Why are you unable to forgive?

I don’t think I have come across anything in life, so far, that I have found unforgiveable. I tend to give people a lot of slack, so maybe something others would find unforgiveable, but I’ve given them a pass. Or maybe I’ve just been lucky.

I can’t seem to forgive the guy who was my friend, and betrayed me with my wife. It’s been eons, and I’ve forgiver her – but I can’t shake the feeling of disgust when I see him. I can’t forget it, can’t forgive him. Wish I could – but I’m only human, I guess.

Because it gave me PTSD which held me back for over a year and I have yet to reach a place where it doesn’t weigh heavily on my mind and where I’m unable to completely shake off some quirky habits I’ve developed from the situation. However, I’m not entirely angry at the situation itself or the events that unfolded because I was able to learn and grow and strengthen from them (even though I could have learned the same valuable lessons from something way less traumatic) – I instead can’t forgive the person responsible for all of it so much to the point where I would actually be happy and relieved if they were dead.

I don’t usually have trouble with the forgiving; but I don’t ever forget.

I’m not one to really hold a grudge, it’s too negative and consuming for essentially no useful return. However, I don’t forget and that can significantly change the way I interact with the person. In those cases I choose not to overlook their actions usually because I believe doing so would cause me more trouble than not. That’s a condition that, while resolvable provided the other person puts forth the effort to do so, can last a lifetime.

A forgiving heart is a must for a happy and healthy life. an unforgiving heart only hurt ourselves! Thank goodness, for forgiving people!

I’m the opposite, I tend to forgive at the drop of a hat.Sometimes I fleetingly thing it may be undeserved but I quickly move on.That’s just the way I am I suppose.

My childhood friend ratted me out to the Feds for a crime he committed I so very thinly associated only because he confided some details of the crime to me. Being dragged into that investigation by the US Marshalls and the huge cost for the lawyer to prove I had nothing to do with it all still irks me to this day and if I ever saw him again I just can’t fathom not pummeling him into the ground for all the grief he caused me.

@Cruiser damn…that is what movies are made out of…understand your anger!

Because I’m a vindictive prick.

Because everytime he almost killed me, he apologized & I forgave him. Then he would do it again. And the cycle kept repeating.

@BoBo1946 Actually, if you read my details at all, you’d see that your statement is exactly the kind I’d find unhelful in this inquiry of mine.

In the past year or so I’ve liberated myself by forgiving people in my heart whether or not I forgive them to their faces. Many, I’m sure, have no interest in my forgiveness, and a few probably have even forgotten my name, much less that they ever hurt me.
Forgiving myself has proved to be a bit harder, but I continue to work on it.
I can’t know for sure that I’ve forgiven my parents. I say the words, and I try to mean them but when my Father contacts me or if I think about him, I feel….nothing. Should I not feel at least some positive things or camaraderie for him? I don’t know how I feel to this day about it. I have a feeling that somewhere underneath, I have not forgiven him, but I can’t track it down.

I haven’t yet been able to forgive my mother for having been abusive, and now she’s dead. I think I might feel better if I do forgive her, but as yet I don’t know how.

@dpworkin <<hugs>>

@Simone_De_Beauvoir oh, thank you bringing that to my attention.

Bottomline, there is no one that I’ve never forgiven..some, i’ve never forgotten. Probably, the worst event of my life, was my divorce three years ago. My ex, now…was going to the casinos and lost a ton of money (over 50k) without my knowledge. Have forgiven her, but never will forget. Even with all that, wanted to work things out…but, she chose to leave town and purse other things after almost 20 years of marriage!

I think for me total forgiveness might lead to a forgetting of what was very traumatic and while I’ve moved past it, I need to hold on to some of the anger to be strong. I am able to relate to the person amicably but I maintain my boundaries.

@janbb It’s so interesting that you say that because I don’t hold on to my anger for a long time either and it makes it difficult for me later to remain true to the decisions I made for my life as a result of the interactions I can’t forgive.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir In this case, I feel it is necessary to hold onto some of the anger in order to honor the little girl I was, but it is difficult.

I don’t think I have been in this situation before to know. I thought I would never forgive my ex wife for destroying my credit, but I have gotten over that sooner than expected. I don’t think I can forgive a murderer?

