Anyone held a grudge against you for something really petty? Or have you every held a grudge against someone for something small?
I’ll go first.
Over 20 years ago, I was hanging out with some friends and we decided to see a movie, the 10 pm showing. I knew in the back of my mind that another friend who wasn’t there would have wanted to see the movie, but she was working the early shift and I knew wouldn’t be able to come out. Fast forward to a week after and she had a mental breakdown at a coffee shop and started screaming and crying at us because we saw the movie without her. We apologized and didn’t know what else to do, but still today she makes us feel bad about that night.
I still hold a grudge at my aunt for her daughter’s wedding a few years ago. She put all of the cousins together at a table, EXCEPT ME and then proceeded to seat me at table 13. I’m not sure why, we were on good terms, I’m not even sure why she even had a table 13, at a wedding??? Anyway, I’ve never forgiven her for it. I skipped her other daughter’s wedding because of it and although I have been polite with her, it definitely ruined our relationship. I know it’s small and petty, but too bad, my feelings were hurt at her thoughtlessness.
I have a friend that suddenly stopped talking to me. We were close for maybe twenty years – we’d even bummed around Europe together, and we ended up working together, too. Dinner, movies, breakfasts, even shopping. Then one day, he stopped returning emails, phone calls. And he’d grunt answers to any questions. (I could probably figure out the date if I had to, but it was that quick: Tuesday, best friends; Wednesday, anger and disdain)
That was three years ago. Three years of seeing each other at work constantly. To this day, if I say hi with “How you doing?” he’ll grunt “Okay” and walk away. I’m too proud to ask “Was it me? Did I do something wrong?”, but I did ask “Hey, I was wondering if something’s wrong…” and he turned away with “I can assure you, you’re the least of my problems.”
Well, on the plus side, I’ve gotten lots of practice letting things slide off my back, and not being defined by how people treat you…
My mother in law. For four years now she’s been hating a youthful blood relative for telling someone something MIL was trying to keep a secret. The relative didn’t even know it was supposed to be a secret, as the person who told her didn’t realise it was supposed to be a secret and therefore didn’t swear her to secrecy. In fact, the relative heard about it third or forth hand - the person MIL originally confided in told someone who told someone who told someone who apparently told the person MIL most wanted to keep it from. Even though all evidence suggests this particular relative wasn’t even the one who passed on the world’s worst kept secret, MIL hates her for it. There were no actual consequences for the secret getting out either - MIL just loves secrecy, drama and intrigue.
The earth shattering secret? MIL got an inheritance from a cousin so long forgotten that everyone already thought she was dead. MIL thinks her great niece told MIL’s sister (the niece’s grandmother) and to this day hasn’t forgiven her for it.
Holding grudges and ill feelings can be unhealthy and really does no one any good, IMHO. I have forgiven and moved on with regards to things that were done to me when I was just a kid by someone whom I trusted completely. I spent years being pissed off and one day realized that I couldn’t keep it up. It was exhausting and unproductive. Shit happens – people make mistakes, big ones and small ones…it’s just the way life is. I learned something from all of my experiences though, and they have shaped my personality in various degrees. Now, at this time in my life, I choose happiness instead of bitterness… life moves on, and it is too short to waste any of it with the bad stuff that happened in the past.
I can let things go, eventually. I’ve learned that disappointment is a given because we’re all just trying to tool along and might not even know where somebody’s elses “line” is that we may have crossed. I have friends and family I still love in spite of…but I don’t forget. It does color how I interact with them and I no longer expose my whole self.
UNLESS they acknowledge the hurt/awardness/whatever and we both try to understand the Why. Then I’m just like a wriggling puppy all over again, wetting myself (emotionally) because I’m glad they’re there.
There was this girl, Connie, in Jr high and high school. In Junior High I really wanted to be friends with her, but never succeeded. In high school I began to notice that she glared at me evey time I walked by - never had the slightest idea about why, I had very little interaction with this girl, no shared classes, etc.
Fast forward about 15 years and I’m in the DMV trying to register my new car. The clerk is Connie! I greeted her chirpily and started trying to reminisce and ask about old classmates. Then she glares again, and informs me that they can’t help me here, I’ll have to go to another DMV office across town. This is patently false, and I should probably have called over the manager, but I thought of Atticus Finch and figured it wouldn’t hurt me that much to let her have this moment of. . . well whatever it was she needed, for whatever reasons she thought she had.
