Why people hold grudges, sometimes for the most insigficant reasons?

[de Burgh II]

I'm offensive and I find this thread BEGRUDGINGLY...... !?!

Spoiler!

truthful!

[Kazimiera]

I forgive and forget.

When I was younger I used to hold grudges. They take so much energy from you and you are constantly infused with negativity.

I don't hold grudges anymore. I tackle a problem when it arises and afterwards it is water under the bridge.

There are also some people (my mother is one of them) who dig up something that happened twenty years ago in an argument about something which happened today. When you argue with her she completely derails the argument and goes off on a tangent.

Eight years ago I tried to have a discussion with her about an issue which upset me. We were living in the same house (sort-of). Half the house was hers, half the house was mine. It was basically two separate houses fused together, each with its own kitchen, lounge, bedroom. One side mine, one side hers. We were co-owners, and 50% was mine, 50% was hers.

My boyfriend (my husband today) stayed with me whilst we were organising a place of our own. I was 30 at the time and he was 35. She'd waltz into my side of the house and then into our bedroom without knocking whenever she wanted. More than once she walked in on my naked husband sleeping spreadeagled on the bed. Mom walking into the bedroom when you're five is not the same as someone else's mom walking in on you when you're 35. She somehow couldn't understand why this was a problem.

I decided to tackle her on the issue of privacy. My naked 35 year-old boyfriend doesn't really approve of his future mother-in-law walking in any time she pleases. She treated my side of the house as if it was hers. I wanted to get across to her that I am not 5 anymore, that my side of the house is MINE and not to be treated as common property (I was expected to respect her half). Plus, if you're going to wander off into my side, please knock. Especially if you approach a closed bedroom door when you know there are people inside.

I tackle issues at hand calmly and rationally, which in this case was my (and my boyfriend's) privacy. Then she really got going. She started yelling and reminding me of an incident which happened when I was 9. I will never forget the absurdity of this. I was 9 in 1988. We are now in 2009 and she's bringing up something I said or did to her when I was naughty and back-chatted her then. I couldn't even remember the incident but she did, and she'd been harbouring it for 21 years!! She'd obviously had plenty of time (21 years to be exact) to mill this over in head over and over again. How much time and energy had she spent in 21 years over a stupid incident involving a 9 year-old kid????

Grudges tend to develop a life of their own, then eat away at and consume you over a period of years - IF you let them. I don't have the time or energy to chew on something for years on end.

That's one thing I like about my husband. He's like me. If we yell at each other (which doesn't happen very often) it is about something which happened then and there. We're cross with each other for about 30 minutes. After that it becomes strenuous and we end up making each other tea. An hour later, after the tea, we're talking again.

My thinking is that if you forgive someone for something, then it should be forgotten and not dug up years later.

I don't let grudges get in the way of my life and my happiness.

[Silk]

Stubbornness is pretty much the reason people have grudges. Little things blown out of proportion. I know people that hold grudges over silly, trivial matters, and in my opinion it is silly, trivial and may even be pathological, to hang on to them and go over and over them. 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.