Forgiveness and Acceptance

Forgiveness comes in waves.

"I don't want to make someone else. I want to make myself."

I could get pregnant with another daughter like I planned and thought I had always wanted. Grace. The Lebanese always seem to fix the lulls in their marriages with another baby and it usually works. Most of the time. But the truth is I have always taken care of everyone else - even H. in my first marriage - and I have resented it. It is time to take care of me.

There is a reason I always loved that quote.

I never stopped getting my massage and acupuncture, even when our finances were in ruin. I never believed his disease was more important than me. That was one thing I could do for myself, and I did. And I think it was the one thing that saved me from total and complete insanity. I could have gone to Al-Anon, but I was not ready.

Heal your life.

I have always wanted people to be something other than what they were. I wanted my mother not to be fat. I wanted my dad to dote on me and tell me I was pretty. I wanted first husband to be like my second husband and my second husband to be like my first. I wanted my in-laws to be like my former in-laws, but they were Shia Muslim farmers in the South of Lebanon. My current in-laws are wealthy and like to play golf and tennis. They could not be more different.

I chose to divorce H, and therefore I chose to divorce his parents. But in many ways I wanted to keep his parents and I held on to them tightly, even though they already had a new daughter in-law that I had helped pick out.

When I told my husband I was leaving him, he told me, I hope your third husband loves you as much as your first and second ones did.

I replied when you compare yourself to H, you make God cry.

I felt the same way about the parents. I felt they were morally superior because they had embraced me. They loved me. They did not constantly criticize me. They would have helped me. I would not be in this pickle because they are Muslim.

But that was my choice. I chose not to marry a Muslim, so who could I really be mad at besides myself?

Louise Hay says the person that it is hardest for you to forgive is probably the person you need to forgive the most. I find this to be strikingly true.

Despite everything I went through with J, it seems much easier to get through that. Even though I have decided that I am willing for forgive my in-laws, I still find myself constantly blaming them. Constantly angry. Maybe it’s because they have not apologized. Maybe it’s because I expect more from them. Maybe I'm just still really hurt.

Despite everything with J, I still never feel like he was mean-hearted. I can't say this with them. No matter how I try to justify their behavior, nothing seems to fit, and their email responses only seem to have made it worse. The 8-month silence only seems to have made things worse. I took the block off my email but I have heard nothing. The truth is that if my father-in-law had really wanted to apologize to me, he could have wrote and sent me a letter. But he didn't.