stuco Loc: Northern Utah - Salt Lake City

You’ve received some good advice from men much more wise than I am. I’ll say this, though. It’s occurred to me that I hope to be dealt with by my maker with mercy. I’m going to need a lot of it. I figured out that if I hope to receive mercy, I’d better deal with others in mercy. Harboring ill will towards people that wrong us only hurts us. Every bit of hate and anger that we hold in our hearts gives us less room for love there. Nobody can tell you how to feel, but you can choose to have love in your heart and let the hate, and/or anger go. Good luck, you’re a good man, whatever you decide.

Judge32 Loc: Vidalia, Ga. 30474

Have a little walk with Jesus! Prayer for guidance will lead you on the way. I had two family members that had sociopathic tendencies that wrecked the lives of the other family members slowly, but surely. It will take you a long time to get over this but with God at your side call on him for help to get this out of your mind. These kind of things are not Normal and therefore cause one to wonder sometimes how to deal with them. God is my refuge in times like that and I have to have HIM to help many times when all this abnormal experience comes to your mind. One cannot help with whom they are thrown with so accept that you are free to go with God to a healthier mind and heart. God Bless us all that have been put in places we had no control over.

ghaynes1 Loc: Strawberry Plains, TN

Thnx Stuco and Judge.

Weekend Hooker Loc: Clyde, Texas

Sometimes it is a very fine line between grief and relief, and feeling both is okay my friend.

ghaynes1 Loc: Strawberry Plains, TN

Thanks WH. Kinda feeling both.

Weekend Hooker Loc: Clyde, Texas

Been there, praying for you.

Kerry Hansen Loc: Bremerton, WA

My 2 cents, I think focus should be devoted to the kids and grand kids. They don't need to hear the negatives. I don't ever talk about negative things about my EX to my kids, Grand kids and Great Grand Kids. They just don't need that. I never talk about My wife's EX to her Kids who I adopted so all 4 kids would get and feel the same. My wife's EX was an outlaw in every sense of the word. Never paid Child support which I told my wife we don't need anything from him. He wasted his life to the point the kids couldn't talk about him to their friends. However He was a very talented guy which I commented positively to his Bio kids, but the daughter has made it clear, That I am her DAD! Both kids treat me like I am their dad. The first time he came into our house after I married my wife, his ex, he went to the fridge and helped himself which I made a point that he will never do that again! I think he respected me because our son told him how good of a shooter I was and that I competed and taught/coached kids. He spent a lot of time behind bars and is now in a mental institution because he got in a fight with someone killing that guy, but his brain got mashed with a baseball bat. His kids (Boy and Girl) are my kids, they call me DAD and him his first name. As it turned out Those kids (my Wife's Bio) are the same ages as my kids Boys the same age/class in school and the girls the same way. I am lucky because those two kids and my bio daughter almost lost their lives, the first to Terrorist on 911 and later the other two to Gangs at two different times. God Blessed me to have two more kids. So I believe keep the negatives to your self. All 4 are now in their 50s and I and my wife have been married for 44 years after a going through bad divorces. I am blessed!

troyfrd1 Loc: Hampstead,NC

Forgiveness isn't something you do for the person who wronged you; it's something you do for you. So if forgiveness is something you do for yourself and if it can help you heal, why is it so hard? ... Sometimes you won't, because the hurt went too deep, or because the person was too abusive, or expressed no regret. However you can still move forward knowing you have forgiven the person and done your part. In this case by remembering all the hurt you are only harming yourself because he is gone and you are still here and he can not hurt you ever again my grandmother use to tell us it is very possible to love the hell out of someone

plumbob Loc: New Windsor Maryland

gh1, so much good advice and personal experiences above i can only add that to look for the good in the man and forgive the not so good.

You can not walk in his shoes to feel what he was going through or fight the demons that were within him. I am sure he did the best he could in his day and who are we to judge another.

ghaynes1 Loc: Strawberry Plains, TN

Just a tough one to wrap my brain around plum. None of us are 100% good or bad I guess. I just know how he hurt people but at times he was very generous. I know my daughter and ex-wife are struggling with his passing.

plumbob Loc: New Windsor Maryland

Going to share a personal with you here in a minute by way of Pm that may help.

ghaynes1 Loc: Strawberry Plains, TN

Ok. Will look forward to it. Thnx.

Spiritof27 Loc: Lincoln, CA

G I think you're doing just what you need to do to work through it - talking about it, and not letting it eat at you. If you are a Christian, then you know what you have to do, and that's an easy thing to say and as you are finding, not such an easy thing to do sometimes. "The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones." Would you have that to be this man's epitaph? If not, then you can help to make it so. You'll figure it out.

ghaynes1 Loc: Strawberry Plains, TN

Thnx Spirit. He was renting to my daughter. I know they had some differences but he was grandpa to her and her brother. Not sure where she will live now unless the home is kept as rental property. Time takes care of stuff. People will remember him the way they choose to remember him.

Spiritof27 Loc: Lincoln, CA

Very true. And I don't know if anyone else on here said it, but I'm sorry for your and the kids' loss. Losing someone, even an sob like that, is never easy. Be well.