Scapegoats, family ties, etc

[Gordon_Sims]

I understand your position since I have a similar situation with my own family of origin. it stinks and it hurts to be the scapegoat but you need a break from dysfunctional behavior. My solution is to forgive them while avoiding them. I go to adoration once a week and include my family of origin in my prayers and say a Divine Mercy Chaplet. I know that this helps me to forgive. Without God’s help I would probably feel very bitter. Please try this because I know it would help you.

I’ve forgiven them over and over and over, although real, complete forgiveness would be a lot easier without the ongoing harassment. Every time something comes up it rehashes the past incidents. I’m sure that’s part of their intent, as well as to give periodic reminders that things will go right back to how they were if we should ever attempt to reestablish ties with the family. The situation would also be much easier if others didn’t tell us that forgiving also meant forgiving. No, it really doesn’t, especially when they’ve made such a concentrated effort to hurt our children. Whether we want to see some of the others again is irrelevant. The problematic ones have taken the decision entirely out of our hands by threatening our children’s well-being. Even if we wanted to see the others again, it’s not something we can ever do because of what’s been done to our kids. I asked one person what she would do if they treated her kids the way they’ve treated ours. She said she didn’t know and would wait until it happened. I was in shock. I told her I hoped she’d be a better parent than that, which, of course, made me the bad guy for saying something so mean and hurtful.