Forgiveness is about bm at all. It is about you. Forgiving doesn't mean that you forget or condone Bm's actions. It doesn't even mean that you believe she won't repeat the errors of her ways. It simply means that you do not hang onto the anger so that you can enjoy your life without bm having that kind of power over you.

"A pessimist complains about the wind, an optimist counts on the wind changing, a realist adjusts his sails"

I try to live by something I heard one time that goes "You must let go of bad things that clutter your heart in order to make room for good things" It's not an easy thing to do but it will make you a happier person

I have realized that its not about BM. She isn't going to change. She will always be mean, spiteful, and selfish. She will always hate me, and will ALWAYS blame her ex-husband for everything that is wrong in her life to this day.

BUT these are her issues. I hope for her own sake that she is able to let go of her hate. I think in the end it only hurts her when she intentionally puts so much effort in trying to destroy his life. Unfortunately in ended up only hurting her, because DH was just so fed up with her nonsense, that he no longer does her any extra favors. I don't wish her ANY ill will, and neither does he really. He just wanted her to stop berating him and trying to make his life hell.

I am going to stay out of her path of detruction and will not try and provoke her. I am going to do my part in supporting my husband. I will try to be a bigger person and will forgive her - more for myself - because having any hate for anyone only hurts you.

Amen! Fantastic attitude Snowflake.
I struggle between embracing my hatred of BM and working hard to let go of the hate. Some days I am just too angry and other days I feel like I could give the Dalai Llama a run for his money. This is completely and totally based on my personal spiritual beliefs, so it may not be helpful or apply to your life, but I have wrestled with this same problem and my own solution has been this. I accept my own feelings of hatred and anger towards the BM. I don't want to disengage or be mature. I want to revel in my anger and spend time imagining James Bond plots to take her down or at least embarrass her in public. I ENJOY my little revenge fantasies (although I would never act on them!). I have felt immense guilt about this and spent at least a year feeling bad and trying to force myself to forgive her and let go of the "toxic" anger. The conclusion I came to (with the help of my priest) is that only God has the power to heal my anger and change my heart. It has been a huge relief to acknowledge that and to not try to force myself to embrace the forgiveness that I just don't feel. I am justified in feeling angry with BM. She is a nasty, vicious, toad of a woman and has spent endless hours directing hostility at me and trying to sabotage my life and marriage. I hate her guts and that isn't changing anytime soon. What I have been able to do is to pray for her every night and also, and this is the most important thing, to pray to God that my heart is softened and that I am able to eventually forgive her and let go of the anger. I no longer try to force myself to forgive against my instincts, but I do pray that God's will be done and that He soften my heart and lead me to compassion and forgiveness rather than anger. Taking that pressure off myself has been like a miracle and my anger towards BM has lessened quite a lot. I am trying to "pray for my enemies" and it is really true that it is harder to hate someone that you are praying for! Although it was hard at first, I pray that God changes her and influences her life and makes her less of a heinous bitch and softens HER heart as well. I am a very flawed person and have a lot of anger towards BM, but I don't want to be unhappily bitter and angry and so I have been continually praying and talking about my struggle in confession with my priest. Whatever the reason, this has absolutely helped me and I am able to pray to God and live by my faith and what I believe is true Christianity while at the same time not repressing my feelings or just feeling guilty or bad about myself for not being able to happily forgive BM easily for all the horrible things she's done to me and those I love. It is a work in progress, but after struggling for a long time, I now feel way more at peace and feel like I am actually making progress in letting go of the anger. I do think that in order to have forgiveness that is actually lasting, she will need to apologize or show some kind of remorse. Maybe I need to be a stronger Christian and just forgive her as is, but it doesn't come naturally and I am continuing to pray about it...I have stopped beating myself up about being so mad and even though my reaction to her actions are natural and justified, I don't want to be that angry, bitter woman and want to be able to let it go. Since I have made the effort to pray for her and pray for God to change me and help me gain forgiveness I have definitely been less angry and have had more days of pitying her or feeling compassion over just being pissed. I think she is a very bad person and that she has her own karma to deal with (yes I am a weird Buddhist/Christian hybrid) and that SHE is making the choices to be a nasty person and that she will have to work through the spiritual and emotional consequences of that. I don't want to get dragged down with her and at the same time am not putting pressure on myself to feel things I don't feel and am instead putting it in God's hand and trying to let the anger fade and the compassion flow back in...

I would like to say that this is totally based on my personal faith and that I don't intend this as a criticism of any other approach! I have developed my own belief system over years and since childhood and I firmly believe that everyone has their own path and I respect and admire all the different perspectives I see and hear about. My beliefs work for me and have helped me get through some very rough things, but I think that everyone needs something unique and that one set of beliefs is not superior to another. This has just been the thing that helped me the most with forgiveness so I thought i'd take a chance and blog about it. Thanks for reading!

"If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they will kill you." ~Oscar Wilde