People who hold grudges

[Crazedclerkthe2nd]

A friend of mine is still furious at someone else I know over something that happened more than 15 years ago. The responsible party has apologized several times but my friend refuses to let it go.

My mom is still irate my dad left her nearly 7 years ago. She still says she will kill him if she sees him again.

I got bullied bad 17 years ago. I will never forget it, but its not like if I ran into one of the bullies today I would snap and kick their ass.

At some point you have to let it go and move on.

[lupo pazzesco]

One thing I've always been raised to believe in and to follow is "Remember. Move on, but don't forget".

I've gone through my fair share of bullying, and horrid experiences with people/situations. I remember them, and some still make me so angry, but I refuse to let them influence my decisions. I try to, anyway.

I can't understand the thought process people have when holding grudges "you hurt me in this particular instance! I'm going to remember, rehash, and let it consume me so it colors any other interaction I have with you!!11!!" Why??

[DrFaroohk]

Sometimes we can't necessarily control our emotions.

I have a few people I downright loathe. Particularly the junkies from my home town, the ones who terrorized me and made life extremely difficult for me. I hate them. I want them all to die.

I can't really change that. that's how I feel about it.

I can change how I act though, so I don't actively try to pursue any assassination attempts on those people. I just let it go, but sometimes it does pop into my head uninvited and it's hard to get out.

[HYHYBT]

Holding a grudge is bad for you... but then again, so is smoking and people have a hard time letting go of that too.

[Aethian]

My Mom's oldest Sister is still mad at her for something that happened when my Mom was four. She's going to be seventy next April.

[SkullKing]

honestly, people who let go of legitimate grudges annoy me more than people who don´t.

Which is different then holding a grudge for small things.

[bainsidhe]

A coworker once explained it best. You don't forgive for the other person's sake, you forgive for your own sake.

I used to have a very close friend. Life started to get busy and we just weren't in touch day-to-day anymore. When my mother died suddenly, I tried to contact him and let him know. Perhaps it was selfish of me to want the support of friends, but it hurt so much when he simply ignored my calls and never responded to me. A few years later, I ran into him while he was working at the mall. He was happy and chatty as if we were still the best of buds. I remained polite, but I was so angry. Now that time has passed, I've forgiven him because I grew tired of carrying around so much resentment over any memory related to my former friend. It still hurts and it still makes me angry, but only if I let it and only if I think about the particular incident. I can now fondly remember some of the good times, even if it ended on a sour note. Not that I have any intention of speaking to him again. I don't forget either.

[HYHYBT]

honestly, people who let go of legitimate grudges annoy me more than people who don´t.

Interesting. How so?

[SkullKing]

I think that righteous anger is one of the most noble emotions one can have. It gives you motivation to make the world a better or fairer place.

When you let go of a legitmate grudge because it is too tiring you let someone out of the hook when they don´t deserve. which is very different from forgiving someone because they have atoned themselves, or become a better person.

Many(not all) people who let go of a grudge are effectively desisting from seeking a fair compensation.

note that I have nothing against letting go of a grudge because you realized it wasn´t right to hold said grudge.(i.e: you thought something was done on purpose but it was an accident)

[bainsidhe]

When you let go of a legitmate grudge because it is too tiring you let someone out of the hook when they don´t deserve. which is very different from forgiving someone because they have atoned themselves, or become a better person.

Who decides what's legitimate? A legitimate grudge to me may not be one for you. Letting go of a grudge is not done for the sake of the other person, it's done for oneself. In my case, my former friend could care less if I held a grudge or if I was angry. He betrayed my trust and didn't deserve forgiveness, but I let it go because I owed it to myself. Nursing that grudge meant I was consumed by emotion every time I thought about my mom's death. I have many happy memories of my mother and I can now dwell on the silliness and happy times instead of just grief and anger. I'm not going to let one callous idiot overshadow those precious memories.

[insertNameHere]

I go with if you can't remember why you pissed at someone it really wasn't important. I can really only think of one person I have something against and it is the sort of person if he were to walk into my house I would not hesitate to defend myself with deadly force. To the point I was somewhere I saw a person who resembled him, so I switched spots to put two people between me and him just in case it was him. The last time we hung out I got a 2X4 to the face when he was about to hit his gf after trying to break into a friends house when he smoked some weed laced with something nasty, of course he was unstable before that too.

And to that point I ran into our other friend randomly 2years later in a campus computer lab he was dating a girl in my building, suggested me, him and the previously mentioned pyscho should hangout as he cleaned up his act after..... hitting rock bottom, then went to E, then coke, hit rock bottom, got back with an ex who turned him onto heroin, etc etc etc.... but he was clean at that point..... Won't talk to guy #2 either anymore.

[SkullKing]

Who decides what's legitimate? A legitimate grudge to me may not be one for you

Fully agree, you decide, it is as personal as what is right and what is wrong.

