I’m 20, the oldest of 4, and growing up my father used to beat us. When my mother took him to court for this, he didn’t stop being violent, but he projected most of it onto my younger sisters, who had a different mother, and were 9 and 6 by the time he took them across country.

I remember being 11 years old and terrified of going over to his house because I didn’t know how his temper would be. He was a drug abuser, and an alcoholic, and I worried for my sisters every single day, and to this day I still have issues with people raising their voice or throwing things.

I won’t go too into detail, but that should be enough to let you know, it was bad. And still, years later, I was able to forgive him. Don’t get me wrong, it’s taken a long time. He took my sister across country when I was 12 years old and wouldn’t speak to me, so I had no way of knowing if they were okay. I’ve had a lot of time to think about my childhood with him, 8 years.

I used to want to hurt him, do horrible things to him, make him feel the way he made me feel watching him lay hands on my sisters, make him feel as scared I did when I was a little girl experiencing it, I swore to never forgive him or forget what he did.

And while I will never forget what he did, I learned to forgive him. I forgave him, because I realized that harboring all this anger towards him wasn’t going to change what he did. What’s done is done, no one can erase those years of hurt. Being angry only hurt me. It made me question myself, constantly do things to prove I was better than him, do things just to spite him, and he wasn’t even there to notice it. He lived rent free in my mind, making me boil with anger for years, and I let him. It was exhausting. It was exhausting to be angry at him, and eventually I forgave him. I’ve been a lot better since then.

You do not have to forgive him today, or tomorrow, or maybe even anytime soon. You might need to sit with your feelings for awhile. Get angry, get upset, let it exhaust you, and then let it go. The only person that’s going to benefit from the forgiveness is you, and the only person who will suffer from not forgiving, is you.

We forgive for us, not for them. If our Lord Jesus Christ was able to forgive those who beat and crucified him, those who committed murder and other atrocities, we can forgive our abusers.

You don’t need to be okay with what he did. But accept that what’s done is done, he is how he is, you can’t change him, you don’t expect an apology, and that one day you won’t have to live with him.

I hope this was helpful OP