Swallow my Pride and Pray

When you have children who grow up and fall in love with someone you know in your heart is not a good person; your first instinct is to prtect them from harm. So you try and try to convince them their decision for staying with them is wrong. Instead of convincing them, what you've done is pushed your child away.

It is at that time when you begin to review all of your actions. What you see in the mirror is the picture of your parent. You've always tried to be different than your parent but somehow it's happened. Now your child and their partner look at you and perceive you to be a horrible person. In a sense they are right.

What they are seeing is an adult/individual who is bad mouthing and putting down their relationship. A person who is trying anything they could to sabotage a perfectly great relationship. Every chance you get, you bring up any dirt you could find about that person and share it with your child in hopes your child would see the light but instead they hate you even more and now begins not speaking to you and hiding things from you.

Unfortunately all of these efforts don't change your child's mind or outlook. The decision you need to make is the same decision you wished your parents had made when you were in the same situation, let you make mistakes and live with them. In an effort to save whatever relationship I had with my child, I stepped back, reevaluated my position and decided to swallow my pride and just pray.

My whole attitude changes with my child. Now I just supported their decision but explained that even though I may not agree with their decisions I still loved them and would be there for them no matter what. Lastly what I did was PRAY, PRAY, and PRAY. My prayers were for God to give my child wisdom to see the truth, wisdom to know when a situation is bad, wisdom to know when things will make them unhappy or unsafe, and wisdom to know that if they needed a place to run to our doors would be open. Swallow my pride and pray was the best advice I had for myself in a long time when it came to letting go of my child.