Letting go of a grudge is not done for the sake of the other person, it's done for oneself. In my case, my former friend could care less if I held a grudge or if I was angry. He betrayed my trust and didn't deserve forgiveness, but I let it go because I owed it to myself. Nursing that grudge meant I was consumed by emotion every time I thought about my mom's death. I have many happy memories of my mother and I can now dwell on the silliness and happy times instead of just grief and anger. I'm not going to let one callous idiot overshadow those precious memories.

Perhaps, or perhaps if you had walked to him and told you how much he hurt you, he might have realized what he did, felt bad about himself and tried to be a better friend(for you and others), perhaps he just didn´t have a clue, he might just regularlly forget to check his messages.

Maybe he changed his cell number and forgot to tell you.

Perhaps he was in a bad time of his life himself and might not have been in a condition to help anyone, maybe HE was needing help.

Maybe any of the above was true and you could have become friends again. Maybe even better than you were.


Or perhaps he was a jerk, and talking to him might make him uncomfourtable enough for him to realize he can´t just use people and that he burned a bridge that might have helped him in the future, after all you seem to be someone who is true to her friends and true friends and dependable people are rare enough.


But you probably won´t know since you decided to let go of the problem instead of doing something about it.


Although your course of action may very well be healthier

[bainsidhe]

But you probably won´t know since you decided to let go of the problem instead of doing something about it.

Unfortunately I do know. Trust me when I say he did get my messages and could have called me back. You'll have to take my word on that. Looking back, I now realize how self-centered he was and that he didn't appreciate the people he was supposed to care about the most. It wasn't just me he treated poorly when it was no longer convenient. I just refused to see the signs and turned a blind eye. Shame on me for that. I doubt he meant to cause me as much hurt as he did, he was just too wrapped up in himself to care about anyone else.

And just because I let a grudge go doesn't mean I forget. I'm no longer the lost little puppy that would smother him with attention. And he is no longer a friend I want.

You can continue to speculate what I might and might not have done to change the situation. I'm just a random voice on the internet. But I stand by my reasons for the choices I've made.

Although your course of action may very well be healthier .

Yes thank you.

[PepperElf]

Who decides what's legitimate? A legitimate grudge to me may not be one for you. Letting go of a grudge is not done for the sake of the other person, it's done for oneself. In my case, my former friend could care less if I held a grudge or if I was angry. He betrayed my trust and didn't deserve forgiveness, but I let it go because I owed it to myself. Nursing that grudge meant I was consumed by emotion every time I thought about my mom's death. I have many happy memories of my mother and I can now dwell on the silliness and happy times instead of just grief and anger. I'm not going to let one callous idiot overshadow those precious memories.

to me it depends on how serious an issue it is...

Say, a grudge over "You wore the same shirt that I did" or a grudge over "you killed my father".

And of course it also depends on whether or not you can (or should) get justice, and if you will ever achieve it.



i.e... Inigo Montoya. To me that is a worthy, and somewhat noble, grudge. He's seeking justice for his father's murder.

my former friend who took the side of the man who physically attacked me ... eventually a grudge I had to let go of. the former friend is one who would never apologize for something he did wrong and eventually i healed. i forgave him but... i'd never like or trust him again.


but say you accept something bad just because you know you can't change it... that could be unhealthy. it could make you accept horrible situations where you don't ever try to fix things because you think you can't.


it's all a balance

[blas87]

See, as I've gotten older, I've let go of some grudges that were really unhealthy to hold onto. Regarding ex boyfriends, feelings of anger and whatnot from memories of high school. I'll never forget, but I don't let these people bother me the way they used to.

I suppose it helps that now that I work with practically half of my second high school, I didn't have much of a choice but to move on as adults. And some of them really did grow up a bit.

One grudge that I refuse to let go, for whatever reason, is about my dad's half brother, who I have called and will continue to call Uncle Cat Killer behind his back.

This uncle of mine is such a momma's boy to the core, that, to avoid breaking his elderly mother's heart, had her cat put down for NO GOOD REASON other than the fact that she just wanted him to. My dad's other brothers and my dad himself said to just take the cat to an animal shelter or see if anyone would want to keep him and just tell grandma that they did do it (it's a little white lie that wouldn't hurt ANYONE!). But no, he couldn't hurt his momma by lying to her. So he had the cat put down for no good reason. And I have no idea what kind of retard veterinarian who would euthanize a perfectly healthy cat.

My grandmother was just being a typical going senile old lady who just decided one day that her cat was too much to handle, so he had to be put down. Being too much to handle meant too difficult for a 90 year old woman to care for, NOT that he was sick or needed to die. There was nothing wrong with that cat.

I haven't and won't speak to that uncle again, at least not until grandma passes away and I can tell him to his face what a dumbass he is.