Dear El:

You wrote: “I’m all about peace and no confrontation.” As I read it, I stopped and thought to myself: this is a difficult way to live. Peace, sure, it is a wonderful thing to experience. And confrontations, unfortunately, are necessary in achieving peace. Only that confronting effectively is a skill to learn, develop and practice.

I continued to read: ” I hate feeling angry. I’m tired of feeling so negative. I want to be able to forgive him so I can truly move on and live a happy life.” This is understandable, not wanting to feel deep anger, hate, and to want to experience, instead, peace and happiness. But how do you do that when you get hurt? Can’t successfully ignore the hurt, repress it, make believe it didn’t happen… can’t even grieve it all by yourself, as if it did not involve the other person… when the other person is still part of your life.

Back to confronting, have to confront effectively. The message in your anger toward the guy is that he hurt you, that you were significantly hurt and that you did not deserve to be hurt, that it was not right for him to hurt you. You need to come to… peace with this message, is what I believe, and deliver this message to him in a simple, straightforward way.

anita