I should have passed on answering this. I really have been lucky. Never abused, no ex, no crimes committed against me, etc. I guess I don’t add anything to the discussion.

@Adirondackwannabe I forgive you.

@janbb And there’s always one smartass that needs forgiving as well.

true dat.

I feel like any chance I had at being a psychologically healthy person was ripped away by my father. The misery I feel almost everyday will never allow me to forgive him.

Oddly, I was able to forgive my father. Perhaps because before he died, he apologized.

I believe that true foregiveness can come only when the offense is over. If a single, isolated event happened a while ago and never recurred, I can let go and forgive. Or, if someone repeatedly treated me badly, but realized that the behavior was wrong, made a conscious effort to change, and did change, I could forgive.

I was able to forgive my Mom after the last time I saw her. She was pathetic and kind of sweet and so obviously happy to see me. (And she wasn’t talking which helped a lot too.)

@janbb I’ve been estranged from my mother for nearly 19 years. The story’s long and complicated, but I’m haunted—every day—by the estrangement. She’s getting very old, and I don’t know how I could live with myself if she were pass away while we’re still not communicating. Yet, the situation’s gone on for so long, and its causes are so complex, that I have no idea how to fix it.

@Primobabe I was not estranged from my mother but we certainly had a complicated and stressful relationship. She’s been living across the country for the past three years and I had seen her about once a year. For the past several months, she’s been in her final decline. I was debating about whether it was worth it to go and see her since I didn’t feel I needed it and she has Alzheimer’s and isn’t speaking, so I didn’t think it would do much for her. A few friends encouraged me to go and I am so glad I did. She gave a huge smile when I walked in the room and asked if she knew who I was. It was surprisingly healing. I didn’t even need to do a big song and dance recrimination scene, although I did say something at one point that I felt honored the difficulties. I would really encourage you to find a way to see her if you can. PM me if you want to talk about it more.

The person I don’t want to completely forgive is someone else.

The little things are easy for me to forgive. The bigger things, not so much.

I can forgive what happened because I understand why it happened. But I know that for some people, forgiveness also means reconciliation, and I’m not looking to be in the presence of people I can not trust to respect me as a human being.

I think I’ve learned that if I return the favor by being a dick as long as circumstances require to burn off the feelings of conflict, then I don’t feel the need to hold a grudge and can move on without hard feelings.

One of my college classmates basically lied about the rent at a large house so that by charging everyone a little extra he could live rent free. I found out right before I moved out two years later, and he was a total asshole when we had our “discussion,” so even though it was 10 years ago he can still go fuck himself.

I’m tired of being angry.
But sometimes vengeance is the only way for me to get peace.

Boy, do I identify with that, @susanc.

I know, bubby.

Because the injustice, abuse and torture were not mine to forgive.

There is one thing that I will never forgive, because I have no desire to – it does not deserve forgiveness. It’s also hard to forgive someone when they don’t even know that you know what you do about them.

A onetime friend who cheated multiple times on another, that’s one I don’t even want to bother with. I forgave and supported the first time but don’t even care to engage the person any longer and don’t want to forgive, it wouldn’t feel right. I’d say most other situations I’ve been hurt or offended in then I’ve really wanted to forgive because feeling hurt and bitter sucks so much and feels like it cheapens everything good that comes after.

I can usually forgive easily except for when I found out my now ex husband was cheating on me for over five years with the same woman. We divorced after about 25 years of marriage. To this day, I don’t speak to him and thank goodness he lives over 1500 miles away.

I can, and have forgiven everyone for everything. But for some reason, I can’t seem to forgive myself. I think the reason for this is because I just don’t fully understand why I’ve been a jerk, or how I could have been so stupid at times. I mean, I fully accept that I was (and sometimes am) those ways. I fully accept that. But I can’t understand why I am, was, will be. I beat myself up over that quite frequently. But not as much recently. I don’t know. I don’t know nan.

If this is inappropriate for this thread, just let me know. But I’ve noticed many answers speaking to not being able to forgive an ex relationship or an ex friend. You guys are not explaining why you can’t forgive. You’re just saying that you haven’t, and then briefly explaining the issue, as if the issue is the reason you can’t forgive.

