Mil's Death Anniversary.. Wish I Could Forgive And Forget..so Much Bitterness

Usually, humans have built-in resilience to surmount hurt, bad past, humiliation, rancour through fading memory. As you age, new memories build up displacing and shredding the dated memories.

Platitudes, like, time will heal, may not yield in all cases.

If you are having trouble overcoming the past hurt through natural process of acquiring new memories, I would recommend you riffle through accredited and scholarly literature like ‘personal identity’ postulation to understand the workings and taming of dissociative philosophy.

Your mother-in-law wronged someone who is not you now. That forlorn past-you is someone else, displaced by the now-you. You need to dissociate from the conflict between your mother-in-law and the past-you, a stranger to the now-you. Here’s for a starter.



It's not gobbledygook. If you are keen to prevail over disturbing vehemence from the past then you need to spend time studying and practising robust and effective approaches and accessible conceptualization of 'philosophy of mind' and 'sociobiology' in dealing with unruly emotions.

Oversimplified, if you have watched the clip:

• Your mother-in-law is no more.
• The daughter-in-law she hurt is also no more (chronobiologically)
• You, today, are a third person with the knowledge of what happened between them both with no committed bearing than that.

Such gratifyingly reasoned and hacked mental models help you to deal with the sticky past. Targeted solutions may conquer your sulk in this instance, but, in the longue-duree, it’s vital to incorporate universal mental models to snap out of future sulk or strop, or any unsettling and nagging mental pain readily. You need to cultivate an arsenal of such agentic and mental models for everyday contention in the ravaged brain to thrive blithely from the infiltrating past.

 

We hear you OP. We all have been there, done that. The very fact that you want to change your behaviour towards your MIL is a big positive and @Ouroboros has already given you some wonderful tools to achieve that.

Something similar that I have used personally and found helpful in such situations would need you to write down all those incidents and issues of those 18 yrs over pieces of paper, use as many as needed and empty your mind of any and ALL such thoughts. Then you burn those papers and flush them down the tube with a decision to let go and move on. Your objective is to eventually forgive her from the depth of your heart after having lived those moments one last time. You have decided to grow beyond them. You have now realised that there is no point in carrying all that hurt with you any longer. I have found these moments to be therauptic and even if you may remember an incident now and then the charge won't be there. You will start feeling lighter from that very moment. Hope this helps you too.

 

Next anniversary remind yourself that she is not alive ( in heaven according to others and hell according to you). So pay obeisance to a departed soul and not to the living being that tortured you !

 

You are not the young helpless person you were when she was alive, time has given you wisdom and also removed negativity from your life. Unfortunately that time when you felt mistreated will not come back. But you still have many happy moments ahead in your life. You are alive to experience it, she is not. So you are winning. Seriously stop thinking about her , she doesn't have any power over you anymore.

 

Count your blessings....
My aunty who is early 50s is married for 32 yrs. Has grand kids. Still her MIL 85-87 yr old MIL tortures her.
My aunt still cries to his brothers (my dad) saying 32 yrs bygone I have no life. She was working in bank MIL made her quit...lots lots.
Be happy , just fold your hands in front of her pic. Tell yourself you will not be little anyone like she did.

 

I can understand you wanting to forget because those memories make you feel horrible?

Why do you want to forgive?
The woman was horrible to you and it is perfectly okay to not forgive.
Don't fold your hand or bow down or seek blessing from the photo of that horrible person .

You take your time to get over her abuse.

Seek therapy to become strong,not to forgive because it doesn't matter to that horrible person .She has gone and and being revered.Your not forgiving her is not making any dent on her.

Don't feel any guilt because others are folding hands.
Those people got love ,you got hate.
You cannot force yourselve to forgive till you are ready.....if at all you are ready.

The best way to deal with this is to be happy and do everything that you were denied.
You live your life and find your happiness .
Then all this will not matter any longer.

Don't let her torment you any longer.
Don't let her matter.

If someday you feel different,it will be fine .
Do it when it doesn't hurt any longer ....if you still want to.

 

Dear Op,

I am much younger to you and I dont even know, I can advice you or not.

If we forgive others, then we can be peaceful and our mind will be relaxed, unless you forgive your MIL, you will never going to be happy.

I know it pains you a lot, when you think about past, already you had faced all the pain and now it is time to move on from those.

if you still think about what your MIL did it in past, you will lose this moment. Unfortunately she is not with you any more, so forgive her and forget every thing.

I can quote a sample example from my life

My MIL is very orthodox women, when I was pregnant with my first child , In the late pregnancy, she forced me for some of the rituals, which my parents were not supposed to do.

I tried to convince her that my parents cant do it, you can do from your end, but she didnt listen , she made a big mess out of it. I was not mature enough to deal with the things, so ultimately I lost my baby in my late pregnancy due to over stress.

Initially I couldnt forgive her, I was always depressed thinking about my child all the time, I got angry , frustation what not on her, but ultimately I thought Had I handled her and wouldnt had taken stress, I would have saved my baby.

I thought how much ever hatred or anger I have on her, things are not going to change, I cant get my child back, so decided to forgive her for my happiness.

I am very happy now after I forgave her. I dont feel any more resentment on her now, which makes my life easy, so give a thought about it.

 

Dear blessed,

What reply Pranavi1987 gave i completely agree with that. No matter what she did to you (let it be worse ) just forgive her. Not for her sake but for your sake . The moment you just forgive it'll no more occupy space in your head. Try it once . You will feel much better since she's no more ,carrying the bad things she did in your head is a burden for you. To get rid of the burden you have to forgive her.

 

OP,
Dont stress too much on your incapability to forgive your late MIL now. You have suffered a lot in the last 18 years. It's not a short time. So it's not easy. Please dont feel bad about it. Try not to think about it much and enjoy your new life. Dont allow the past to rule the present. When those bad days come to your mind, try to divert your mind and chant/meditate for peace. Next year if you cannot see her photo or seek blessings, imagine your favourite God/goddess in that place, close your eyes and pray for everyone in the world.

Time heals every thing. May be you take a few more years to forgive and forget. Take your own time. When those bad memories are replaced by good memories ,you will slowly learn how to forgive her and forget all those events. So try to build good memories and fill your life with positive energy and thoughts. You will be alright.

Like you said ,counseling may help, to vent all those bad moments, to relax you and to clear your mind from these negative thoughts.