To not forgive?

[Rattymcratty]

This may be more of a philosophical question than your usual aibu. Well it’s regarding my MIL so maybe it is your regular AIBU!

What is forgiveness? What does forgiveness look like? Does everyone deserve it?

Essentially MIL wants me to ‘forgive and forget’ to move on with family life. She’s constantly mentioning to DH that I’m stubborn, need to have forgiveness, soften up, need to build a bridge, ‘let us put it all behind us’ and ‘forgive and forget’. She really wronged us both, she feels she did nothing wrong, DH went NC for 6 months and I haven’t ‘came around’.

She’s asked DH what she can say/do for me to forgive her which to me defeats the object of wanting forgiveness. She’s brought me flowers and tried to break the ice but I honestly want nothing to do with her. She’s never offered an apology, not reflected that she did any wrong doing and at best only tried to justify her actions.

How can I forgive when she has zero remorse nor took any accountability for what she has done?

What did she do op?

I guess flowers is a start, but if it's an apology you want, can you communicate that?

What did she do? Depends what she's done as to whether it can be forgiven & to what that might look like.

I could not answer this question in a philosophical sense, it really does depend what the other person did.

You can’t. If your husband is in contact again then he needs to tell her it’s not as simple and forgive and forget. Forgiveness can only be given when the person you are forgiving has made amends for their action, apologised, means it

she hasn’t and it’s probably to late now

i would just let your husband have whatever relationship he wants with her and tell him you don’t want to hear about forgive and forget again

You know there’s a massive bit of missing info here. But your feelings are your feelings, whatever she did, and of course you don’t have to forgive her. Why did DH get over it and does he support you in not forgiving her?

From a philosophical question point of view, I think it is difficult to forgive when the person has not apologised or admitted their wrongdoing.

But I think there is a huge difference between Forgiving and Forgetting

You can forgive, but choose not to continue a relationship with someone.
It looks like your MIL wants both forgiveness and for you to forget

You don't have to share what happened, but it might help to put it in context.

'Essentially MIL wants me to ‘forgive and forget’ to move on with family life'

Well it sounds like that would make life much easier for her. You, however, feel differently

Your post is really interesting about the nature of forgiveness. In my experience, forgiveness isn't a switch you can just choose to flick. It might be a place that you get to, but if you do, it has to happen organically. You may well have a lot of pain and anger and other difficult feelings to process first. People sometimes put pressure on others to forgive because it's easier for them, assuages their guilt and they feel that they can 'move on', but you are entitled to your own feelings about the situation

I can totally understand your feelings because it sounds like, for you, she hasn't taken any responsibility so nothing has actually been repaired

is this about forgiveness? She doesn’t want you to forgive she wants you to forget.

Tell her you’ll consider forgiving after you have had an apology and when you feel she truly understands why what she did was wrong.

It would be useful to know what she did, but my reply above is on the basis it is something fairly significant and not just a minor slight.

@Rattymcratty

she can want whatever she wants. Doesn't mean you have to go along with it!

is this all via DH or does she communicate this to you directly?? If directly I'd just say, How am I supposed to forgive & forget when you don't even acknowledge what you did was so wrong, let alone apologise sincerely & learn from it??

why has DH gone back to contact with her?

This is taking me back to an awful time in my life. I'm sorry you're going through similar.

@Rattymcratty There are always three sides to a story: your side according to your perspective, their side according to their perspective, and the truth being somewhere in the middle. You are demanding the MIL should reflect on their behaviour - how do you know that they haven't because at least they've made the first step in approaching you. Have you reflected on your own behaviour and the part you have played?

If you love your husband, you will do your best to make things right and accept the olive branches offered by your MIL - she loves her son enough to offer them. You should not be forcing your husband to be piggy-in-the-middle. He loves you and he loves his mum. She will never stop being his mum and will always be in his life. The issues are a clash of personalities between you and MIL and at least she's made a kind overture in trying to manage the situation.

'The issues are a clash of personalities between you and MIL and at least she's made a kind overture in trying to manage the situation.'

Assumptions all over the place. We don't know what the issues are - the OP hasn't gone into detail and that's fair enough. Maybe MIL has done something appalling, no idea. We don't know what is motivating the MIL's 'overtures' either - it may be love for her son, as you say, or it may be wanting to assuage her own guilt over whatever happened

I nearly posted in the OP what she had done but I didn’t want it to necessarily be about what had happened, but my quandary about forgiveness.

It’s hard to sum up in a few lines what happened but it was a slow burn until it all went terribly wrong.

