14 Mar How to Love Someone Who Hates You
The latest venom my ex husband spat via email was, “I won’t be wasting another minute of my life trying to explain something to you.” This came after I asked simple and reasonable questions regarding the split of our financial lives. You see, he’s a financial advisor. This is his area of expertise, and, foolishly or faithfully, I let him have control over it since before we were even married. Money has always been high on the list of things he loves.
And so here I am at 37 and I haven’t done my own taxes for 12 years. I didn’t even know how much money we had, or where it was located, until I decided I needed to leave this marriage. I have always respected money, but it was never on the list of things I loved.
And now, after orders have been handed down by a judge proceeding a lengthy and costly trial, we are finally separating the last part of our entangled, paper lives. Logically, there are things I still need to know, details to sort out, and just like everything else up to this point, he refuses to be a catalyst for moving forward, still stuck in a need to punish, to hate, to impose revenge.
And yet, he’s the father of the two people I love most in this world, and he will be until the day I die. They love him, and so, I too must find a way not to hate him.
The only way I know how to do this is to remind myself of his humanity. Some days, when the venom flows and my daughter tells me that she no longer wants a kitten because daddy says I won’t take care of it, the effort it takes to remind myself of his humanity feels like slogging through quicksand. Even so, I take a deep breath and force myself to honor and respect this person who does not respect me, who, I have no doubt would smile upon learning I had a terminal illness and find joy in any misfortune which might befall me.
This is the most challenging thing I have ever had to do. It stretches my capacity for compassion and then forces me to stretch further, deeper, down to the bottom of everything I have until some days, I am all but empty.
It requires a daily practice of remembering over and over and over that he is simply, a human being. He is fallible. He is blinded in so many ways – just like we all are from time to time – to what really matters in this life. And that is another thing I must practice daily; reminding myself over and over what really matters in this life.
And so I have come to realize that his hatred of me, is actually a blessing. I get to remember over and over what I love, what deserves my love, and the power that love contains.
These children, they taught me what love is and what it is not. The love I feel for them, it humbles me, it reduces me to my elements. It feels like those pictures you see of galaxies far, far away; unimaginably expansive, mystically beautiful, mysteriously familiar. This love is elegantly simple, and intricately layered, and has no comprehensible outer edge. It contains all the elements of the universe.
It is a the strongest thing I know and it is what I’ve come to understand as the most important thing in this life. And the truth is, just like the stars it has immense power. It will give you strength to do the unimaginable. It will even make you to pray for your enemies. And so I do. And so I do.
danacwithers
Posted at 02:32h, 15 MarchShannon, you are my shepherd. A year ago, I was balancing on the cliff over the abyss you’ve just now passed through. I am now in the thick of it: the hate, the venom, the manipulation, the attempts to make me doubt myself and my mothering. It is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. The hardest thing I’ll ever do. Yet I know it’s right. I know there is light. I know my babies will be ok because I will be ok. Even through the hate. I don’t yet understand how, but I will be ok. Keep shining the light. There are so many of us who need it. xoxo
Shannon Lell
Posted at 03:08h, 15 MarchI do understand Jackie. You are welcome here.
theheartofsassylassie
Posted at 04:37h, 15 MarchIt is one of the best gifts you can bestow upon your children, to not hate and to teach them the wisdom of forgiveness. I did it years ago and they still tell me what a proufound effect it had on them. I went to take care of the man I was long divorced from while he slowly died from cirrhosis of the liver. Still full of hate and venom, I prayed and I prayed he would make amends to his children which he didn’t and prayed he would show me a modicum of respect which he didn’t. He is gone now and I am here with two children that learned the lesson of strength, wisdom and forgiveness. I admire your tenacity and willingness to come from a place of love instead of hate. It always wins. <3
Linda
Posted at 13:32h, 15 MarchYou are so very wise, Shannon. I never understand parents who use children as weapons and tarnish their view of the other parent (although I also know eventually kids will grow up and make up their own minds but I’m sure that feels impossibly far away when they are little.). Here’s the biggest problem, psychologically with that: every kid has parts of their selves that identifies with each parent, so if you attack the other parent within their hearing, they attach some of that to their own self, feel attacked as well, at least the part that identifies internally, “oh, I’m like mommy in that, he must hate me, too.” That’s so harmful, and so clearly unknown by the mad parent that it’s happening. At least I hope unknown. I think you have to develop a firm but gentle response, like, “I know daddy thinks that right now, but he is sad and he is mad and sometimes when you are those things you don’t always think clearly, and I don’t think he’s right about this… I’m perfectly capable of loving and taking care of a kitten, and since this is my house we can decide together what we do or have here, and daddy can pick what y’all do and have with him, and that’s okay it’s that way. I trust him to make good choices for his house, and I know I can make good choices for our house.” Well, something like that maybe. Reaffirm your faith in yourself to them and remind them sometimes when grownups are mad they say things they don’t really mean and that might be what their dad is doing sometimes, but he won’t hurt you because you know he’s just mad and sad right now. (Even if the doesn’t hurt you isn’t true, of course.)
