I think I am doing great.  I know I am doing well.  I am coming up to 5 years of finding out about the affair and having my now ex walk out of my life.  I am creating a wonderful life.  I get a lot of inspiration and learning from books.  Last week I was reading spiritual book, and there was a chapter on acceptance and forgiveness.   Not this again.

I have got the acceptance down.  I fully accept what happened.  My ex cheated and left the marriage.  I am on my own, building a life I love.  This is where I am at and I am grateful for how much I have grown.  But I still find that I get caught on the forgiveness part.   I just get stuck.  I can’t truly say that I forgive either of them.  I haven’t fully forgiven him for cheating on me, or her for sleeping with and taking my then husband.  I just find it all so wrong!

But I also see by not forgiving, I am the one that can still sting over it and loose my peace. That can still be angry and pissed off at the injustice of it.  They did the crappy thing. WHY DO I HAVE TO FORGIVE?

So I have been looking at this (again), reading about it (again) and digging down deep (again), to be able to find more forgiveness.  It is not easy.  To look at forgiving them and for why I hold on to not forgiving.  What is my payoff?

For one, I get someone to blame.  If I have a bad day, I can blame him.  If I have to move something heavy and scratch my floor, I can blame him.  When I feel lonely, I can blame him.  That takes the responsibility off me, which at the time feels good, but doesn’t ultimately get me to where I want to go.  For me, taking responsibility means taking steps to change things.  And though I have done a lot of this, I’ve taken a lot of responsibility and taken a lot of steps towards change, it can get exhausting at times.  And when I get tired or in a dark place, it is so much easier to just blame them both.

And then there is the wanting them to be miserable.  Wanting their new marriage to implode.  Wanting them to get boils.  (Yes, I have actually had that thought).  Why?  I have been asking myself that. Why would their unhappiness make me happy?  Though it would be a thrill, and an I told you so, when I look at the truth, their happiness or unhappiness really doesn’t affect me.  The revenge fantasy looks great from the outside, but if I am trying to life a happy and content life, wishing for someone else’s pain and suffering isn’t really who I want to be.  Even if it sounds like so much fun.  I know that what I put out into the Universe comes back to me, so I know my heart will sit easier, be softer, if I let that go.

So I have been thinking, maybe it is time to try this forgiveness thing again.  For me.  For my sanity.  For my joy.  For my peace.  To save myself.   I’ll see where this next phase of the forgiveness journey takes me.