I have often wondered why it feels like there’s nothing to forgive my father for, and/or why I have never felt significantly angry at – or hurt – by him.

If you’ve been around for a while (or if you’ve read You Are Not Your Mother: Releasing Generational Trauma and Shame), you know that I mostly speak warmly of him and our relationship, even though he and my mother were divorced when I was two, even though I didn’t see much of him as I was growing up, and even though he was willing to give up the little custody/access he had to me after my mother married my stepfather.

That he didn’t give up that custody/access has more to do with my stepmother, and that’s another story for another day.

One thing I remember from that time, when I was a little girl visiting my father every six weeks, is that my mother felt resentful that she had to do the so-called “dirty work” while my father got to have a good time with me. I know that wasn’t easy.

It was while talking with a client that something dawned on me. She was telling me that she wanted to get over being angry at her mother. I asked her if she had gotten over being angry at her father (who she said was abusive to her mother prior to their divorce, and who subsequently became addicted to drugs, and then got sober).

She told me that she only ever remembers being angry at him once, when she was 12, and that currently they don’t have much of a relationship other than speaking to each other every couple of months.

I asked her to tell me how she thinks her father feels about her. She said she thinks he feels pride and love towards her, and that he says as much.

Then I asked her to tell me how she thinks her mother feels about her. She said she thinks her mother hates her (because her mother has said so, repeatedly) and that her mother is often frustrated, hurt, and angry with her because she doesn’t do the things her mother wants her to do.

I got choked up while listening because I related on so many levels.

I never questioned whether my father loved me, but you can be sure I have questioned whether my mother loves me.

My father never belittled or shamed me, although I do remember him gently suggesting, when I was in my early 20s, that I might have better luck with boyfriends if I lost some weight.

That said, I never felt that he was disgusted by me. He LIKED me. He delighted in me. His face lit up when he saw me.

My mother is a different story.

~~~

Our bodies knows what feels safe and loving, and what feels like fear and shaming.

Even if our mothers may have intended something else.

We aren’t experiencing her love, we are experiencing her fear, shame, bitterness, resentment, and jealousy.

I am fully aware that had my parents NOT gotten divorced, I may have had a vastly different experience of my father.

As well, I know there are fathers who belittle, shame, and emotionally (and otherwise) abuse their daughters. That was my experience with my stepfather and I am “meh” when it comes to forgiving him.

It’s no wonder it was hard for my client, and for me (and for my own mother, who at 85 years old still questions her mother’s love for her), and maybe for you, to let go of the anger we feel towards our mothers and to forgive them, even when we so desperately want to for our own sakes.

My experience, and that of many (but definitely not all) adult daughters I speak with, is that we are not as angry/hurt by our fathers (even when we can point to things like abandonment and substance abuse and other shitty behavior) as we are by our mothers, who by all the standards of our society, “cared” for us (and I understand that may not have been your experience).

If we perceive that our fathers love and support us unconditionally and believe in us and our dreams, even if/when they’ve dropped the ball in regards to the practical/financial aspects of being a parent, it’s far easier to forgive them (and I am guessing we’ve got some internalized patriarchy and misogyny in the mix, as well, which gives men, especially white men, a pass).

What may make it harder for us to forgive our mothers is that we perceive they don’t love and support us unconditionally, even if they were the ones who fed, sheltered, and clothed us…who maybe even, quite literally, sacrificed for us.

I am reminded of this quote again:

“Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good [as the loved person defines it] as far as it can be obtained.” ~ C.S. Lewis

[parenthetical phrase is mine]

Is it your experience that your mother wishes/wished, truly, for your ultimate good? As you define it? Beyond feeding, sheltering, and clothing you?

Is it your experience that your father wishes/wished, truly, for your ultimate good? Even if he dropped the ball in those practical aspects?

~~~

“During birth, the neurotransmitters and nervous system regulation that a mother has, or is lacking, is felt at such a deep visceral biological level by her baby. Even just from her eye contact and breath patterns. Mothers have the demand to attach and to give to us that bond – but if they never received it they cannot give it because they don’t have the neurotransmitter wiring or the biological structures built in.” ~ Shyla Cash

Not to mention the resentment and bitterness that might come from the care aspect historically falling on a mother’s shoulders alone because our culture prizes the nuclear family, even after divorce.

Not to mention systems/institutions that do not allow women to be fully in control of becoming a mother or how they will mother, and place the burden of care on her shoulders only.

Not to mention that so many mothers have had to stay in situations that were unsafe for themselves and their children because there were no other options, no real community, no safety, no way to make it on their own.

Human beings are designed, biochemically, for connection.

It takes five to six people to raise a child because that’s how much emotional connection they are required to have.

ALL OF THIS speaks to requiring systemic change so that women/mothers are truly supported and never in a position to have to sacrifice themselves for their children and then feel so resentful for it that they can’t wish for their adult daughter’s ultimate good.

It’s a collective pattern that needs to be broken. It’s not yours alone.

~~~

Getting back to forgiveness, here are my thoughts:

The idea that you “have to” forgive someone who abused you “for your own sake” is suspect.

We’re sold this idea that it is unhealthy or harmful to us not to forgive.

We are shamed if we can’t or won’t forgive.

Forgiveness can be a byproduct of healing, but it is not the tool by which we heal.

Grief heals.

Allowing and honoring righteous anger heals.

Speaking your truth and having it held safely heals.

Not allowing her shame, bitterness, resentment, and jealousy to become yours heals.

Forgiveness might then happen organically but it does not require reconciliation.

Much, much love,

Karen