What would you do if our mother-in-law slapped you across the face?

Wouldn't want to be her ENEMY! Sounds like you told her off and she spouted a reaction. Heated situations are never good between family members like that, but I guess you really have to replay the whole thing in your mind and ask yourself just HOW upset you were prior to the slapping.

Did you say anything else that might have been hurtful, or more hurtful than what she was saying to you? Something that pushed her past the boiling point? Look, there is ABSOLUTELY no excuse for her to get physical at all.

But, that's not the question here. Your question is about whether you should forgive her, so I'm only asking exactly how at fault you feel for the circumstances leading up to it. If it's something that was totally out of control and there's an inkling of reason behind what it lead to, you might have an easier time forgiving her.

If, on the other hand, it was just an everyday disagreement and she hauled off and belted you just for enjoyment, well then you're going to have a tough time bringing yourself to the position where you can rise above it and forgive her. The answer is not for anyone here to give you ... I'm afraid you'll have to find peace with this yourself based upon who you are and how strong you can be. Basically, there are going to be a lot of reasons to forgive her and move forward with the relationship, but I think I'd be very blunt about the terms going forward.

You'll probably have to have a little "come to Jesus" meeting with her that's not going to be comfortable for either of you. However, if you approach it and say, "Look, you say I'm like a daughter to you, but within my upbringing, we don't slap one another. You're going to have to understand that overcoming this and forgiving you is very hard for me, but I want to try because I love you.

However, if you ever lay another hand on me, I'll bite the d*mn thing off! ", you will actually come out better than just silently forgiving and allowing her to escalate to that level in the future. The main thing is, you don't ever want to be in this position again and you're going to have to let her know that ... somehow.

You're setting a precedent here. If you silently forgive her, you're really telling her that it's okay to smack you around, so long as she follows it with a hug and a touching statement. That's simply not the case.

You need to address it, let her know that it's not going to happen again and why. If she TRULY thinks of you as a daughter and loves you, she's gonna' have to understand that. If she gets upset and whacks you again, at least you'll have a sound mind when you never speak to her again.

Of course, my opinion doesn't carry much weight here, but hopefully it helps. You're in a crappy situation and I really feel bad for you, but you need to be firm - both with her and with your own self in this. Good luck, for what it's worth.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.