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MC is also my IC, and she's been very assertive about how I need to forgive myself and that it will help myself and the M if I can reach that point.

Lately I've been feeling at my lowest, very down on myself and very depressed. BH seems to talk about the A less and less and is much more controlling of his anger. He's able to talk pretty calmly about everything now. But it's like since he's stopped beating up on me so much that now I am taking over that job.

Last night in MC I said that I want to work on myself and make sure I'm doing everything possible for the good of the M, but everything seems so gradual and intangible, it's hard to feel like I'm doing anything at all. MC said the best thing I can do is start trying to forgive myself. It just doesn't feel right yet though! And I'm not even sure how to.

If you have forgiven yourself, how long did it take? What needed to happen for you to reach that point?

Right now with DDay#2 just days ago, I can't conceive of feeling any forgiveness for myself.

Just a week or so before that - 4 months after DDay#1 - I was seeing glimmers of that in myself. I was proud of maintaining NC, indeed I didn't have any desire for contact. I was treating BS like she deserves. We were talking, we were supporting each other, we were piecing back the family and she wrote that she forgave me on Valentine's Day. I was slowly starting to feel like maybe I wasn't complete dirt.

Now I'm back with the worms.

I struggle with this.

I come from a very politically and socially liberal family, social workers, youth offending specialists and probation officers for parents. I am able to separate behaviour from any individual; their wrong doing does not define them as a person, they are more than their offence etc etc.

I cannot do that for myself just yet. I've come a long way more recently but I still get moments that overwhelm me, where I can't see any way to carry on in the knowledge of what I've done and it's consequences. Sometimes I don't see how I can ever be a 'good person'.

My IC is working hard with me on this. Teaching me to focus on what I'm doing at the moment, because that is 'good'. She helps me to see that no one is a completely 'good' person, we are all flawed and everyone does 'bad' things.

So no, I haven't forgiven myself yet. But I will one day, otherwise what's the point of all the work I'm doing?

[This message edited by BrokenButTrying at 8:17 AM, March 5th (Wednesday)]

No, but I'm getting closer.

I don't think it's an all at once kind of thing, I'm not going to wake up one morning and have forgiven myself.

Most of my life I've spent living in active addiction, using one thing or another, trouncing over what, or whoever stood in my way in my quest to get one more.

I've caused a lot of harm, to a lot of people.

Over the last two years I've done a lot of work on myself to deal with my past, to work on my destructive behaviors.

For the first time in my life I am starting to be okay with who I am.

My work is not done, never will be, but as I move along and get healthier I get closer to self forgiveness.

[This message edited by broevil at 9:40 AM, March 5th (Wednesday)]

I guess its still too close to Dday#2 for me to even begin to forgive myself.

I look at my husband and the pain he is in and look st my kids and think how the hell could i have done this ??

I have started IC to work on my issues and am doing lots of reading.

Hoping one day i can learn to forgive myself . I didnt realize how broken i really was. SO starting from ground up and trying to rebuild. Hopefully BS can learn to forgive as well.

I have not, but as broevil said, I'm getting closer.

I have become much more comfortable with who I've become over the past 4 years and am satisfied that I'm heading in the right direction. I don't find forgiving myself to be a priority at this time.

Hell yes, I have. I forced myself to acknowledge all of my faults and did the work to heal myself and become the best person I can be. The work is constant - it doesn't stop and that's perfectly ok with me.

I realize that I am a flawed human being who, underneath all the bullshit, is a damn good person and I deserve to be treated with kindness and respect. I'm worthy of forgiveness.

How did I get to this point? A very aggressive IC and A LOT of introspection and work. I still have my moments where I am way too hard on myself, but I have my IC and others, H included, that remind me to be gentle with myself. You should be too.

No I have not, and it is something that I struggle with daily. I have found that the further away from DDay that I get the harder it is to forgive myself. ...because now that I am thinking clearer its harder to deal with the things I did.

I am working on it though and am hoping to get there someday.

I have found that the further away from DDay that I get the harder it is to forgive myself. ...because now that I am thinking clearer its harder to deal with the things I did.

EXACTLY!!! The better I get, the worse I feel.

Jovie - MC said the best thing I can do is start trying to forgive myself. It just doesn't feel right yet though! And I'm not even sure how to…If you have forgiven yourself, how long did it take? What needed to happen for you to reach that point?

I’m six years out and I haven’t forgiven myself. I know that it would be best if I could but something inside me holds on tight to my guilt and shame and refuses to let me simply embrace it. That said, everything I have read on the matter says that your MC is right in saying that working on it and finding it will be important to your self-healing.

According to the experts, the process to find self-forgiveness is similar to that of forgiving others for their misdeeds but something inside me feels that finding it within oneself is a much more difficult process. At least it feels like that to me. Maybe it’s the conflict between seeing forgiveness as a process as compared to a singular act. Maybe I am holding on to guilt, shame and self-reproach too hard.

