Some things you don't have to forgive

Yom Kippur begins on Sunday night.

Judaism is about our relationship with other people. The forgiveness we seek in the week between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is from other people, not from God. We are also supposed to offer forgiveness to others.

For years, I have been struggling with my inability to forgive ex-hubby #2. There is certainly a lot to forgive him for. Not that I was perfect. I can fully understand that I must have been a pain in the ass to live with. But through his self-centeredness and emotional abuse, he unraveled my always shaky ego. The sadist has been working long and hard to build me up in my own eyes. Anyone who thinks that cultivating the submission of one you wish to own involves destruction prior to re-creation has it all backwards. The power of my Master's ownership comes from enabling me to see who I am, teaching me to dance in my sense of self-worth, and then bringing me to the sure and joyous knowledge that the best, the only thing to do with my talent and beauty and delight is to place it all at his feet.

Do you wonder that I love him?

The marriage. There were many incidents, many attitudes, many words, that accumulated into a mountain of hurt. It was a marriage that shouldn't have been contracted, and that certainly should not have lasted that long. But there is one sin - and yes, I do believe it was a sin - that I come back to again and again. I mentioned it in a support group cum psalm-writing class I went to a number of months ago. A Jewish group. And that was when the therapist leading the group said "There are some things you don't have to forgive."

"Oh!" I said. "You mean, like Hitler?"

I've spoken of his sin before. I mentioned it in passing in this story - which I am really very proud of, so please do go read it if you haven't before. But his sin came to mind with a vengeance today as I read the following in a New York Times piece on Tanya Snyder, the wife of Redskins' owner Dan Snyder:

After she learned she had breast cancer early last year, she called Dan at his office and he sped home. They took a long walk.

After I learned I had melanoma, I called my husband at his office. He said he had a committee meeting and would see me at home that night.

Some things you don't have to forgive.