in my dreams, sd is human.
i believe dreams can tell us a lot about ourselves and our situations in life. that said, i had a dream that taught me something about myself. i dreamed that i was at a family get together, and sd and her baby were there. as usual, i ignored her existence. my aunt asked her how she liked being a mom, and sd was just gushing about how it was the best thing that ever happened to her, she loves him so much, etc. i lost it. i started crying and said "now do you understand why what happened to me was so hard? and you just giggled and fucked off while it happened!" i pointed at her baby and said "THAT is what i lost!!!! it was my BABY!!!!" she started crying and hugged me and told me she was so sorry. i could tell she meant it. and i instantly forgave her and hugged her back.
what this tells me is that i am capable of forgiveness, and i really didn't think i was, no matter what. not for that. i had a sf who was very abusive and completely ruined my childhood and early teen years. i hated him and wanted him dead for a long time. he came to me when i was 18 and just started crying and told me he knows he's always been an asshole to me, he knows he treated me badly, and he understands if i hate him, but he is sorry and hopes i will forgive him. i started crying and instantly the hatred for him was gone. (this really happened, not a dream). because he did mean it, and he owned up to what he had done. i guess that's really all i need to let something go. for the offender to admit what they did was wrong, and to actually regret doing it.
maybe on some level i do want to forgive sd. i don't like hating anyone. i don't like the weight it puts on my heart. i don't like being capable of feeling like that. but i do hate her. i would like to forgive her for me, not her. she doesn't deserve it, but i don't deserve to be slowly poisoned forever by her words and actions, either. but i don't know how. i don't know how to forgive someone who doesn't even care about what they've done to me. it feels too much like saying, "it's ok. i'm here if you want to do that to me again." maybe if there was another word than "forgive" it would be easier. i wish i could just not care. i would love to be indifferent to her. i don't want her in my life. she has proven over and over again who and what she is. i don't want anything to do with it. that's not what i'm saying at all. there will be no fresh start or anything like that. i would just like to not care. to see her and not have that burning reaction in my stomach. to truly just not have any kind of feeling at all for her.
what happened in my dream will never actually happen. she isn't sorry. she has had over 3 years to express remorse and all i've heard out of her is that i should be over it. fucking bitch. even having her own child wasn't enough to make her have a little insight as to why losing a baby would be upsetting and why someone being glad about it would be something extremely difficult to move past. nothing is ever about anyone but her. my pregnancy was not about me or the baby. it was about her. it was about her not getting as much of daddy's money. (she started bitching about how now she would have to pay for college and a car herself, as if those things are owed to her). when i lost the baby, it was about her. it was about how now there won't be a baby to suck up daddy's money, so all is well, more for her. that's the reality of who she is. i'm not sure why my subconscience was so generous in giving her quality as a human being. she truly doesn't have any that i have ever seen.
i will never get an apology from her and that's fine. in the end, she is the one losing. being so damn selfish all the time can't possibly be good for her. it's not going to create a good life for her. maybe someday she will pay for what she's done to me. maybe not. but i have to stop focusing on wanting her to get her just desserts, and pay a whole lot more attention to making my life the happiest it can be. she's done enough to me. i have to stop letting her continue to do this to me by replaying it in my head all the time because i am so enraged that she never pays for a damm things she does.
Comments
I'm sorry for your loss and
I'm sorry for your loss and for your evil sd
Like dtzyblnd said: "P.S. I
Like dtzyblnd said:
"P.S. I still want to kick her very, very hard for you".
In the vagina. Careful, don't get your foot stuck....
Her purpose in life is to bring pain and misery to those around her. I don't know why some people are that way, but they are. It's a life choice. I'm sorry she's made the pain you've already experienced hurt so much worse with her behavior. Maybe her existence is to help warn us to stay away from people like her, to not want to ever be like her and to help us appreciate other people who aren't like her. People who are kind, loving, honest, brave, compassionate.
I agree with the closure thing, you need closure and you need to move forward with your own future plans and life. She doesn't deserve a place in your thoughts.
Bi, I had a conversation with
Bi, I had a conversation with DH about our sitch with BM and SD. He said to me that I needed to resolve my anger for the piss poor choices he made in the past that are affecting our every day life. He said I needed to come to grips with it being the past and HE needed to see his shortcomings and how the crap he does is ruining our relationship.
I know I should be able to forgive them for my own well being. I know better than to have these feelings but the stuff DH doesn't see is that he is at the center of it all and I need to forgive him too.
I too replay the digs, the nasty things she does to my DD and the bs she brings into our home and how DH is oblivious sometimes. I know that feeling and I feel they will not nor have ever had to pay for the mess they pull and do.
I guess what I am trying to say is that reading this post got to me. It was all to real to me and I also need to work on letting this mess go. The forgiving SD will be hard because she still comes with mess. Forgiving DH is going to be a work in progress as I think I need to change before I can let it go.