Anyhow, forgiving yourself is about targeting the specific things that you feel bad about, not about the person you are. As a forgiveness technique, self-acceptance allows you to acknowledge that you're a good person, faults and all. It doesn't mean that you ignore the faults or stop trying to improve yourself but it does mean that you value yourself above those elements. I think it’s self-evident that not forgiving yourself will end up taking a huge toll on your emotional and physical health.

While we may wish for self-forgiveness to appear overnight in some bolt of lightning from heaven, the reality is that for most of us, forgiveness as a journey, not a destination. Martin Luther King Jr. thought that forgiveness was not an occasional act but rather, it was a constant attitude that you needed to bring to your life.

Forgiveness Is a Choice that you offer yourself. Some people suggest creating a simple ritual to mark your release from self-punishment; others suggest the use of on-going statements of affirmation. Neither one of these worked for me but they may be helpful for you to explore.

I hope that at one point of time, you do find self-forgiveness within you.

HUFI

When we have opened ourselves to give forgiveness or to accept forgiveness we have opened ourselves to touch the Divine - Genevieve Gerard

Not a chance. I am so ashamed of my actions and the things I did and said, I don't know how I will ever be able to come to grips with what a cruel and disloyal person I am. I hate myself for the way I made him feel about himself.

I realize that I am a flawed human being who, underneath all the bullshit, is a damn good person and I deserve to be treated with kindness and respect. I'm worthy of forgiveness.

This ^^^^!!!!!!!

I'm still working on forgiving myself but KNOWING that I'm worthy of love, respect, and forgiveness has been a big part of the work I've done in IC.

I believe that we teach people how to treat us. (And so does Dr. Phil) :) If I beat myself up everyday, why should I think my H will do anything less?

Shame is really important in the beginning. Shame and remorse. I'm not sure you can feel remorseful without feeling shame. Shame can't last forever, though. I can't live in it, or I am worthless. Just as a BS can wrap themselves in anger, a WS can wrap themselves in shame. It's a no-win.

There will be a different timeline in every marriage, but there just has to come a point when we stop self-whipping and recognize we are worthy of forgiveness. That we are human beings with qualities that are desirable to other humans. That, despite the horrible things we've done, they do not define us forever. We are worthy. We worked our asses off to heal and be healed, and we are worthy of living an authentic life. I'm almost 4 1/2 years out. And the person that has to accept me at the end of the day is the one that stares back at me in the mirror. If I don't like what I see, neither will anyone else...

I haven't, and probably won't for a good long time. But I have been thinking about "if I (BW/family/the couple of friends who know)ever forgive me, why would they, and what would it look like?"

I have kind of projected a time where these people will be able to say somethingremorse was really messed up for a few years there. He almost threw everything away. But he has proven that he really is the person he is today, and not that asshole from then. A lot of us do things we have regretted, so somethingremorse is sort of like the rest of us.

That may never come. But if it does, I expect it to look something like that.

one thing that is important to remember - you can forgive yourself even if you are not forgiven by others. They are not connected, IMO. Not everyone is capable of forgiveness but that does not mean you are not worthy.

No And I probably wont

No And I probably wont

This breaks my heart. Why not?

Along with MissesJai very astute observation that self-forgiveness is independent of external forgiveness, another major factor that may also impact the odds of finding oneself at the stage of self-forgiveness is described by one of those dreaded four letter words, TIME.

Even with the small number of respondents, it would seem that there is a correlation to time spent as a WS on the healing journey and finding self-forgiveness. I do want to stress that you can't extrapolate a fixed curve to this, just a casual relationship.

So, time for it to sink in. Time for mega self-reflection and introspection. Time for IC and self-healing. Time for your brain to catch up to your heart and soul. Maybe its true that time, along with a lot of self-healing, does heal all wounds.

[This message edited by HUFI-PUFI at 4:39 PM, March 5th (Wednesday)]

KNOWING that I'm worthy of love, respect, and forgiveness

I totally get that!

But I honestly cannot foresee forgiving myself for having an A. How can I? My BH is a changed man. Forever. He has been diagnosed with PTSD by a brain specialist. More then likely he will never be cured. He is trying very hard to work through it with a specialist, but nothing seems to be working. It is the most difficult thing knowing that my A is what caused this.

How can I forgive myself for that?? I do not deserve forgiveness - to me that would be saying that it is OK that I had an A.

But I can live without forgiving myself.

Forgiveness is hard to define and I feel that no two people define it the same way. For me I feel that forgiveness is not accepting or condoning or saying what happened is ok in any way. Forgiveness to me has always meant that even knowing what the person has done to you (or we have done to ourselves) you can get to a place where you accept that person or yourself in spite of what they have done. Nothing will ever make my actions acceptable in any way, period. I have to live with myself every day knowing that choices I made have destroyed the person my BH was and who I was, among the countless other things I feel. I have not accepted the person I was so no I have not, by my definition, forgiven myself. I am working hard on changing who I was and maybe one day I'll be able to accept that person.