I had to do it a number of times before I really meant it. I think it took me about 4 years to really let go. After I forgave properly, I felt free. It was like a peace washed over me, and I felt lighter.

I think it's necessary for our own health to forgive our exes and anyone who has hurt us. However, it's important to take steps to make sure that they are not allowed to do it again.

Having said that, I think there's still a connection between my ex and I which is proving hard to sever. I have done the cord-cutting thing that many times, and I'm still not sure it's completely severed. It must have been so thick and strong that it petrified!! So, I have times when I still feel him present, and am constantly working at breaking that tie.

love and hugs
kamary

Forgiveness - ahhh - letting go of all the negative and not brewing and stewing. No more grudges just moved on and started fresh. . Finally behind me and ready to move on to part II w/ the rest of my life. No more stress, just peace to come home to. Sometimes lonely for companionship yes, but hope someday to meet someone. Moved as far away as possible so I didn't have to see the 'ex' anymore. Best move I ever made...

Well.... I'm not through the journey by any means, only 1.5 years out from my divorce being final, and it wasn't a moment when I forgave him. It's a process and I'm still going through it, although it's mostly finished.
I was forgiving things one thing at a time, sometime several at a time, and each time was a letting go. Letting go of my anger, letting go of the hurt, letting go of the idea of control.
Every instance of letting it be and choosing to forgive let me breathe a little easier, let me rest better at night, let me put down the burden of each resentment.
I've not forgotten, don't expect I ever will. I will not let him, or anyone else, do the things he did, or didn't do, again. But I've forgiven, put it behind me, and am moving forward lighter and easier than when this started.

Forgiveness has been a topic for discussion many many times here.

It took me awhile to reach that point, but what helped was knowing that NOT forgiving was like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die! Forgiveness doesn't lessen the injury or make the pain go away, but it does FREE YOU to spend your energy on positive things again.

Be gentle with yourself and patient. It takes some time but you'll get there.
xoxo

Thanks everyone. I thought it might be like a lightning bolt or something. I think if the ex and I hadn't had children together, the forgiveness would have happened a long time ago. My adult daughters, favor him and his extended family causing me 7 years of pain. I have forgiven my children time and time again, but in the back of my mind, I know, if the divorce had never happened, I would have close relationships with my daughters. It's that that keeps me in pain, not the pain my ex inflicted on me.
I have recently realized that when I am with my daughters and when we start talking about things from the past is when a bad memory of my ex will resurface. The last 2 months I have suffered much pain at the hands of my children and have decided to take a break from them and hey probably need one from me...the parent they make feel secondary, less than and who creates problems at the holidays.
So, that is the only resentment I truly have left towards my ex. He basically got "custody" of our adult children and no doubt he's very happy about that. During the divorce, he said to me that it felt like the 5 of us girls over "here" and him over "there". By cutting me out of the famiky, he got his wish...a closer relationship with his daughters. And I'm left on the outside looking in.
Hopefully disengaging from my daughters will help me find the peace I crave in my life.

I forgave him when we tried to rebuild the marriage. When he kept hurting me, I often wondered if I did forgive. We have been divorced 5 years now. The first three were hard, because like you wrote, we had kids together, so he kept being an asswipe. I have not had contact with him in over too years. It's most helpful, because now I find myself wishing and hoping the best for him and that he eventually finds peace. He is an alcoholic and has other issues as well. So it wasn't a lightening bolt. It was gradual. (((HUGS)))

I don't know that I will ever forgive him for cheating and lying and destroying my life.

what I have done is moved past the hurt and pain.
I have come to accept the new father the kids have.
I have come to accept the co-Parent relationship we have (which is NIL)
I have come to accept the acquaintance relationship we now have

I have realized that I am happy now, with my new life, my new dreams and my new future.

But have I forgiven I don't think so, forgiveness to me means that we could be friends, that I could socially interact with him. No way am I standing beside a liar

Momto22001...I am SO with you on that one. I have high morals and standards (being raised Catholic and by the 10 commandments...you get the picture), so being in the same room with the ex and his "mistress"?? No thanks.

Conversation between me and DD27 at Thanksgiving time:

DD27: (regarding her boyfriend's parents)" Joe's dad cheated on HIS mom and married his mistress, yet HIS mom forgave him and goes over to their house at holidays and for family functions. Why can't YOU do that? "
Me: "Lieing and cheating. Hmmm. Don't think so. That's HER. This is ME. Have no desire to spend time with them."

Poor adult children of divorce. They need to get over it.

startingover...if you embrace your Catholic faith as you claim, you should know one of the cornerstones of Catholicism forgiveness...it is one of the 7 sacraments . The Catholic Sacrament of Reconciliation (also known as Penance, or Penance and Reconciliation) has three elements: conversion, confession and celebration. In it we find God's unconditional forgiveness; as a result we are called to forgive others.
Forgiveness is empowering. It allows you to reclaim your soul.
Throw off the chains of anger and resentment.

I weighed up the different emotions. I was packing around a lot of negative ones especially anger. I knew they would eat me up if I didnt find a place of forgiveness. As much as I tried in the beginning...forgiveness was illusive...until...someone posted that article on What Forgiveness was Not...that was my light bulb moment. I bookmarked that article and read it every day. I found my place of forgiveness and quickly those negative emotions fell away. Every once in a while they my surface..I re-read that article and it truly helps. For me...that article was one of the most important tools of my recovery...Big Hugs...Kathy

Honestly, if it wasn't for my children, it would have been easy to forgive and go our separate ways, but being kicked out of "the family" is what has caused all the problems with my children. So, do I resent my ex? Not for the way he treated me, but dividing our family. Had we remained a family, my children never would have done the things they've done to hurt me. So, yes...I know this has way more to do with my children than him.

