The letter I wish I had written

I owe someone an apology but never did get enough courage to write the letter which I should have written. Too late now as that person died last year. I will always regret this.

I can equate to so many things written here. Thank you all. I had a difficult childhood with a controlling father and mother who wouldn’t stand up to him. How I wish I had said to his face what his actions had done to me. However the positive is that I chose a husband the total opposite to him. Have two wonderful children and a happy marriage of 43 years. So that gives me satisfaction. I survived despite ......,

Many.

On the other hand, there is one I wish I hadn't. I madly fancied a guy who was an independant agent at one of the companies I worked for. When it folded, he made a point of keeping in touch but it kind of trailed off. I still had a bit of a thing for him so talked it over with a girlfriend who said "Why don't you just write to him? Tell him how you feel and leave it in his hands." . Sounded like logic so I did. And posted it.

I didn't hear back so after a week I called his house, only to hear an ansafone message from him and a woman....

She had not been in the picture when I last spoke to him. I still go red when I think of it. I really, really wish I had not sent him that letter. Recently met a mutual friend and have resisted the temptation to ask how he is. God! He really was dishy.

Love the idea of writing a letter.
My friends daughter had a very traumatic childhood, and she told me that she found a way every night to help her sleep, by envisioning a hot air balloon tied down with four ropes, and ever so methodically she loads up boxes with all of the stresses or pain she is worried about at that particular time, and then she loads them all into the hot air balloon, and then she picks up an axe, and goes round all four of the tethered ropes, and cuts into them one by one, until the balloon starts to float away. She watches it disappearing into the distance, and watches it until its completely gone, and then finds shes asleep.
I started doing this with my worries and problems, loading the balloon, and now I fall asleep before I have even cut the ropes lol.

That should be: 'I didn't want him to come to see me again.'

In my case it is one of regret having written two letters and sending them to my boyfriend of nearly seventeen years telling him I didn't want to come to see me again and the second one was telling him not to come out with the local walking group. It probably was the right thing to do as he had told me not long before this that having moved to London this was a chance of a new life for him. Also I had started going out with someone else who I later married. We are still together. My regret is not remaining friends as I cared a lot about him. I have tracked him down. He has never married.

What touching stories. Times like this you can thank social media (Gransnet) where you can share with others and see many have experienced similar sad/happy stories.

After leaving my secondary modern education in 1960 I wish I had written to the teachers of that school in the years that followed telling them just what a useless bunch of wasters they were.

All children after failing their eleven plus exam would in the nineteen fifties go on to secondary modern schools where you were treated as "factory fodder" and nothing else. I had a mild form of Dyslexia which was not recognised at that time as a disability, and therefore I (along with others) were treated as just plain stupid often in front of the whole class, which was very common practice by teachers at that time.

I left school believing I was just that, stupid. However, on joining the Transport & General Workers Union in the mid-nineteen sixties, I then took one of their basic education courses and the experience could not have been more different or greater.

With tutors who knew how to respect and bring forward the best in their students, I for the first time began to believe in myself in regard to being able to learn. I undertook many more trade union education courses which completely changed my life and the way I thought about myself and that life.

It was the mid-1980s before I realised just how useless those teachers at my original secondary modern school had been, and how they had "let down" not just me but all those post-war kids that past through that School in the nineteen fifties.

The school closed in the early nineteen seventies and therefore by the time I realised just what a failure that place was it was too late to contact anyone.

Still, right up to this day I can dream of sending that letter.

Go with sussexborn suggestion. Widely known if you write somethings down that has been bothering you this releases the anxiety just as it would had you uttered the words. Give it a go, nothing to lose.

I would write the letter as suggested and it will make you feel better to get your feelings down on paper.

Soon after my unpleasant, controlling father died someone told me to imagine him sitting in the chair opposite and say all the things you have wanted to say to and about him. I couldn't do it, and that was the fix. From thereon after it was all the way up and I've never looked back, even feel sorry for him for being the way he was and what he missed out on.

I still hold a massive candle to my wonderful FiL, and MiL. I was able to tell them years later, long after I had divorced their son (who was a rubbish father) that I had received the best parenting from them. Thankfully my DS and DSiL are wonderful fathers

Write it anyway I wrote about my feelings when my first OH was cheating including a letter to him which I didn't send but it sure helped me... found them the other day..... hard reading but gonna shred and put in compost as that's all he is worth!

I agree with others....Write the letter...then tell yourself..u r alive..he’s dead..& u r still letting him torture u...every time u get the black mist...put him out your head if u can..?
Sometimes works for me...

