Forgiveness

I don’t very often talk about E these days.  When I see friends I haven’t seen for a while, he still occasionally crops up, but that part of the conversation is usually done and dusted within a few minutes before we move onto something more interesting. 

The conversations tend to go along these lines: 

Friend: “How are you?”

Me: “Really good thanks.”

Friend: “I assume E is still a wanker?”

Me: “Yep…. “

*move on to chat about my job/the kids/other fun stuff*

But a couple of weeks ago a friend added: “Have you forgiven him?”

This question really threw me.  I quickly moved the conversation onto how gorgeous my grandchildren are, but it’s bothered me ever since.  You see, it hadn’t occurred to me that I should consider forgiveness.

In some ways, as far as I am concerned forgiveness an irrelevance.  I hadn’t considered it – not because I’m bitter and vengeful – on the contrary, I tend to not think about him at all – but because I just no longer feel anything for E, at least not in terms of his relationship to me, and don’t care enough about him to need to forgive him. 

As I thought about it more deeply, I realised that there are at least two kinds of forgiveness: one is something you give to people who are more powerful that you, who have abused that power (or people who you love who have abused that love).  Another is an intentional decision to let go of anger and resentment in order to move on.  

In either sense, forgiveness therefore is now irrelevant to me.  E no longer has any power (financial or emotional) over me and I have no feelings for him.  In terms of moving on, job done. I’ve built myself an amazing, very full, life.  I have brilliant friends, a lovely job, a loving family, four fantastic kids and two beautiful grandchildren.  I’m really happy and E is, if anything, an afterthought, a nothing, an irrelevance.

Yes, of course, in the most objective way possible, if I look back at what he did, I know he’s not a good person. He’s a narcissist and a sociopathic liar.  He shouldn’t be trusted to tell the truth about what day it is, let alone anything more complex.  But these things are facts. They are not going to change. They’re not things that can be forgiven – anymore than having brown eyes can be forgiven. He is what he is. 

Of course, these things can’t be forgotten – and I don’t think that they should be – it’s important that, once a life lesson has been learned, it stays learned.  But, not forgetting, doesn’t mean there’s any lingering resentment, just an awareness that will stand me in good stead for the rest of my life. 

However, the more I thought about it, the more I realised that it’s much more difficult to be so grown up, so objective, about my children.  Whilst I have been happy to erase E from my life, that’s not possible for my kids. 

My life is better without him, and, objectively speaking, it’s probably the same for them, but – for them – he will always be their dad.  He will always be a part of their lives, even when he’s absent from those lives.  The problem is he is still hurting them, and that is something where, even if I were inclined to forgive him, the forgiveness is not mine to give.

A fact that we have had to come to terms with is that E has abandoned his kids.  He hasn’t seen or spoken to any of them in person for over three years and there’s no sign that this will change.  Heartbreakingly, Youngest Daughter, the child he treated with so much irritation and made to feel like an academic failure, is the only one who tries to keep in touch – she sends sporadic texts, he occasionally replies.  This is the only time we ever hear anything about him.

He does pay the child maintenance due for Youngest Son, (the CMS collect it from him under threat of another deduction from earnings order if he fails to pay them), but this will end in August next year, when he’s no longer legally obliged to do so.  At that point he will be completely gone from our lives.

Whilst there is still financial maintenance for Youngest Son, all four children still need support – emotional and occasionally financial – from their parents. Oldest Daughter and Oldest Son are both at university.  Youngest Daughter and her partner have two small children.  I’m good with the emotional support, but my income is so low that I struggle to do much to help financially.  E earns a six-figure salary (he earns in a week what I earn in a month) and yet he refuses to offer them any financial support. 

At the beginning of the year, just after her second baby was born, and out of desperation, Youngest Daughter texted her dad asking if he could help her with £50 for her gas bill.  She and her partner work hard – they have made a lovely home and they pay all of their bills and rent on time.  They’ve made a brilliant life despite the fact they’ve had their children so young.  Asking for help was big thing for her to do and she only did it because things were so tough at the beginning of the year when the cost of energy combined with the cost of a new baby (and the heating bills that this resulted in).

He read her message and didn’t reply. 

For her, the embarrassment of having to ask him was bad enough, but the humiliation and pain caused by his ignoring her, was what truly hurt.  Choosing not to help financially is one thing, but completely ignoring her is another.  Choosing not to help would have provoked a resigned shrug and rolled eyes.  Choosing to ignore her hurt her deeply. She told me what had happened and I felt nothing less than pure rage that he could treat my child – his child – like this. 

And this is the problem.  As a mum, I am fiercely protective of my children.  As a single mum whose kids’ dad is completely absent, as literally the only parent my kids have, I suspect that that instinct is even more finely honed.  E might not be able to hurt me anymore but I feel every thorn and barb on behalf of my children. Every time Oldest Son refers to E by his first name not as ‘dad’, every time Oldest Daughter refuses to mention him, or Youngest Son jokes about him or Youngest Daughter laughs about having ‘daddy issues’, I can see the pain he has caused them and I am furious on their behalf. 

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to accept my children being hurt with the same composure and resignation that I accepted the way he hurt me.  That’s partly because there was an equality in our relationship – we were two adults; he did what he did and I was hurt.  This I chose to accept and move on from.  The kids have never had that choice.  He’s their dad.  To me, to my kids, to most people, this means something important, this comes with an assumption of responsibility, but it also comes with an assumption of love. 

The fact that he’s shirked his responsibilities is of little surprise.  His total failure to show any love is what is so devastating and that, to me (on their behalf), is unforgiveable. 

Of course, my kids all deal with it admirably.  They now accept their dad’s absence from their lives. Where once there were gaps and fissures, there is now love and laughter.  They, we, have a beautiful life and we’re actually closer and more harmonious because of what he did (I can hear Oldest Daughter laughing and saying “trauma bonds” as I type this).  So, I am trying to accept how much he’s hurt them in the same way that they do – with humour and good grace. 

When I come back to the question I was asked: ”Have you forgiven him?”, my answer is all tangled up in my children and I don’t know if I do, or if it’s even relevant to us.  I do know that we’re all ok and that E has no power – psychological or financial – over us anymore.  I think probably, we’re not interested in forgiveness as it relates to him, we have far more important things to do.    

I supect a more interesting question relates to him.  I’m not sure E has the emotional capacity to understand how much he’s hurt his kids, but he has already missed so much of their lives.  Since he last saw them, they’ve grown and changed so much.  They are such amazing, funny, creative, compassionate, intelligent human beings.  He’s got two beautiful grandchildren that he’s never met.  It occurred to me the other day that he might not even recognise Youngest Son if he passed him on the street – he’s now 6’2” and changed almost beyond recognition from the 13-year-old kid E last saw.  E’s life is lacking because they’re not in it, and even if, one day he does become part of their lives again, he’s already lost so much.  Maybe the question should have been “Can he forgive himself?”.