Samara
Posted at 14:36h, 15 MarchThis is a freaking gorgeous essay on love, forgiveness, humanity, everything, really. This really spoke to me.
Thank you for writing this. I needed to read it.
amybyrnes
Posted at 14:56h, 15 MarchI have been divorced from the father of my four children for almost five years — FIVE YEARS — and still receive texts from him, like a week ago, calling me an “asshole” and “POS” (that’s “piece of shit” for those not up on vulgar acronyms). But like you, instead of lowering myself to his level, I pray for him. He can hate me and blame me for the death of our marriage but I refuse to give all that negativity energy. It’s not who I want to be. Good for you for choosing love over hate and teaching your kids the same.
Alice
Posted at 00:21h, 16 MarchDo your kids know he does this? Does he express this anger in front of them? I am so sorry. That must be so hard.
Shannon Lell
Posted at 02:28h, 16 MarchI can only make assumptions from the reports of a 5 and 3yo. 🙁
ercatalano10
Posted at 15:00h, 15 MarchHow terribly hard. My heart goes out to you.
Reee
Posted at 02:51h, 16 MarchAfter 18 years of marriage, my ex tries to “bond” with our teenage daughter by openly talking and texting about how much he hates me. His humor is to mock me at every possible opportunity. This from a man who professes to be wildly happy with his current girlfriend and loving his new life…It’s unbelievably sad for my 16 year old, and my compassion for her trumps the insults to me every time. How awful and confusing it must be to have a parent constantly trying to shred the other parent. She and I certainly have our struggles, but the only way forward is to be a living example of kindness and love, while remaining reasonable in the face of ill will. Thanks for reminding me that I am truly not alone.
Shannon Lell
Posted at 03:18h, 16 MarchYou are not alone. Someone between the two has to be the voice of compassion and love. That’s how I see it anyway. And if I have a religion, it is, in the words of my beloved Beatles, Love is all there is.
Carly
Posted at 02:27h, 21 MarchI can’t even put in words how glued I’ve been to your blog. Your words, your life, your deep dark spots are exactly mine. I bawled, I cried. I couldn’t control my emotions reading this. It is my life right now and has been for the last year. The inappropriate comments to my children, to others. Court date, mediation, post pone here and reschedule there. Text about how awful I am. I keep going back farther and farther in your blog and still it is my life. Just as mine twist and swirls now.
You, your writing is keeping my head a float right now. It’s given me a small ounce of strength. That I am not alone, someone gets it. Sees that not all divorces are simple and quick. It’s messy and sickening and makes you weak in the knees. To know the right decision I my meant a harder path, full of more bumps and holes then you could ever fathom.
Thank you. Thank you for saying what I cant. Please keep writing. You’re keeping my head a float.
Shannon Lell
Posted at 22:16h, 21 MarchYou see, Carly, this blogging thing is a two way relationship. While I’m helping you, you’re helping me too. Thank you.
Lisa Ahn
Posted at 18:23h, 30 MarchI love your metaphor for describing the love you have for your children — that endless, expanding galaxy. Beautiful!!
Meghana
Posted at 01:42h, 22 JanuaryLove and gratitude all the way from India. Grateful as your words reminded me that I’m not alone in not hating the father of my child, despite his burning hate for me.
My husband (now separated) started spitting hate on me, 3 days after I delivered our beautiful baby girl. The reason he says is because I did not plead his parents to come and visit our baby. Apparently his parents are upset with me because I refused to be a doormat of their regressive minded misogynistic family who believe in feudalistic gender roles. That’s not uncommon in my country, yet I chose to stand up for myself, especially after I became pregnant as I thought if I don’t stand up for myself and for what is right, how will I face my child when he/she is born… What sort of a mother would I be.
