I deserve an apology. I’ll never get it. How do I move on?

[Anonymous]

New poster but I have to say – this is got to be one of the most straightforward, constructive, nonjudgmental, Did I say constructive? DCaUM posts of all time.

I’m not the original poster. I’m not the poster of hardly anything here – but I read it every day and learn lots of helpful things every day.

[Anonymous]

Sorry DCUM (above)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Time and fully accepting that forgiveness is for yourself, not the other person.

'Resentment is like drinking poison and hoping it will kill your enemy.'

Yep. Best advice I’ve ever gotten. I’m still working on it for myself. Resentment can feel so good. But it’s toxic for sure.

[Anonymous]

Find a guru/celebrity to follow and adore. Turn the energy of bitterness into the mania of admiration by finding the person who connects you to your best dreams about humanity rather than your worst experience of it.

[Anonymous]

Al-Anon meetings. You don't need to have an alcoholic family member to attend. They are all about learning that you are in control of your life, and you decide how you want to live your life, rather than responding to someone else's toxic actions. Try one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gosh I just want to thank all of you who have posted such thoughtful replies. I’m stuck in anger as well, most of the time, from the cruelest and craziest most scorched earth divorce I’m aware of personally.

Thank you all. I’m meh sometimes. But I’m rage a lot and it comes out so sideways that I sometimes don’t even know myself. I realized while reading I don’t even want an apology as much as I want a “why? Just why? Is it mental illness or drugs or TBI/CTE from 50 concussions or another woman or was it just narcissistic rage and you never loved me at all?!?!?

But I won’t get those answers from him. I’ll likely get them over time, but I’ll never get an apology or a why and I have to stop obsessing over they why - it’s that same tendency to want to understand to do better or be more perfect that got me into the relationship with a narc.
Currently I’m trying to reframe my need to know “why” as a weakness that would make me more vulnerable to my next partner. When I think like this it’s easier to let go of the obsessive thought process. I can’t understand or rationalize crazy, but I can absolutely let myself go crazy trying to. I don’t want to do that because that would mean my ex was actually controlling my NEXT relationship if I’m trying to be “more perfect”. I’m just me. Imperfect and perfect and real. He’s always going to be him, a rage filled douch!bag with grand delusions of wealth and success. Wasting time on hm sets me back.

I’m so not close to “there” yet but I can talk myself down faster and have a better sense of time- like- that my need to push and rush and know “why” is selfish and ultimately based in being a victim. I don’t know why but maybe someday I will. That’s my mew mindset and I can defer to curiosity about his future without rumination on our past.

Good luck and I’m sorry

Oh a Narc? That's easy as to why. They are selfish and incapable of deep abiding love. Narcs gotta Narc. It takes time to work through the anger but just focus on yourself and what you want with your life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also that business about them getting back from the universe what they put into it? Absolute rubbish.

That may be true in a literal sense, but I think there is a reward in putting positive energy out into the universe, rather than negative energy. I would not want to be a person who has the capacity for such cruelty or unkindness in my one life on this earth. I would focus my energy on being kind, and the opposite kind of friend, colleague, etc. as the perpetrator.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went through something similar two years ago. I tried and tried to forgive but just couldn’t so I accepted that I was always going to have hatred and anger toward the couple and that acceptance, strangely, made it easier to stop thinking about them. They rarely cross my mind now. I also never talk about them which helps and cut ties with anyone we had in common. I’ve never once checked them on social media. All that really did help.

Then it occurs to me that even if I got a heartfelt apology - nothing would change. The damage done was truly irreversible.

“What is without remedy must be without regard. What is done is done”.

I love that quote, thank you for sharing. That’s a good mantra for those moments I get sucked into ruminating upon the past.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is silly, but years ago after a breakup, I got a book by Sylvia Browne and followed the meditation/hypnotism exercises in the book. I tried to focus on them whenever i started ruminating (which was often).

It's hard, but time does help.

This isn’t silly. It’s good advice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My best girlfriend hurt me suddenly and painfully. I never received an apology from her, and looking back I never saw her apologize to anyone for anything so it's not surprising. I held on to the pain for much, much longer than I should have. I kept thinking if I understood why she did what she did, then the pain would go away. Unfortunately I held on to these thoughts for well over a decade.

Finally I realized that I will never know why she did what she did and that is okay. Once I realized this, a literal weight lifted off of me. I cannot control her, but I can control my reactions. I finally took hold of my own reactions.

My advice would be to not hold on to these feelings for too long because then it just hinders you rather than helping you. It's easy to fall into the "I'm the victim" mentality, and hold on to the pain/anger, and that is just not healthy long term for you. Yes it's hard. But the moving on is about you, and not the other person. Good luck.

OP here. Thank you so much for this. I recognize a lot of myself in your experience. I also spent several thinking if I could understand why this person did this, I would feel better. In therapy, I realized that this obsession was about absolving myself. I think I felt for a while that I had somehow invited this to happen, by doing something wrong. I thought if I could just figure out what I had done to "deserve" what happened, then I could control it, and guarantee it wouldn't happen again. I thought I could fix it.

I haven't thought that for a long time, but I still struggle with the anger. The weight didn't lift for me. When I realized that I'll never know or understand why it happened, I was just left with its consequences, which I still deal with. My therapist talks about grief stages though says people don't necessarily go through them in the same order, or necessarily through all of them. I did denial first, then depression, then bargaining, and now I'm in anger. I can't get out of anger. I want acceptance, but I'm stuck.

