How is a person supposed to forgive and forget when their child is living everyday with the effects of this harm?
This is the situation I now find myself in. My son has been seeing a psychologist and today she informed us that he exhibits many symptoms of and she believes he suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
What is the Trauma... living in a house where he felt unloved and unwanted by one of the occupants - any guesses who that would be? Hint: it wasn't me. He has been opening up about how angry he would feel when he saw his brother's being mistreated and honestly, how he wanted to do things to "hurt" the person responsible. How he still thinks about doing things to hurt this person. And that's my Jon...it hurt him more to see his brothers treated badly that when he was treated badly himself.
How do I get rid of this hate I have for him (ex-husband) because of this? The hate intensifies when I recall situations and dwell upon the fact that he has never, ever apologized for any of it.
It would be so much easier to forgive if a sincere apology was expressed but I have to realize that that is never going to happen. So I am left trying to reconcile the hate, anger, and bitterness I have toward someone who is responsible for hurting my children so badly but who will literally go to his grave believing that he did not do anything wrong and was completely justified in everything he did.
I know there is probably a side to everyone who would say, "you have a right to hate him because of what he did to your kids." But I know biblically, hate is wrong. In fact, the whole point of the parable of the Master who forgave his servant's debt is that we cannot expect God to forgive our trespasses if we cannot forgive the trespasses of others.
Somehow, I have got to work this out. I have a lot of work to do.
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