Not sure how to forgive....

[KearasVoice]

For the longest time I have tried to convince myself that I have forgiven my family for the errors of their ways and in someways I have forgiven....at-least for the childhood issues but something dawned on me today... How can I forgive my mother when she continues to hurt me?  How do you continue to love a person, who knows no love at all.

My mother lives 10 miles from me... she works 5 miles from me and not once has she stepped foot in my house to visit me or worse her grandchildren.  My middle child is 16 y/o and my mother has not acknowledged his birthday since he was very young... even then she didn't show up.... she would send a card with my sister etc... My daughter will be 9 in October and as far as I can remember my mother has only been to one...yes one of her birthday parties.

It's bad enough that she doesn't have anything to do with my children or me but she thinks her behavior is o.k.  She has 4 children... 2 boys and 2 girls but she only interacts with one of her boys and one of her girls (Grandchildren included) She does everything for these two and their children but yet has nothing to do with me or my children or my brother and his children.... Does this seem crazy to anyone other than me????

I have tried for years to do things with her build a relationship etc with no success.  I remember as a child the roles were reversed it was my brother and I that she daunted over and literally couldn't stand her other 2 children.

As an adult I have never asked her for a thing, she has never kept my children, she has never given me money... can you imagine... she lives down the road and her grandchildren have never spent the night with her??? This just boggles my mind. 

Her granddaughter (my daughter) was in ICU in a coma induced by seizures for 3 days, she had already been in the hospital a couple of days before that due to other complications, I was alone, scared, homesick and honestly at the lowest point of my life with no one to turn and my mother couldn't even be a mother (much less a grandmother)  However, the last day my daughter was in ICU my mother did show up but only because my sister came to the hospital and can't *drive alone*

My mother can go to Holland and watch my nephew play baseball, travel all over Florida for tournaments, run everyday to pick my sisters children up from school even though they live directly behind the school (old enough to walk home) but yet she can't pick up the phone to check on the one child who struggles though life everyday, her granddaughter. 

I'm not resentful, jealous or anything negative in nature.... I'm hurt and I don't understand how I can forgive her no matter how hard I try.  I'm not even sure she's worthy of forgiveness.  I feel like im a terrible person for feeling this way but how can I not she really gives me no other choice.

 

[goingbonkers07]

Sep. 23, 2007 at 8:28 PM Forgiveness is a difficult thing in situations like this.  Have you sat down and talked with your mother about why she doesn't call or stop over?  I'm sorry your going through this. I would have a really hard time understanding why she isn't involved in you or your kids lives.

[lovetocrochet5]

Sep. 23, 2007 at 9:18 PM

I know this has got to be hard on you. I wish i had some answers for you.

I canot understand why some grandmas are that way.

 

 

[emtcolt]

Oct. 15, 2007 at 5:20 PM

I can sooo totally relate. My former husband ( may he rest in peace) parent are that way! and so are my soon to be ex husbands family. I thought it was just us. After the shooting in 2003 and the hospital incidents. I came to the conclusion it was going to have to be up to him(John) if he made it to pull this family together. Well he made it and things only got worse. When he was killed in 2005. I thought they may hava a change of heart and want to be a part of thier lives since he was gone. NO such thing. In fact the kids were in the 5th row at the funeral and at the cemetary they were in the very back. I was not allowed at the funeral ( i was bullied by SAPD because he had remarried a dispatcher) But God is faithfull to give me strength. I have the only two things he had in this world that meant anything. And i see him everyday my middle looks just like her father.  2 yrs later his widow still hate me and has joined forces with the little ones dad to try and take me down. Poor pitiful people they have no life.  I get tire of  " being the bigger person" somedays I just want to smack the next person that tells me that. But I can not let their ignorance to the true meaning of love steal my joy. And my girls are better off with out having them bob in and out of their life. They know I tried to foster the relationship and I did my best so it was up to the others to meet us. We have very close friends that have filled in the gap and the kids call aunts and uncles. The relationship they have with them is so much more positive that what they could ever have with the others. And its those that I call FAMILY.  Its not easy and I still have my days but I rebuke satan's attempts to bring up those hard feelings and remind myself of how RICH I am to have my girl. Cuz honey you cant buy that with money!! 

IM am here anytime you want to vent and i wont tell you to be the "better person"