Forgiving Myself
In my research of forgiveness I found that one of the hardest parts has been forgiving myself.
In my first marriage I presented all of my good and bad to be judged and hopefully supported by my spouse. I believed he was doing the same but what I know now is that he was gaslighting me to believe only what he was willing to show me.
At times I would go to him searching for help, support, safety and answers in my personal life because naturally I was struggling to feel adequate as a wife, mom, daughter, sister and friend. In the last years I even described it to him as drowning in my life except instead of getting help I felt I was being handed bricks.
Many times I would leave those conversations with what I know are forms of emotional abuse called gaslighting and DARVO. My understanding was that I was the problem and I needed to figure it out on my own. I asked less of him and worked harder on myself. He knew what he was choosing yet he blamed me. I didn’t have a partner but someone that was knowingly betraying me and allowing me to believe our truth was different.
Now I am working on forgiving myself. To forgive myself for believing what he was saying to me. To forgive myself that I wasn’t pretty, sexy or good enough and the shame I felt in that. To forgive that I took my heavy responsibilities, failures, frustrations and the lack of communication in my marriage towards my children.To forgive myself that I was responsible for the tone of the home that felt dark and tense yet I couldn’t fix it. To forgive myself for not having the marriage I wanted. To forgive it was my responsibility to make him happy. To forgive my own expectations of wanting to be happy yet knowing that I wasn’t.
All of these are just some of the bricks that he handed me. I work to forgive that I accepted them instead of letting them go and the fact that I believed I deserved each brick he gave me.
What can you do to stop gaslighting yourself? Are you still taking responsibility of the relationship and holding all the bricks? What false truths do you believe with the information you had in front of you that now you can release?
