People who hold grudges

Mirroring sounds attractive, but can I manage it without starting to giggle? Although it sometimes gets me down I can see a funny side to this, not least that when she folds her arms in a huff she reminds me of Les Dawson.

If someone were to "blow up" on me or I were to blow up on them, and I wanted to resume a good relationship with them, I could not just leave it at that and move on. I would have to discuss it with them, get to the bottom of why it happened, and apologise or agree to differ or something. Sometimes, however, you just can't do this if one is determined to hold a grudge and to me that is their prerogative and not my problem because at least I have tried.

Try mirroring her!

She certainly has people she likes better than others and she favours them, but it is worse with me. I avoid her as much as possible but I am involved with voluntary work that I love and it necessitates contact with her sometimes. She doesn't like people who disagree with her and I have done this once or twice. Ever since then she has held a grudge.

Is she like it with other people?

Anyone any advice on someone who continues to hold a grudge against you? I am one of those who blows up disagrees with someone and then forgets because having said what I think I then want to move on. Unfortunately someone I know has chosen to maintain a grudge against me. When I am speaking she pulls faces and her body language is very aggressive. She manages to dismiss things I have done and never acknowledges me unless she has to. I know if I raise it with her she will deny everything, but one or two friends have also commented on her negative attitude to me.

You're right Anya and Soontobe. Our situation is sad and we were disappointed as we had thought well of this person, but we have let it go and, as you say, have moved on. Lots of richness in our lives!

I wonder whether holding grudges then means that the person doesnt feel the need to look at their behaviour or part in anything.

Wilks, if people lie, then trust can fly out the window.
But actually 1 person can forgive another if they want to. But that doesnt mean that the behaviour of the other person was acceptable. In a way, they are two seperate issues.

Lovelife, I wonder if someone knows? That often seems to be the case. It might be worth asking around discretely?

Also, and this is why I started this thread, holding one particular grudge is understandable.

But there are personslity types who harbour numerous and petty grudges and bore everyone by bringing them up to show how hard done by and long suffering they are. They allow these to fester and are usually very self-centred people.

Not trusting someone again is understandable, we all learn from experience and judge others by how they treat us. Bearing a grudge however means you hark back to this whenever he's mentioned, but cutting him out of your lives can mean drawing a line under this wilks and moving on perhaps.

We have been so seriously lied to by a family member that I can't see how we could possibly trust him again. You can only forgive and forget if the person acknowledges what they have done and apologises, neither of which he has done. In fact he has accused us of being in the wrong. As we try not to bear grudges for all the reasons given, we have decided he is no longer a part of our lives. We don't need psychic vampires messing with our heads.

Granny23 you're absolutely right! Tam O' Shanter is one of my all-time favourite Burns poems and the word pictures you get when reading it are so great.
An old friend stayed with us during our 40th Wedding anniversary celebrations. She was rude to the other guests, moaned about the food, and after inviting us out to dinner the evening before she left she weaselled out of paying the bill without us knowing. It was one of our favourite local places to eat and when we found out we went there and offered to pay. The owner was charming and refused to let us. I was shocked and embarrassed and I now find that I cannot bring myself to be chatty and friendly with her anymore. I avoid the phone when she calls. DH feels cross too but he speaks to her. Perhaps with time I will be able to speak to her again but I'm not sure!

My elder daughter(43) hasn't spoken to her sister(41) for 18 years........None of us know what the younger one did to upset her and no-one is brave enough to ask, incase she stops talking to us!! It's such a shame as we know that the cousins would all like to be friends and they do like their aunt! We are all missing out on lovely big Christmases etc etc... Any ideas????

Lovely description, Granny23!

Don't think this is a Shakespearean quote (he gets credit for an awful lot that were not his) but comes from Robert Burns' 'Tam o' Shanter' referring to Tam's wife, at home while Tam is getting drunk at the pub, she was 'nursing her wrath to keep it warm'.

sunseeker - I like your posts.
Nonnie - I like your distinction.

I have found that bearing a grudge eventually goes away with time (sometimes a lot of time) and being busy. I used to moan (a lot!) about how badly I was treated in a particular workplace, for years afterwards. Thank goodness it has gradually receded so I no longer (I hope) bore people with my petty resentments or have those incidents ready to recount!!

I don't hold grudges but if I have been hurt by someone I feel it very hard to forget that hurt. I would never deliberately hurt someone myself although I might have done unknowingly, in which case if it was pointed out I would be devestated, so I could never understand why someone would do that to me.

Forgive and forget - I really believe bearing grudges is unhealthy, regardless of how wronged one has been. So yes, forgive because it's unhealthy to bear grudges. But forget and you don't learn from the experience. I have learnt through (no longer bitter) experience not to get involved in other people's dramas and to avoid sociopaths like the plague!

Wikihow.com has great page on "how to forgive" - very useful if you need help in this area or know someone who does. ??

Grudges can be so damaging, my father has just decided he won't speak to me because I still, will not 'side' with him over his divorce from my mother in 1976. 1976?? He was angry I continued the relationship with my step mother when they divorced, (bit of a pattern here!). Always two sides to a story - but I love Jane10's Shakespearean quote and that's how he is, never his fault, always nurturing the perceived 'injustice' which seems to keep him fired up and going. A very sad bitter man and I have lost my father as a result.

Yes, got the 'baby's' age wrong in the secone post. It was her first born she was chuddering on about.

It is indeed absent

Not much point in 'forgiving' if you aren't prepared to forget either. Better, I suppose! than those who say they'll never forgive something, and then expect to have a healthy relationship with the person they're not prepared to forgive.

Weird

Sorry Anya if I got the wrong poster. I was clearly wrong about the personal anecdote, but, nevertheless, the principle is valid.

It could be seen like that absent but in fact knowing the pair involved in the 'wetting the baby's head' incident very well, the father is very attentive. Indeed he's wouldn't dare be anything else as the mother demands she be the centre of attention all the time. The baby is 40 next month!

I don't hold on to any for very long. Even if I am very annoyed at the time. (Such is my personality that I would be starting to think it was probably my fault.)

I think there are grudges over silly trivial matters and it is silly, trivial and may even be pathological to hang on to them and go over and over them.

I think there are also deeply painful and distressing wounds that linger and, possibly, continue but are described in a kind of shorthand by a single anecdote of some hurtful moment. I wonder, for example, if the wetting the baby's head mentioned, I think, by Ana could be shorthand for a long-standing feeling of being disregarded and dismissed by the baby's father.

Ana It was just a good example to use as I know of a long-standing problem where a similar story is the exemplar for the greater issue.