Why do people feel the need to hold on to old grudges?

Pride. I really don’t see another reason for it. In the end it only hurts the grudge holder.

Do I get a prize for that answer?

I gave you a GA.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic Good enough :)

Maybe they have the mistaken idea that if they let go of the grudge they are somehow condoning the bad activity.

I think it is about the emotions involved. I admit to being a grudge holder. It is not something I like about myself but there you have it. Also I do believe in forgiveness and have forgiven many grudges and many horrible mistakes of others. It just takes me some time to get around to it. For me the length of time I hold onto the grudge is about a couple of things: 1. The strength of the emotional impact it left on me & 2. The attitude of the other person, if I feel like they are condescending about their wrong doing then it takes me longer to forgive.

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Sometimes you just can’t get rid of an old grudge. The action might have been too severe or harsh or upsetting and you just can’t get past it.

My father died on Thanksgiving 2008, and even while he was in the hospital after his last operation, he was asking nasty questions about his father-in-law, my grandfather, who died in1965 and had gone bankrupt in 1953 or so. This cost my father and mothe a considerable amount of money that my mother felt obligated to contribute to help out her father.
Although he did not know it, my father had three weeks to live and he was bitching about this and his deadbeat father-in-law and his deadbeat brother-in-law and my mother’s involvement in giving them money. At this point my mother had been dead for 25 years, my uncle over ten years and my grandfather over forty years.
And approaching his own death. my father just could not shake loose of the anger and resentment that he had been carrying around for 40 years.

I wonder what my daughter and two sons will say about me and if will still be carrying a grudge 30 years from now.l

SRM

All about closure. “Grudges” arise from transgressions, perceived or real. If they’re not solved, no closure….hence…..grudge.

@RedPowerLady I’ve come to the realization long go that I won’t have any thought that no one in the history of the earth has never thought of before. I find comfort in this actually. It proves that humans are really not so different as we sometimes may believe ^_^

Thanks @srmorgan. I know people like your father, and I hope they get to read your story.

Maybe people hold onto things because it’s easier than forgiving. Sometimes forgiving someone is so hard to do, especially if the grudge holder was made to look foolish or some such.

I was mean to this kid in middle school…which I’ve never understood and is really not in my nature. I see him several times a week at my work as he makes deliveries there. I’ve tried many times to open a conversation with him or even SMILE at him and he will not even look at me! I want to tell him “I’m not a mean person and I’m SO SORRY I was mean to you 20 years ago in 7th grade band practice!” but I am ashamed because it’s obviously hurt him if he is still holding onto it 20 years later!

Pride, security in the known rather than the unknown or gamble into the unexpected. Sometimes a grudge is almost a bond you cherish because you have nothing else to hold of that person. I held a grudge for over 20yrs against who was supposed to be my first husband. A few years back I was able to let go and then this year I was contacted by him and there is no hurt or anger left so where I had only hoped I had let go has been proven. It’s a big wow. Everyone should be able to experience some proof of a good thing coming from a bad thing.

The only grudges I hold are offenses against my family. An aquaintance of ours told a friend that my daughter is a spoiled little controling bitch. My daughter is 13 and friends with the aquaitnancs daughter. I have a hard time letting my daughter talk to the bitch who attacked her. The friend and everyone else can’t stop telling us how good and respectful and nice my daughter is if that is any measure. “She is from an era gone by”.

If the aquaintance was on fire I would not waste the piss to put her out.

That’s a lot of hate from a grown man towards a little girl of 13 years who said something foolish as 13 year olds are wont to do.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic I think it’s the adult acquaintance with whom he has a problem, not the daughter of the acquaintance.

technically, i don’t think they see a “need” as per se.

Some people never grow up. Holding old grudges for too long is a sign of bottled up frustration.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic I think it is nice as well. And it actually doesn’t bother me when same questions were asked. I just thought you might enjoy reading additional responses. So I hope you didn’t take that link post the wrong way.

I have had people apologize to me (sometimes repeatedly) for things that didn’t bother me at all. I have found some people’s offenses very easy to forgive, whether asked or not. And there are some that I don’t forget and never will.

If I consider these differences analytically, I think that in the first two instances my response mostly depends on how I felt about the person in the first place.
—A person toward whom I have a very strong, deep loving feeling is easy to forgive.
—A person toward whom I have weak or mixed feelings easily loses my regard. An offense is much less forgivable. It’s as if I were seizing on a reason to push them away. Those would perhaps be what you are calling grudges. I will probably keep my distance forever.
—A person toward whom I have no feelings or negative feelings pretty much can’t offend me or injure me because I simply don’t care what they think. But I will remember intentional wrongs committed, such as deliberate lies.

Thinking even more carefully, I believe that there’s a relationship to how I think the person feels about me. If I am secure in their affection, I tend to regard the affront as a harmless or at least human and forgivable mistake. If I am not, I think it means they do not think well of me, and then I want to remove them from my sphere of affection.

On the whole I would say I have become more forgiving with age, but there are some people to whom I will never expose any vulnerable part of myself for any reason and to whom I would not even give away trivial bits of information, such as in casual conversation. My mode of punishing is withholding.

Sometimes the actual offense is seemingly a trivial thing, on the surface, and that’s what makes it seem like a foolish grudge. But it can stand for a lot.

The big, important category of offense is betrayal of trust. Trust once lost must be earned back, and it is very hard to do. Self-protection says not to trust again. But I would still rather trust and be wrong than to withhold trust that I should have given. This is an area of unresolved conflict.

Because they don’t have any new ones to replace them!

@The_Compassionate_Heretic

The 13 yr old is my daughter. The one I dispise is her friends mother, the aquaintance. Not my daughter.

I am accused of holding a grudge. The situation goes like this. My mother in law tried to make decisions that belonged to me. I told her to stop (nicely) and instead of stopping, she became very manipulative and got even worse. She doesn’t respect the rights of others. She won’t apologize and states that she has done nothing wrong and is not sorry. Obviously, if she isn’t sorry, there is nothing stopping her from continuing her wrongful behavior. My husband and I want nothing to do with her, so we are “holding a grudge”. I think that “grudges” were cooked up by people who don’t like owning up for their own wrongdoing and like to blame their victims.