I posted on here a few times regarding my MIL and the verdict was she was being U with her demands on our lives/wedding. She remembered fondly planning her wedding with her mum, and as she had no DD that she should have been able to plan our wedding. She wasn’t happy with just been included in wedding preparations but actually wanted to plan the wedding. Every time we made a decision I.E. what kind of cake we wanted she’d fly off the handle that it wasn’t the cake she thought we should have etc. This went on for a good year and it was seriously unhinged. It all came to ahead a couple of months before the day as she called DH upset that DH was always taking my side with the wedding preparations (we were paying for all of it too!) DH tried to gently explain that while we do listen to her opinions fundamentally it is our day and we do make the final decisions. All hell broke loose, FIL got involved and we were told to either make it ‘right’ with MIL or they were done with us. DH was inconsolable for days at the idea of being disowned and finally he was told to choose either me or them. They then told DH brothers to choose between us or them, and forbade them to come to the wedding.

We were about to pay the remaining balance on the venue/meal but the whole day just felt ruined. Before sinking even more money into it we pulled the plug. It just felt ruined. We didn’t want DH having to choose, and even if they did choose us the day just felt tainted. I listened to DH beg to not be disowned, that he still loved his parents but they were cold. I had to comfort him in the foetus position for hours.

DH has told MIL I’m upset due to me not having the wedding we deserved. MIL thinks it was our choice to pull the plug (well, it was but our hand was forced by them) and recently she laughed that ‘well of course we would have came’. I’m also think there should be some remorse on that DH was told to choose between us.

We ended up having a small registry wedding in the summer, no wedding party, no wedding reception just a quick ‘I do’ and a little lunch.

😮
No. I don't think I could forgive that.

I’ve been in a similar predicament (different problem FiL went over a physical boundary with me, husbands family went sustained nuclear attack at me and husband for it - very dysfunctional emotionally family). I’ve been asked the same to forgive and forget, move on etc.
I ’ve asked myself similar questions and come to realise forgiveness is for the ‘sinner’. In order to live with what they did. Husbands family will never understand what they’re apologising for. So it can’t be genuine. I don’t trust they’ve learnt to never do what they did to anyone else again. So I won’t verbalise it or offer it.
But I can be in the same room as them (except FiL, working towards that still after his assault), and be civil. It doesn’t eat me up inside, but there is a level of acceptance that I lost genuine family members and it’s difficult to trust or see them the same way now however much I want to.

After your update a big fat NO from me.

Your poor Husband and poor you.

The thing is, what if you don't forgive and move on ?
what happens if you have children?

Will your husband be able to emotionally support you, or cave in to the emotional blackmail.

I don't envy your position OP and both in-laws sounds bloody awful.

Could you send your PIL a message outlining how much your MIL upset you and your dh over the wedding planning, and how hurt you both were at the threats and ultimatum that they issued as a result, @Rattymcratty - and emphasise that this what made you cancel the wedding. Explain that you saw how unhappy that they made your dh, and that you too were upset by her interfering and the ultimatum, and that both of you need them to acknowledge how wrong they were, and apologise properly for it all.

Ideally they would not need to be told how they overstepped the mark, and how much pain they caused, but it seems as if this is very unlikely in this case.

It doesn't defeat the object of wanting forgiveness
The message you need to give her/your DH needs to tell her that she needs to apolog6and show remorse.
Then you move on

Dear god OP, she sounds absolutely unhinged. I remember some of your previous posts about her and the wedding. How incredibly cruel they both were to DH, and over a long period. Absolutely not something that can be brushed under the carpet with a bunch of flowers if you ask me. No way

Oh wow. Your MIL is a massive cunt.

You are completely right to never set eyes on her.

I couldn't forgive that unless MIL showed genuine remorse, took responsibility for her actions and apologised profusely.

I understand after the update that you may never fully forgive her and you'd be justified.
But what does she want to see as a result of the 'forgiveness'? what are you doing / not doing that she wants? Are you not speaking at all to her? If so, that'll be hard to keep up forever, especially if you have children. You don't need to forgive her to agree to speak to her / be civil. If you can manage that then 'family life' whatever that means can move forward.
She can ask you to speak to her, treat her civilly, even show friendship, but she can't ask you to fully forgive down in your heart nor completely forget and actually I think you shouldn't forget - you should remember, and be on guard with her.

Oh no no no, I could not forgive or forget that one, these people would be dead to me. I've cut both my SILs and have no intention of having a relationship ever and they aren't this bad. You crack on and ignore them hon 💐

Your DH needs to come down hard and stop allowing this.
You block her on everything and tell DH he has decided to allow that toxic bitch back into your lives but that doesn't mean you will continue to suffer.

So you don't want to hear anything of her or about her again. He doesn't tell you a single thing. Not what she said, what she's doing, what she's thinking. You tell him you will never speak to her or forgive her.

He can have whatever relationship he wants with her but you have chosen your stance.

Seriously I would go fully Non Contact and not allow her newr any children you may have. She has already seriously fucked up her son do not let her fuck up any kids you have