When adult children confront their parents, they are often met with blame …
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They might say these things, but it still wouldn’t be an accurate explanation. The motivations of a bad parent are both simpler and more complex than what is described here, and usually no better understood by the parent, than the child.
If that parent had the ability to see themselves clearly, their explanation would boil down to a far shorter, but sadder, list:
*I was angry, and I took it out on you.
*I was afraid and I hurt you to try to protect myself.
*I was emotionally destitute. I had nothing for myself, and less for you.
It took me years to forgive my father for his terrible behavior toward my siblings and me. I worked toward forgiveness not for his sake, but to free myself from the anger and pain I still held. He’s never apologized. He’ll never acknowledge that he did anything wrong. He’s too afraid. Acknowledging he was wrong would require him to look inward and see how empty he is inside, how he has wasted his life. He fights frantically, even now at the end of his life, to keep from recognizing that.
Forgiving him ultimately required coming to understand for myself, the facts he runs away from. I had to finally see how fear and a complete lack of ability to truly love another person, had maimed him. Understanding that, freed me to stop seeking love from him, and that freed me to finally forgive him. Forgiveness wasn’t about letting him off the hook, but about freeing myself, and taking away his power to hurt me anymore.
I do still care about my father, but it’s in a distant way, now. It’s affection and pity, not the love and adoration I retained from when I was a small child. I feel sorry for him. I was able to build a life that is so much richer and happier than he can comprehend or hope for. I honestly wish that he could have had a better life than the one he made for himself – and it was true understanding of the deeper motivations, the crevasses in his personality, that made it possible for me to develop that pity for him.
We all need that, in dealing with our parents. We need to see their humanity, their fear and pain. It is only when we see them as human as ourselves that we can free ourselves of the remembered giants that dominated our childhoods, forgive them for their failure as parents, and finally be free.
It is a light and wonderful feeling to be free, like finally being able to take a deep breath of clean air. It’s possible to get there. I know, because I’ve done it. I wish good luck to those who are still on that path. You can make it and it will feel wonderful when you get there, I promise.
Gwen