How did you forgive your parents?
I know that I can not move on and have a fulfilling life until I learn to let go (I have heard this wayyy to much), but I still struggle to forgive my parents for all the abuse that was inflicted on me as a child, and now as an adult as well. I moved abroad at the age of 19 because of my abusive father and enabler mom, and only returned to my home country when I was 30. I had to, because I was severely sick and my insurance abroad would not have covered all treatments. I moved back to my hometown, planned to stay just for a few months, then got stuck here. I did not and do not live with my parents, I live alone. My mom was pressuring me for 2 years to keep regular contact with her and my father, just to keep up appearances, because that´s what you do Eastern-European small towns if you don´t want to be gossiped about. Trying to "fix the relationship" broke me. My father is just as abusive (if not worse) as he used to be, he is not sorry for anything, if I need to be in his presence for longer than 5 minutes he is treatening me and shouting for no particular reason, so I just can´t be around him. Seeing him more often worsened my health, so I had to keep away. My mom is really hurt by us "not getting along" (as she puts it), but I´m done, I can´t. I know that I need to forgive and let go in order to fix my health, and normalise my relationship towards him as much as I can if I don´t want to spend the rest of my life getting treatments for unexplanable medical issues (currently getting treated for medically unxeplainable infertility).
Posted Aug 13, 2026, 4:57 PM UTC