I said I was going to disengage and I have to a point but to go farther I think would do both myself and my DD more harm and won't affect change in SD one bit. She will still be a bitch when she comes over and DH will not be present when she does the stuff. Or he will not see it. Or he will excuse it because he doesn't want to hurt SDs feelings by putting her butt in her place as a child.
But that's them, I can only control me. I want to work on forgiving them so it doesn't eat me alive inside.
If you are looking for the offenders to ask for forgiveness, good luck with that, if they don't believe they have done any harm then there is no need.
I don't know how my sitch will turn out but I just wanted to share with you that your post touched something inside and I have to look at myself. I have to see how I am reacting to the mess and make it a point to do this Step thing differently. I feel like I am going nuts some days when she is here but the real deal, for me is this, I am doing the same things the same way and expecting a different result, not if that is not a classic definition of crazy.
Good luck and I wish you a lighter heart.
thank you. i know better than
thank you. i know better than to expect that she will ever have the capacity to see how what she did was wrong. she has proven that she is not capable of that. to her, if it was 5 minutes ago, it was in the past and i have a problem for still being angry and not just forgetting about it and suddenly wanting to celebrate her child. crazy bitch.
what i really want is to just be able to have no reaction to her. i don't want her in my life, i don't want a relationship with her. like dtzy said, she is garbage that won't change. i don't want garbage in my life. i just want to be able to see her when i have to and not have my adrenal glands dumping tons of adrenaline into my system. i want to not shake with anger when i see her. i want to be able to be around her when i have to be and not be uncomfortable and pissed off. i want her to become background to me instead of the big picture every time she is around. i want to have NO reaction, no feeling, not hate, not irritation, just nothing. because really that is what she is to me, NOTHING.
Hard to forgive someone who
Hard to forgive someone who continues to behave in the same manner for which you're upset. Your sd is still walking around behaving as though she is the only one who matters. She is acting as though HER pregnancy should matter to you more than yours did.
Forgiving isn't about her. It is about you. And doing it doesn't mean what she did is ok. It doesn't even mean you have to tell her you forgive her or change your mind about being around her / helping her, etc. It simply means you accept who she is, what she did and let go of the underlying anger you carry around. you can not actively hate and still avoid.
My brother committed suicide a while back. His wife at the time was a complete ass. She took his daughter from us. We had to fight in court to get access. She threatened to move 10 states away as a means to terrorize my father. I've forgiven her. FOR ME. I still don't speak to her. I don't have anything to do with her. I don't actively hate her. I simply don't think of her at all. I don't let her take up room in my heart. I don't let her make me feel ugly.
I think your struggle is that you're a good person. You hate her but you aren't comfortable with hate. You want to let it go, but you feel like that somehow slights your unborn child. Sometimes I think these vent boards (as helpful as they can be) feed anger and hate. They make it difficult to let it go because there is always someone willing to listen and feed it for you. Try to focus elsewhere when she enters your head. Don't dwell on it. Don't blog about it. Focus on your BDs. Remember that THEY are a reflection of you. Forgiveness leads to inner peace and inner peace leads to outer happiness. Give them that. And while you're giving them that, you'll show SD just how little you care. The longer you harbor hate, the longer she has a hold on your emotions, the more smug she is.
you're right, it does feel
you're right, it does feel like i'm doing my lost baby wrong to let it go. i don't like the word "forgive". i need a different word that would make it easier for me. because it does feel like saying what she did was ok, even if that's not what it is at all. i just want to loosen the grip her behavior has on me. i want her to NOT affect me in any way ever again.
I know that feeling, Bi. It
I know that feeling, Bi. It is so hard to balance a life when there is grief for a lost child.
Don't think of it as forgiveness. Think of it as "purging". Purging yourself from her hold. Unfortunately, people equate forgiveness with "exempting", "dismissing", "letting bygones be bygones". That feels too much like you're letting people treat you badly without protecting yourself. PURGING, on the other hand, is getting out of YOU. Has nothing to do with the other person.
BI, please don't let that
BI, please don't let that stress and anger stay in your body. It isn't good for you. I like the purging analogy. It would be like expelling SD's awful ugliness from your body before it stains your soul. I've been visiting the Tiny Buddha website lately because I struggle with a lot of the the same feelings. I haven't had the same heartbreaking loss that you've had, nor been treated so cruelly but I've been treated badly for many years by some truly awful and evil people. And it's made me different than I really am. Not in a good way either. I want to take myself back from these wicked people and be the kind, loving, authentic person I really am again. I don't want my focus to be on them anymore, I want it to be on positive, life affirming things-things that really matter.
I am also trying to learn how to meditate with being peaceful and only allowing peaceful energy around me to be my goal and my mantra. I will no longer allow them to blacken my kind soul or drain my positive energy anymore. Whenever they or things they've done start creeping into my mind, I challenge them and force myself to stop thinking about them and start thinking my mantra to break my focus on the negative.