She has since moved on to several different offices around the state and county government, and each time she does I start having trouble with them. It’s just too bizarre. When I got a strange letter saying (falsely) that I owed state taxes from 1991 I just automatically called the office and asked for her by name - sure enough, she was there.
I can only think that I must have dated a guy she wanted, but she married her high school sweetheart, so WTF?!?
My mother’s family is completely toxic that way. My mom is the eldest and the next two girls are 12 or 13 months apart, and as a result “the big girls” Mom and her next two sisters shared a room, then eventually an apartment together. The aunt that is two years younger than mom was dating (then married, because she was pregnant) an older man from a mining town a few hours away, then she tried to rope Mom into double dating another miner from the same town. Mom had no interest at age 22 in dating a 38 year old miner who was pretty much only interested in drinking and sex when he came to town.
For the past 48 years this aunt has held this grudge against my mother. “Thinks she is better than the rest of us.” is a common response. Actually, most of the reason my mother wasn’t interested was she was already dating my father. Auntie once even went to far as to tell my father to “leave her (meaning Mom) alone” when he came to pick Mom up for a date.
Of course, these days there is no telling why that branch of the family dislikes us. It could stem from that, or a hundred other things along the way. It felt paranoid, but I was pretty sure my son (grade 1) was being targeted by a teacher, and it only seemed to make sense* when I found out his teacher was best friends with the daughter of this long-embittered aunt.
My goal for my mother is to have her move away from town, since my grandmother is aging and no one except the grandmother and my mother seem to think long term care is a good option. But that is a subject for a pit thread someday.
*Well, no it doesn’t make “sense” but her evaluations were so consistantly different and completely opposite from those of every other teacher he has ever had before or since, and those of other adults who are professors, teachers, social workers, members of clergy, doctors, etc (and myself…) who know him in a social context, the only other conclusion besides some weird grudge is that she was writing another child’s report card and evaluations on forms that have my son’s name on them.
No, it doesn’t, unless you tell them. Just holding a grudge to yourself only upsets you and brings your blood pressure up.
I am a big proponent of “forgive but don’t forget”. That is, remember the behavior the person did and adjust your interactions accordingly. Did they do something jerkish once and are sorry? Well you can be a big person and forgive. Do they do the same behavior over and over? Remember it, and keep it in mind.
I spent years keeping a grudge over what my parents had done to me, and in my twenties finally began to let go the rage and despair. It took years. I really didn’t have any room for other grudges! But none of that was hurting my mother, it was only poison in my own system.
It is said that keeping grudges is like swallowing poison and hoping the other person gets sick.
I also hold the possibility that the person that I hold a grudge against may have, in their own mind, been acting perfectly rationally, or had other shit going on in their life that had nothing to do with me.
But if their actions permanentally altered the arc of your life, for the worse, and the motivation was their own greed, OF COURSE you should hold the grudge!
Yes, that could very well happen. In that case either explain it to them or cut them out of your life.
Do you know how to catch a monkey? Find a tree with a hollow bit, and put some shiny rocks into the hollow bit. Let the monkey see you do this. When you walk away, the monkey will try to grab the rocks, but the size and shape of its fist won’t fit back out through the hole. It could escape if it would just let go, but it insists on hanging on.
A grudge is a lot like the rocks.
(Funnily enough, I heard about the monkey thing in philosophy class. During our break, a woman was trying to get some cookies out of one of those Pepperidge Farm bags. She had the same problem as the monkey!)
I have been accused of holding grudges. From my perspective though, it’s more like just being fed up with certain people. I’m pretty tolerant of rude and obnoxious habits, and I’ll speak up if someone has done something to piss me off. But if the behavior continues, I will reach a point where I’m just done with their BS. I can still be cordial/polite to them, but I’ll make a point of avoiding interaction in the future.
A fortune teller told her that one day, as a result of her behaviour, you would crack and put in a complaint. This would begin a chain reaction leading to the loss of job, house, car, the esteem of her friends etc. Naturally she decided to get in her retaliation first.
Shit, I still hold grudges against my dad and he’s been dead more than 10 years.
I once went to an anger management class to try and cope with this – maybe a year after he died. It actually helped a lot – not by helping me let go of my anger, but by putting my issues in context and contrast with the other people there. Pretty everyone else felt virtually paralyzed by rage – they they shook, stuttered, almost couldn’t verbalize it. Me – I knew pretty much exactly what was I was mad about and was perfectly comfortable and articulate about discussing it.
I left feeling great! Still pissed off, but reassured it wasn’t a destructive factor in my life.