So, Kathy...could you send me the link to that article? I'd love to read it. :)

Thanks and hugs back,
SO

startingover & momto22:
I just sent via private message the very enlightening article that turned my head around when it comes to the forgiveness thing. Read it and think it over. Forgiveness isn't what you may think!
xoxo

FORGIVENESS IS NOT...
Submitted by Armen Hareyan on Feb 8th, 2005

Is a grudge-laden heart sabotaging your success in business and in life? Much has been written over the ages about the value of forgiveness. And yet so many people continue to resist the idea of forgiving their transgressors. Why is this? I believe there are a couple of factors at play.

First, although people might want to forgive, they don't want the culprit to "get off scot-free." Let's examine this more closely. There are many misconceptions about forgiveness, so I would like to point out what forgiveness does not do (We shall refer to the transgressor as X).

Forgiveness does not condone the actions of your perpetrator X.
By forgiving X, you are not saying that what X did was okay. You're just willing to quit stewing about it. Chances are, it wasn't okay, but there's not much you can do to change history. It happened, it's over, get over it. Don't let it ruin your peace of mind a moment longer.

Forgiveness does not diminish the severity of the transgression.
By forgiving X, you are not saying that the harm he caused you was of no consequence. Indeed, you may still be dealing with the negative results of his actions. But by being willing to forgive X, you are allowing yourself to quit wasting precious energy on anger and put it to good use building yourself up instead. You survived the transgression. Now it's time for you to thrive.

Forgiveness does Not absolve X of his guilt.
Even if you were willing to, you could not clear X's conscience for him. He will have to appeal to a higher celestial court for absolution. That is between X and his conscience; it is not your affair.

So you see, forgiveness does not let the other guy off the hook. It lets YOU off the hook. By refusing to forgive the other person, you are condemning yourself to being stuck. And this "being stuck" tends to infiltrate and poison every area of one's life. It's a bit like trying to drive your car with the brakes on.

Consider forgiveness as a gift you give to yourself.

Now let's look at another nearly opposite reaction. Some people are quick to claim blanket forgiveness for everyone and everything, without even knowing what it is they are pardoning. This is a fine gesture, but it is hardly effective because you cannot forgive a transgression which has never been acknowledged. You can't just leapfrog over all the buried pain and expect relief. You must first acknowledge the harm that was done.

The acknowledgement consists of:
- Admitting the harmful nature of what was done to you.
- Feeling the pain that you've struggled unconsciously for years to keep down.
- Expressing the anger that accompanies these realizations (by writing, exercising, beating a pillow, wailing, thrashing about, etc.).
- Mourning your loss. (Sadness, unlike depression, is a healing force and it will pass).
- Forgiving your transgressor.
- Experiencing a new vitality as you reclaim formerly disowned parts of your being.

IMPORTANT: You don't need to confront anyone or involve anyone else in this process. This is done in privacy and purely for your own release and relief.

Some people try to dismiss the need for this process by saying such things as, "Well, it doesn't matter now. That was so long ago." Or maybe, "Things were different back in the old country. None of that makes any difference anymore."

When dealing with profound harm sustained in the past, we need to be aware of the inconsequential nature of distance and time. In other words, a serious emotional injury sustained long ago and maybe even far away does NOT just wither away into nothingness if you ignore it.

The damage is very real and it has serious ongoing repercussions if it is not squarely faced and dealt with. People fear that acknowledging great harm done will unleash hateful and violent acts. Quite the contrary. It is these "unconscious grudges" that we carry in our hearts that result in cruelty. Often this escapes our conscious awareness.

It is also these unacknowledged wounds, waiting like frightened children at the "Lost and Found" that result in depression. It takes tremendous psychic energy to keep stuffing those strong, raw emotions down and keep them in check, especially when we're not even aware of exactly what it is we are hiding from.

I would like to stress once again, suppressed pain and stifled anger will not go away just because you ignore them. They will dissipate only in the face of acknowledgement.

By following the steps outlined above, you will naturally arrive at a place where you are ready to exercise forgiveness. You will have reached a place where you are sick and tired of wasting mental and psychic energy on nursing painful grudges.

You will no longer wish to tolerate any nasty pangs of resentment. It will become unacceptable to send your thoughts into a mental sewer just so that you can keep your offender in his place.

An act of pardon will evolve naturally as we honor our true feelings. This does not mean that we have to go and broadcast what we find to the world. It simply means that we ourselves have to be willing to look at and see the Truth.

As a parting note, let us strive to remember that forgiveness is not a self-righteous act of virtue or altruism. It is not cause for arrogance or fanfare or a holier-than-thou attitude.

The decision to forgive is supremely practical and self-affirming. Self-affirmation is what people need most. And only we can do this for ourselves.

I would just like to say...forgiveness comes in its own time. I struggled with it in the beginning...for me...the burden of carrying all that weight of anger became to much...stress is a trigger to my autoimmune disease...I have worked very hard at achieving and maintaining remission...I was not about to let this man and his decisions undo my health...that was one of my motivations for forgiveness. However...forgiveness did not come until I was willing to let it all go. Anger served me well in my settlement as a motivator but it soon became apparent that it no longer was an asset. Until you are willing to let the chips fall where they may and trust your own process and higher power...forgiveness will be hard to arrive to. You have to be willing to accept that all things happen for a reason and you are right where you are supposed to be...doing what you are supposed to be doing...another way of saying allow. I read that article for months before I could start putting it into practice..so...be kind and patient with yourself and hold forgiveness as your golden nugget...something to aspire to...Big Hugs...Kathy

I agree with Kathy (dairytech), it comes with time. There are no short cuts. Don't beat yourself up if you don't find it right away. There is a song on the radio about forgiveness that says "the prisoner it sets free is you." This is a gift to give yourself.