I don't want to be in a victim mentality. I don't feel like a victim. I think my anger actually helps with that. Feeling anger makes me feel strong, which is the opposite of how I felt when this happened and in those other initial stages. I think I'm almost afraid to let go of my anger because it will make me feel vulnerable again. Even though being angry sucks, it's better than depression. That was the worst one.

Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud here. I really appreciated your comment and it's nice to feel a little less alone. I guess I just have to keep at it.

Semi-related, there should be a business where you can go safely burn something down until it is just ashes. I think there's a real market for something like that, and it could easily be made Covid friendly. Just throwing that out in the universe!

I'm sure you can find someone's yard where you can burn something. Last month my teen son was wronged by someone close to him. I gave him our pumpkins and a bat and told him to go smash them up. He said it helped. Sometimes just having a physical outlet is what you need.

OP look what you just wrote: you like the Anger. It makes you feel stronger. As long as you think that way you are going to be pissed off- and you may not feel like a victim but you are in Victim Mode because of how much you focus on this person and what they did to you.

So I gotta tell you...you want to get to "Meh." And by that I mean Indifference. Because you have to let it go- that's what forgiveness is.

I look at it this way- some people are just bad and selfish people so they act by following their bad and selfish instincts. You don't get mad at a snake if it bites you b.c it's just a dumb snake.

Bad people are living their own punishment. They are stuck being themselves. You get to be you and get to be a good person and have a great life without them.

DP and I just took a screenshot of your post. Very wise words, thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you get someone to key their car or something?

Grow up, really?

[Anonymous]

OP, you have some good input on here. I’m going to add my two cents. And I think you’re not going to like a lot of it, but I also think you need to hear it.

People misunderstand forgiveness. It’s not about forgetting, or not allowing the other person to be responsible. It is about teaching a place where past actions don’t have impact over your current mental real estate. It’s about not letting past actions have impact on your current happiness. It’s about recognizing the person you want to be, and being that person despite what someone “did to you”. It’s about not letting one event in your life define what the rest of your life will be, whether that be angry, scared, ashamed, regretful, etc.

You are also not owed anything, by anyone, ever. You can expect until the cows come home, and the only person that changes is you. In your frustration, sadness, anger, whatever. The only person damaged by your expectation is YOU.

Being a victim takes all kinds of forms, just like grieving. Your angry. Anger is pretty much the most basic of emotions. Sure, it’s normal to feel, but does it accomplish anything? You feel more powerful, but you’re also going back to fight or flight. Is he person who hurt you impacted by your anger? Are you? What changes because you’re angry? Is anger facilitating that apology you’re expecting?

And I know, anger brings out ideas of revenge. So you hurt that person back. How does that work in terms of your apology expectations? Does it make you more or less worth an apology?

I have yet to meet a person who can change the past. If you want to live there, that’s up to you. If you want to give real estate in your life to something you can’t change, that’s up to you. If you want to feel angry all the time over something you can’t change, that’s up to you, if you want to change the person you are over something you can’t change, also up to you.

This is what forgiveness is, OP. It’s about letting something go FOR YOU, so it doesn’t have a grip on your happiness any more. It’s about accepting you cannot change what cannot be changed, and living life on YOUR TERMS and not the therms of whatever happened or whomever did it to you.

[Anonymous]

^apologies for grammar and typos, didn’t check before I posted, and working with no glasses today while mine being fixed!

[Anonymous]

I feel like I could have written this myself. I was wronged so spectacularly earlier this year. It had a profound effect on my professional and personal life. I was devastated for months and it took me a long time to find some peace. The only way out for me was through it. I do like this Mitch Albom quote.

Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from the inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went through something similar two years ago. I tried and tried to forgive but just couldn’t so I accepted that I was always going to have hatred and anger toward the couple and that acceptance, strangely, made it easier to stop thinking about them. They rarely cross my mind now. I also never talk about them which helps and cut ties with anyone we had in common. I’ve never once checked them on social media. All that really did help.

Then it occurs to me that even if I got a heartfelt apology - nothing would change. The damage done was truly irreversible.

“What is without remedy must be without regard. What is done is done”.

This is good insight. OP, to move on, you need to stop valuing or giving any credibility this person's actions, behaviors, or yes, even potential apologies. There are people in my life who "owe" me an apology, but moving on meant I no longer respect anything, literally anything, about them. They could show up at my door with flowers, cash, a rescued stray dog and a thorough apology, and it'd be like watching Donald Trump claim he won the election. Nothing they have to say, and nothing they do, carries the slightest weight with me.

OP here. I agree, this is really true. If this person tried to apologize, I know I'd never accept it. In part because I know there is a time when I probably would have accepted one, and rather than offer one, they chose to do something possibly even worse than the original offense. I often think I'm more angry about that than the original thing.

But yes, I agree with this sentiment. Feeling it... is another matter. I'm working on it.

Exactly the same situation with me! Rather than apologize, the person who deeply wronged me in my life doubled-down and started making up crap about how I was bad-mouthing her which simply never happened (I never even thought the things she accused me of saying!) Twice I extended the olive branch and twice she made it worse.

I understand she was trying to justify her betrayal and is extremely insecure.

Give it time, OP. I promise you that you’ll forget the person who wronged you.