In a perfect world family would be forever. No issue would go unresolved and no hurt could break that bond. Yet this isn’t a perfect world and we aren’t perfect people. We have faults: anger, spite, jealousy, envy. We inflict wounds and at times those wounds don’t always heal. They leave the kind of scars that make family ties hard to keep and at times – better to be broken.

I know what you’re probably thinking. Why and how would breaking the ties of family be good – for anyone? I only say this now after finding myself in circumstances where it became my only healthy option. Family has the ability to cause a pain like no there. They are the ones who know you the best, know your strengths but also your weaknesses.

That knowledge is power that isn’t always used wisely. When it isn’t it can lead to hurt. Hurt that seems like it has no end. Still, when you finally find your way out of that hurt you may need to make a tough decision. It’s only after making it beyond that hurt that I’ve realized even family has seasons.

You guys know me. You all know I grew up in the church. I was raised with the belief that all things can be forgiven and forgotten. They can be and always should be. Yet living under that belief left hurt and scars that still hinder me as an adult. I felt I could never expect an apology – it was my obligation to forgive whether the person changed their ways or not.

Forgiveness is something that is always best at times more so for the forgiver than the forgiven. I still believe this. That being said forgiveness does not always mean the relationship should remain. Or that the ties should stay in place.

As I grew up, I realized that the people who hurt me the most are those who were closest to me – family. I also had to accept and understand that in certain situations releasing myself from the obligation to keep them in my life was healthiest for me.

I must admit much of this insight (for lack of a better term) didn’t happen until I became a parent. In the moments when I began to see the hurt of my childhood passed on to my own children, I realized the cycle needed to end.

It was a cycle that started with my own mother and passed on to me. I don’t think she realized that letting go of people – even family – could bring things to a much-needed close. Once I had that ‘aha moment‘ I refused to let the hurts and pains of my own past continue to my children. Despite efforts to force changes in relationships, situations and people I understood that untying those bonds was the only way to bring things to a close.

No. Not at all. I missed them. I missed the habit of the relationships. The familiar. Yet I knew this change was one I needed in order to allow my children to grow up without the shadow of past drama and history.

The family I chose to remove from my life may not fully understand my choice. In part because they never accepted the responsibility for the situations which brought me to the decision.

Leaving them to their own lives doesn’t lessen my love for them. It simply means that I love myself and my children enough to move forward. It means that I’ve accepted the fact that some situations and people just don’t (or at times – can’t) change. In those times it’s needed for the pattern to change. For me that pattern was the one of continuously forgiving, over looking and discounting actions simply because they’d always been that way.

In the future, I plan to teach my children that whether someone is family or friend making the choice to remove yourself from relationships that are not helping you grow is a choice and right you have and one you should have no fear in using.

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