Dear Elisabeth:

You wrote that you want to forgive yourself “for wanting a normal relationship” with your father, as if it was a wrong for a child (and an adult-child) to want to have a loving relationship with a parent..?

Forgiving, as in no longer feeling angry, is a process, incremental and not linear. You can be free of anger for a long time and then it returns. It doesn’t mean you have failed to forgive. It means the process is not linear. Ceasing contact with him is a good idea. If you are in contact with relatives who keep telling you that he is a great person and that you should continue to put your feelings aside, maybe you shouldn’t be in contact with them either, if they refuse to respect your position.

From my experience, my anger toward my mother has been lessened and almost non existent now as her voice in my head (her mental representative aka the Superego in Freud terminology) stop doing her job of abusing me.

anita