needles as a result).

So his solution was to call the police and have them take me to the hospital, which was even MORE terrifying because I was a 16 year old kid and here were three really big men telling me that if I didn't come with them they were going to MAKE me come with them (this fear probably originates from the fact that my mother and stepfather physically abused me for many years, and as a result I don't like people putting their hands on me, especially if I don't know them).

So naturally I did not want to go with them and one of them put handcuffs on me and they pretty much carried me to the police car and took me to the hospital. By which time I was having a major panic attack and was having a lot of difficulty breathing and could not stop crying. By that point I was just acting like a five year old and spent literally six or seven hours sobbing hysterically and asking everyone I saw for hugs and asking them if I could call my mother, to which everyone said no, and I had to stay overnight because it was 10:00 and the doctor wouldn't be there until the next morning, and they gave me a couple of needles which were terrifying, and I was pacing around the room I was in and the nurse that was there said if I didn't sit down on the bed she would put me in restraints, and it was literally the most terrifying night of my life.

And in the morning when they finally let me call my mother, she came, but she accused me of only calling her to get attention or to manipulate the doctors into letting me go home and told me that if this ever happened again not to call her next time."

http://forums.psychcentral.com/psych...t-started.html

Is all that really mistakes to you?

It took me eight years of therapy but I finally came to peace with my parents. Was the best time and money I ever spent.

This post touched me and I think quite a few people in similar circumstances, trying to come to terms with old wounds and people who hurt them an deciding what kind of relationship to have with them. I'm one of them.

Here's my opinion: I think anything is possible and people who hurt others can change their ways. Just because somebody did bad to you, does not mean they are bad people or will always be the same. Even the best of us have hurt others (intentionally or not). I'm glad that you can forgive them for the pain they caused you. And I think perhaps it is in part because you see their actions "misguided, but not malicious."

But I think the toughest part of the question you pose, is whether you "should" forgive them. Obviously just because you "can" does not mean you "should". And you've been hurt by their actions (intentional or not) and living the consequences. Even now you are well aware of the wounds (as indicated by your attempt to tell your mother what she wants to hear) and the past is never far off. This is tough and something I've been struggling with as well. After all this....should I?

She says her mother physically abused her for years along with other horrors I've read during last several months. I can't equate years of physical abuse and the other events she's recounted with mistakes.

One thing to forgive, but another to pursue a relationship with people who have a significant track record of abuse and neglect, isn't it?

If one wants a relationship more than anything, one can certainly choose to keep it- clearly it's a powerful motivator to maintain connection to our parents, very powerful in a primal way, but to push the significant, ugly, unresolved parts under the rug to do it... is that pure and clean forgiveness, is that healthy, healing?

For some reason, I'm able to split people (BPD?). So the parents I had growing up no longer exist. They, in a sense died.

I do call my biological mom "mom". I call my biological dad "dad". But they will never be my mom and dad. My mom and I are really good friends, but it's not a mother/daughter relationship. I have no contact with my dad because he still is toxic to me (same with my younger sister).

Have I forgiven my parents? Yeah. I know I was wanted (they tried for 5 years to have me). But xyz caused them to neglect and abuse me. I will NEVER forget. I will NEVER allow them to hurt me again. But I am different; they are different. So long as we respect each other, a relationship can exist. People do change. I wouldn't want someone to never give me another chance because of mistakes I've made.

yearning, you are asking a whole lot of questions here. i think there is a difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. forgive? yes. reconcile? maybe. that depends in part on the other party doing their part. i'm not sure from what you are saying that your parents have suddenly become good people. i would bet that they have grown as have you and if you no longer live with them then yeah that helps the relationship work a lot smoother.

you can have a relationship with your mom but unless she really takes responsibility for her part and takes active steps to change then no it won't be genuine and healthy. you can only clean up your side of the street. your mom has to clean her own side and you can't do it for her or pretend she has cleaned it when she hasn't i.e. sweeping things under the rug.

so, what are your options then? well, you can have a limited relationship with her. you will probably need to limit how much time you can talk to her or be around her because you would find it detrimental to your well-being to spend significant time around her. it will probably be a bit superficial too because you can't really be your true self with her. i think if you really want to have a relationship with her now then this is your only semi-healthy option. since you're in therapy you'd be working through what comes up as you go along because of course things will come up. this could be helpful and manageable or it could be overwhelming and throw your own progress in therapy off-course.

the only other option while staying in relationship is to do what you have said and just put on the false self, people please away and have a relationship at the expense of your true self and sanity. i would not recommend doing that at all. not. at. all.

the other option is to go basically no contact and work on really healing from your wounds and then when you are in a much healthier place to slowly reconnect again knowing that it still isn't going to be a cakewalk. your mom may change eventually, or she may not, and that is out of your control. what you can control is how much time you are willing to be around her and how much of your true self you are willing to squelch for a relationship with her. sadly, there is no ideal solution here and you have to give up something no matter what you decide.

so, forgive your parents. give up the anger and judgment which i personally find to be a process rather than a one-time event. forgiveness doesn't mean what they did is okay. it just means giving up the anger and the judgment. just don't confuse that with jumping back into a relationship with them and thinking everything is going to suddenly be solved because you've forgiven them. just because you do your part doesn't mean they have done their part. people and relationships are far more complicated than that and it takes a lot of hard work and humility to truly change. accepting that you didn't get the kind of healthy childhood you wanted is all part of the hard grief work you have to do.

Especially because I know that especially when I'm with my mother, 99% of what comes out of my mouth is tailored to what I think she wants to hear, because I don't want to uncover old wounds and ruin our relationship again

This part speaks volumes.

I don't think your parents suddenly changed. I think that despite their considerable shortcomings as parents, they are complex people who are neither just good nor bad. They each, no doubt, have nice and positive qualities. And you, as an adult are much better able to figure out exactly what they need you to be and what you can safely ask of them. As long as you keep tailoring your words to what they can tolerate, what flatters them and makes them happy, you can have a pretty good time with them.

This comes at a cost though.

You can do lots of things with your feelings toward them and your feelings about how they treated you. But I wouldn't rush to forgiveness just because anger is so uncomfortable and because your desire for a loving family is so great. You really do need to feel and experience all that stuff otherwise you're just accommodating their needs at the expense of your own.

Forgiveness is for you, not them. You don't even ever have to tell them you forgive them. You don't have to forget what they did to damage you. But you want a relationship with them and now is the only time you have. I had really crappy parents, I was abandoned, neglected, abused both physically and verbally, both of them seem to be narcissistic people. I decided one day to let go of the past and try to make a relationship with both as time was passing and I didn't want to regret not doing what I could while they were still here. They didn't change, but I did. I don't have to sit and take their abuse now, I can leave. I can talk back. I can move away if I want to. I don't internalize the negativity. My mother has passed, and I am very glad I was able to have some good times with her before she went. My dad is still with me and just the same as ever, but I will not have regrets that I didn't do what I could to have a half way tolerable relationship. I will never forget what made me the mental mess I am today. But I forgave them for myself only.

It would be very hard to say I want to have an ongoing relationship with the people who abused me for years, almost to the point of death.

It would be much more manageable to say I want to have an ongoing relationship with the people who were misguided and hurt me through ignorance.

Sometimes our assessments change or adjust so as to make it easier to say what we want to say.