Now, when our beautiful baby girl arrived, my husband was ecstatic. Happy beyond limits.i wonder what those emotions were, because despite the intensity displayed, they didn’t last 3 days. My in-laws started crying and became my ‘victims’. According to them they are deprived of seeing their first grandchild as their ‘honor’ was at stake. Basically what was expected out of me (just undergone a c-sec surgery, became a new mother, struggling to breastfeed my first baby), was that I should call them to beg forgiveness and plead, plead plead them until they were satisfied, so that they feel ‘honored enough’ to come to our home to see and bless my baby.
I wish my husband was level headed to see what was happening and to be fair in this situation. At the least, he could have sat with me and discussed this issue and expressed how much he wants his parents blessings for his baby. To be honest, if he had done this I really would have swallowed my self-respect, forgiven my in-laws, and would have told my husband that let’s both of us convince your parents lovingly to come to our place. But that didn’t happen… Rather my husband chose to ‘console’ his parents for hours on phone every single day, and became full of hate and contempt towards me. He basically started treating me like shit. There was no scope of dialogue or communication between us. He just announced that I’m such an evil woman to deprive his parents of their grand child… And that’s it. That would be the end of any discussion I tried to have with him. When my baby was 12 days old, he stopped caring for her, even looking at her, as one of my girl friends (whom he doesn’t like) visited to bless my baby (people visiting newborns to bless them is a common practice in India). Luckily I had my parents to support me through out this turmoil. I waited in ‘our’ place for another month, but there was no change in his behaviour. My parents had seen enough and finally gave him a good piece of their mind. He felt further insulted but then started talking to me. I still chose to try to amend things and gave him the idea that we could both call his parents together and convince them lovingly. He agreed, but then my mother in law refused to talk, saying it’s too late (my baby was 42 days old), and we should take the baby all the way to their place, which is in the other corner of the country and a very cold place (near the foot hills of the himalayas), and I should beg forgiveness in person. I refused to indulge in such circus. Eventually I moved to my parent’s home, as I needed support in caring for baby and realised my husband is extremely unreliable. At any point he could get angry out of the blue (usually because of some poison spat by his parents) and abandon me and even my child, like he had done for the past 1 and a half months.
Now my husband is alone in what used to be our place. He is terribly depressed, indulging in borderline substance abuse, living an irresponsible lonely life. I offered to go back to care for him. Tried to go back twice, but both times, he forced me to cancel my tickets by threatening that he would leave the house if I went there. Since then he has been sending me hate emails and hate messages. He says I’m a loser (although my entire adult life I have been financially independent, and I’m a highly qualified professional). He says I have been a demon daughter in law, and how I have scarred his victim parents. He says how right his brother and parents are for calling me a bitch. He says I abandoned him when he needed support and I am responsible for everything bad happening in his life. He curses me. He says God will never forgive me for all the ‘sins’ I have committed towards his victim family and I will get punished. He says I am the worst person on earth as I first tried to separate him from his innocent parents and now I’m separating him from his child. He says he is punishing me by announcing he will never help me ever, even in bringing up our daughter. Basically, he washed his hands off from any sort of child support or alimony (in terms of financial, moral, emotional support).
No matter how much I introspect (because foolishly, I am still in love with my husband and I’m sad that he is so lonely and sad), I just fail to see any logical reasoning for his hate towards me. And day by day his hate for me keeps increasing. His hate for me knows no limits.
The dreams I had of a happy family are shattered. I feel bad for my three month old baby. She doesn’t deserve a broken family. She deserves her father’s love. Despite all his hate, I miss my husband terribly. Sometimes all this makes me very angry. Sometimes I feel I can never forgive him. Sometimes I get tempted to think that he and his parents and brother, they deserve only hate from my child.
But your words restored sense in me. My child does not deserve to inherit hate from me. Forgiveness is far far greater than the pain in my heart. Forgiveness and prayers can really be answers to even the strongest hate.
The thing you said about the universe and elements struck me the most. I’m Hindu. By both my religion and meta-physics, I have learnt that the whole universe is nothing but energy (‘shakti’ in my religion, and protons-nutrons-electrons in science)…. The ever changing energy. Everything we do has consequences in the universe. And everything that happens in the universe has consequences on us…. So subtly that we can’t see it, and we think it is controlled by us or some other human. The real control is in the hands of a greater power – the balance of the universe. Letting go and forgiveness are best gifts we can give our children, as it will make their lives easier… Because there is no point in trying to control!