Missfoodlove, you have hit the nail on the head. Now in my seventies, I look back on myself as a child with understanding
and without boasting, think she did rather well, considering!

When I retired I started jotting down all the vile things my Father has done through his life, at least the ones I knew about. And I had more time to have long conversations with one of my siblings about our unpleasant childhood. Now a few years down the line, I wish I had not 'picked the scab'. But I do find it incredibly helpful to know that there are others out there who suffered grim fathering.

Same as you, bully of a father. Never could do anything well enough for him and it has left me with a lack of confidence for the rest of my life.

Nearly 40 years ago I was briefly married at a young age to an older man with a 7 year old boy whose wife had left him. I soon realised why as he was cold and emotionally and financially abusive. I was in a hopeless situation and was a absolutely useless stepmother
Years later I wrote a letter to the child as a adult expressing my sorrow at how useless I was
He wrote back thanking me ( although he did agree it was a horrid time which I cried about for a long time) however my letter helped him understand more and he was very grateful to receive it

Yes. Write it anyway, as others have said. I've done this. I have also put a chair front of me, sat in one opposite and told someone everything I never said (they are also long gone). On a nicer note, I have an old bakelite phone and the other night, I picked it up had a conversation with my mum who died at Christmas. The things we say in these situations can be very healing.

To the girl I absolutely lost my heart to when I was eight. We have both been married to other people for well over 40 years but I still think of her with great affection. Alas faint heart... and I did put her upon a pillar and then thought she was so far above me I didn’t dare even talk to her..
The folly of youth ... oh Pat you were such a joy and have enriched my whole life, just by being

Many years ago I was in love with a man, I never told him how much I felt about him as our relationship was complicated by both of our personal lives. He truly was the love of my life and I have never felt for anyone else, including the man I went on to marry, what I felt for him.
We promised each other we would have a future together and would wait for each other and for a myriad of reasons that didnt happen.
Via mutual aquaintances and the wonder of the internet and social media I am aware that he's still around, now a great grandad living a quiet life surrounded by his extended family. We spoke once or twice in the intervening years, once to let him know of the death of a mutual friend and once when my husband and I were holidaying nearby and I stupidly thought we might be able to pay a social call, it didnt happen.
I wish I had told him what he meant to me and how much I loved him.

Dear hollysteers,
I am so sorry to read of your regret. We are all grown wounded children, and unless we are able to find a way through to forgive and resolve our past traumas, they do haunt us all our lives. But just for a moment, think about what must have been done to brutalise your father enough for him to treat you as he did. He was passing on the damage done to him as an innocent child, unconsciously, with no real awareness. My own father, who did his best to be a good parent, had been punished as a boy by being hit with a belt, by his own father. He did not pass that on to his three daughters, but I was always aware of his anger underneath the surface, and that must have come from undeserved punishment. I note how many of the posts mention advice from a counsellor, and that is a very wise way to deal with your distress from your childhood, even if you have to pay privately. if that is beyond your means, do have a look at a unique website that offers a way to work on your problems by yourself. It is: sfhelp.org

I had a stupid argument with my best friend, but neither of us would let it go. I heard she'd moved to the West country and I knew where, but I didn't write. I've had a lot of friends down the years, but not one that I could tell absolutely everything to. She was funny, she was wickedly sarcastic but kind too. We had a lot of fun but, underneath the usual girl stuff there was a link I've never had with anyone else. That was forty years ago but I still miss her and every now and then I think about her and wish I'd written.

Thank you for your write the letter now and burn it etc. suggestions, but have known about that for years, got the T shirt, been there. It’s only a temporary gesture and doesn’t get to the root of it. I write poetry and keep a journal (some in shorthand) so am used to writing out my emotions. Therapy would have been good but now I am very content. I married a much older kind man and he was the missing link in my chain. We had three children and he would say he had four children as I was a handful! I have had a lot of love and am grateful. First half of life horrible, second half wonderful.

Write the letter! You just need to get it off your chest. I had similar situation, councillor told me to write what I needed to say very painful but once I had written it and buried it I felt like a huge weight had been lifted from me. Good luck I'm sure you will feel better

I found it very cathartic to write a letter to my then estranged mother, i got all the hurt and resentment down on paper, i shed so many tears when i was writing it, it was then burnt
But it did give me the push to actually send a letter, and i think it's probably the best money i ever spent actually buying a stamp, mum wrote back and she told me a bit about her past, and it gave me so much understanding of her and me, and until she was back in my life i didn't realise how much i missed her, and how much we were alike