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How to Finally Forgive an Abusive Parent Who Ruined Your Life as a Kid
Eight truths that let you heal, even when forgiveness feels impossible.
“I don’t see how forgiveness is even possible,” a reader wrote to me after finishing an article I’d published on the hard truths about families.
She described a childhood most of us can’t even imagine:
“[an] abusive families where the mother actually helped the father sexually and otherwise abuse the oldest girl child—and that girl was actively hated by the father and not liked by the mother.”
Imagine it for a moment: a father who abused his daughter, a mother who aided him, and a life defined by open hatred from the very people meant to protect her.
She went on to say:
“I’ve been in and out of therapy most of my adult life and understand this dynamic psychologically. But you talk acceptance and forgiveness—acceptance was necessary, but forgiveness is not on my radar. I’m okay with that. I wonder how you see that could ever be possible for a daughter to forgive any of this.”
Her words lingered with me. Because when forgiveness is discussed, the assumption is usually that parents were flawed but still loved their children. But what happens when that…