I know how you feel. Believe me I know, and I’m not judging you. But I would like to share some insight that seems to have helped me. For some crazy reason, I believed that forgiving someone was automatically giving them permission to be a part of my life again. As if forgiveness would allow the offender to start it all over again. So not forgiving meant that a line was drawn in the sand, and the offender was prohibited from crossing over to my side again. A lacking forgiveness seemed like a gain of control.

Where I found peace, was when I realized that forgiving someone didn’t mean that I had to like that person, or let them back into my life. I’ve had this discussion with a few offenders over the years. They do indeed think they can return and automatically pick up where we left off. But that’s not the case. I have no problems with letting them know that “Look, I’m not sorry to say, I forgive you, I truly do. But the fact remains that I just don’t like you. I don’t like you at all. You’re not the type of person that I want as my friend.”

I agree with @Primobabe – very well written dat.

Define forgive :)

@Ludy however you define it.

I know we’re humans and we make mistakes, everybody deserves a second chance but, if a person keeps doing the same mistake over and over and over, then is most likely i would not forgive him/her cause he was warned so whatever they did, they’ve done it on purpose, btw I can never trust on them again

It’s not in my power to forgive the person I’m thinking of. His offenses were against the only person I could truly love; those offenses were horrible, both physically and emotionally. She could not forgive him (nor should she have), yet she required me to make a sacred promise that I would not hunt him down. Her reasoning was that if anything happened to him, I would automatically be the prime suspect; she didn’t want me in prison over this. Even though the person I made this promise to is now deceased, I still consider myself bound by the promise. It’s a situation that can’t be resolved.

Big GA to @RealEyesRealizeRealLies for figuring out that forgiving doesn’t mean “having room in your life for”. “Forgive and let go of” is good enough for me.
Actually, it’s too good for me in some ways.
I feel like my decision not to interact with a person I’ve forgiven is a terrible punishment, but a subtle one.

@Ludy “Define forgive”

For me, forgive is a verb. So it is an action taken. That means it needs a forgiver. Forgive is for the forgiver, and not necessarily for the forgiven.

Sometimes the forgiven doesn’t accept the forgiveness. But that doesn’t make them any less forgiven. If they choose to carry the burden further than my forgiveness, fine. But that burden is upon them and them alone, having nothing to do with me. I will not be made to feel guilty for another persons self induced guilt burden. They must forgive themselves.

Sometimes the forgiven doesn’t know they’ve been forgiven, and thus cannot receive it from me. They may be dead, or moved away, or estranged from me.

Sometimes forgiveness is mixed up and conflated with grace. But that’s just not the case. I may forgive you for wrecking my car. But you are still to be held responsible for your actions, and I expect you to fix my car. If I didn’t hold you responsible, I would be doing you, and society, a terrible injustice, teaching you that actions have no consequences.

For me, to forgive means that I no longer hold a grudge or wish any ill will for revenge upon the offender. It doesn’t mean that I like you. It doesn’t mean we’re friends. It just means that I don’t spend my days thinking badly of you. It means that I’ve released myself from your offense against me.

The trick for me however, is learning to forgive myself. Yes, that means that I must not spend my days thinking badly of myself. It doesn’t mean that I like myself. It doesn’t mean that I’m friendly with myself either. But it does mean that I’ve finally learned to accept myself for what I am, rather than what I want to fool myself into believing that I am, good or bad.

Learning to accept myself, finally, I believe, may be the only path to actually learning to accept the responsibilities for my own actions, and then, learning to actually love myself in humility. Otherwise I just become a tired old martyr. That ain’t livin’. I want to live.

Usually I’ve got such a short memory I’ll forgive someone. the only people I’ve never been able to forgive are the people who “confirm” my paranoias about myself.

Thank you @RealEyesRealizeRealLies for putting into words what I recognize as feeling but not calling forgiveness. I stand corrected, I have forgiven in that I don’t burn with grudge or rightiousness but don’t feel it’s necessary to let the person back close to me.

I find it very difficult to think of anything I wouldn’t forgive. I’m sure there are things, but I have yet to run into them—and I like to think theoretically that I could forgive almost anything. There are definitely ways I think people could wrong me or others, but I’m a big believer in the capacity for human change—and if a person changes enough to become someone different, it doesn’t seem fair to me to hold their past actions against them.