Almost all of my best friends are women. Almost every one of them. I came to this shocking conclusion yesterday when I was thinking about the folks who mean the most to me in this world. On the male side of that list, there are my sons and three or four friends. That’s it. On the female side, there are my wife, my daughters, my grand daughters and whole rooms full of other people!

What’s so shocking about that fact is that my mother was such as tough person to live with. She was and is mentally unbalanced. I spent my childhood under her wrath, and I bear the physical and psychological scars to prove it.

I got married young pretty much just to get out of the house, and wouldn’t you know it? I married a younger version of my mother!

So, I continued to take the abuse from a woman right up until Cruella divorced me. (She told me that I wasn’t exciting enough for her any longer, and she threw me out of the house after fifteen years of marriage on my thirty-seventh birthday.)

After thirty-seven years of getting beatings, humiliations and ridicule, all incurred by women in my life who supposedly loved me, I became a mistrusting and angry man, especially towards women.

If a woman got on my good side, she really had to jump through all sorts of hoops in order to do it, whether she knew it or not. She really had to be a special human being for me to open the door and let her in.

And there were a few who succeeded. I have two best friends. One of them I have been happily married to for over eighteen years. The other is a wonderful woman named Ginnie whom I’ve been friends with for over twenty-five years.

These two incredible human beings, especially my wife, showed me that most women on the planet are good and loving people who deserve my consideration.

Ginnie knew Cruella, and she supported me when I went through the trials of my divorce. She let me know exactly what she thought of my ex-wife, and she told me that most people who knew the two of us were amazed that I put up with the abuse that she meted out so freely and publicly.

Mary helped me tremendously with my feelings towards my mother. She showed me that the woman was unstable, and that, even though she was abusive, she was a tormented soul with many demons who was doing the best she could do with what she had.

When I understood that anger was eating me up inside, and I could find no solace or respite from it in any number of addictions, I turned to counseling. After years of lying on the proverbial couch and putting forth a massive amount of painful, tearful, excruciating hard work, I finally came to the conclusion that I truly needed to forgive my mother.

I fought it for years. She didn’t deserve forgiveness. I continued to remember the horrendous beatings, the screaming sessions that lasted for hours, the times when I was awakened in bed to find myself being whipped with the heavy buckle end of a leather belt, the times when I was humiliated in front of friends. I remembered hearing the daily mantras of “You’ll never measure up,” and “You are an evil, lazy boy.”

I was correct, she didn’t deserve forgiveness. But her deservedness wasn’t the point here. I deserved to forgive her so that I could get on with my life.

When I finally decided to take that step, I was surprised to find that it wasn’t a cathartic moment in my life. I heard no bells; I saw no visions. I didn’t even tell my mother about it. I just told Mary…and myself.

The struggle had been an inner one for years. The solution also had to be an inner one. And when I finally allowed the solution to take place, there was no huge explosion of happiness or inner peace. However, looking back now with the hindsight that Time affords, I see that it was the beginning of my journey to inner peace. The moment that I forgave her, she lost control over my life. I am a different person today because of it.

I am no longer a bitter, angry man with a hair-trigger temper. I am comfortable with myself, and, because of that, I feel that I am fairly easy-going today.

When I forgave my mother, I transcended her messages of my inferiority. I began to believe in myself. I began to try…and, consequently, I began to succeed because suddenly, there was no voice from the past telling me “You can’t.”

I learned to cut myself some slack, thus relieving incredible amounts of pressure. I no longer needed to try to “measure up” to my mother’s standards (which I never did anyway) and, when I stopped being obsessed by them, I stopped being a failure. Then I far exceeded those standards.

I learned to forgive myself. I learned to laugh at myself. I learned to love myself.

My children especially notice a huge difference in the person that I am today. They tell me so with direct words and with actions – they come around a lot. They like being with me.

Today, I like being me.

And there are a lot of people who like me being around. I have more friends now than I’ve ever had before in my life.

All the successes in my life have come since I have known my "good wife", and she is the one who taught me how powerful forgiveness is.

Do I still get angry? Uh-huh. But it’s not out of control.

Do I still feel inadequate? At times, but it’s not debilitating any more, and it doesn’t last.

Do I still feel unloved? No. Never. Not even for one second.

With my life as an example, I can say with the utmost confidence today that the most powerful force in the universe is love. (Lennon was a genius!) And love (love for other people, for animals, for nature, for the arts and mostly for myself) was made possible in my life because of forgiveness.