How do you forgive someone who isn't sorry they hurt you? Is it really that important to forgive?

[ElizaPickford]

I've just finished reading The Railway Man and it is ultimately a book about forgiveness. It got me thinking - forgiveness was obviously the right thing for the main character to do, no doubt made easier by the fact that the person he needed to forgive was desperately sorry and had spent much of his life trying to atone.

I'm not directly trying to relate my situation to the one portrayed in that book - however I've been struggling for a long time with the fact that I was betrayed by one of my parents and have been badly damaged on several levels by their actions to me throughout my life. I no longer have anything to do with them but I do think about them often and find myself struggling with the idea of forgiveness.

One one level, I would love to be free of all the feelings I still have of resentment for what has gone on and suspect I would be more at peace if I could forgive. However, I know that from a logical perspective that I don't know how to forgive. I can say that I do but ultimately I am still left sad and angry and forgiveness does not feel authentic. What makes it worse is that the person I feel I should forgive actively does not give one tiny shit about their behaviour - they think that they tried their best and "if that's not good enough then tough shit." There is no salvaging the relationship at all I don't think - I've tried but it is completely one way traffic and I'm not a masochist.

So the question is - is it possible? Has anyone done it? Or do I need to just reconcile myself to this feeling of sadness that underlies everything I do for the rest of my life? How important is forgiveness anyway - is it mentally safer to remember that whatever happens this person cannot be trusted and that even if they were sorry I need to keep my guard up?

I have an 6' 4" ex husband who still holds me responsible for making him so angry that he "had" to beat me up. How dare I turn him into a wife beater.

I have moved on, I have healed all my scars and have total peace in my life. Do I forgive him? No.
Do I wish him well? No. While I don't want any payback I wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire.

Forgiveness does not mean forgetting. It doesn't (to me, although I know some faiths hold otherwise) mean that you give them the opportunity to treat you the same way again. Nor does it mean condoning what they did. It's about letting go.

One thing I have learned about forgiveness is that when I do struggle to forgive someone else after a long time it's a lot less about them and much more about me.

I had someone in my life who had treated me badly on a number of occasions over a long period of time. I couldn't forgive them and I held on to resentment which was corrosive to my own well-being.

Rather than try to forgive them, instead I started by forgiving myself. I was angry at myself for repeatedly giving them the opportunity to mistreat me. I felt I should have known how it was going to end up and that I was an idiot for falling for it again and again. Once I realised that that was where the real emotion was coming from it was easier to realise that, yes, I made choices that in hindsight could have been different. But I made those choices at those times based on the best information that was available to me and with hope in my heart. Sure, they turned out badly but it was done, from my end, with the best of intentions. And from those experiences I learned valuable lessons about not making those same mistakes again.

Once I was able to treat myself kindly about the mistakes I had made I forgave myself. And when I did that I found that I had let go of the resentment of the other person. I hadn't necessarily forgiven them as a conscious act but I had reached a point of acceptance. I don't condone what they did but I have reached peace about it.

"I couldn't forgive them and I held on to resentment which was corrosive to my own well-being."

But that is the way that you operate- we are not all built the same way. I find it easy to live a life with out that corrosion to myself, depsite not wanting to "forgive" someone".

Wrong was done to me, No way would I also beat myself up about that too. That's a personal choice.

Good for you.

Hello - sorry if it looks like I just posted and ran, I've only just had chance to come back.

It's interesting, (and quite reassuring) to find other people that are not totally convinced by the idea of forgiveness. I am now probably an atheist but have an interest in other spiritual paths and have spent quite a bit of time with Buddhism which would also seem to suggest that forgiveness is important. I've been a bit haunted by the quote "resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die", because quite frankly there's been enough crap that has happened to me without wanting to actually perpetuate my own suffering. I've tried to look into the back story of my parent to see if that offered any sort of explanation, and whilst it sort of might explain a few things, ultimately it didn't actually pass as a reason for the behaviour, and especially now I am a parent myself I just can't comprehend my parent's attitude.

I think perhaps the hardest thing is that I still have days where I doubt myself and think that perhaps some of this is my fault (I one day woke up to what was happening and drastically cut contact to prevent further harm, and as a result my parent and their spouse have spoken about me in very negative terms to most of the people I used to consider family and nearly all of them have cut me out without speaking to me as a result.) When you have a lot of people who you thought of as family, but now seem to have nothing but shit to say about you it can be hard not to start to doubt yourself.

I'd love to let go of all of this, but I'll probably spend my life mourning a parental relationship that I have never and will never have. And perhaps that's as much as you can hope for in a situation like mine; every time I think of forgiveness I look at the problems I have as a result of what has happened and I think - well why the fuck should I forgive? Especially when I suspect the people involved are potentially narcissists anyway and would never dream of taking any responsibility for any of their actions.

Sorry, I'm rambling again but it's been interesting to read this thread.

combust I'm sorry about what happened to you but you sound like you've dealt with it amazingly. I really would like to get to a point where the bad stuff also rarely crosses my mind. x

Something I learned from a counselor was the concept of 'put it in a box'. You imagine a store room, or a corridor with doors, and behind the doors are shelves with empty boxes on.

Anything you want to leave in your past you put in one of those boxes, put the lid on and walk away.

Maybe you could put your feelings in a box and if/when you are ready to forgive return and open the box, but in the meantime just leave it in storage.

You don't need to forgive to move on. I haven't forgiven some people in my life but I carry no bitterness. I've learned my lessens and how to protect myself better but I feel no need to forgive to move forward.

I agree lumpy. I think this whole idea of forgiveness is complex. Clearly many of us don't need to forgive to move on. I am still of the idea that it's quite a religious burden.

I would echo all of what chocolatewombat says but combust I don't think anyone is saying you must be burdened because you feel you haven't forgiven, rather that if one is feeling burdened and there is something to forgive then it can be hugely beneficial to find a way to do that. I also agree that it doesn't have to have anything to do with religion at all (spirituality perhaps, but not religion). I also don't think it necessarily depends on the scale of how 'bad' something was, although I do believe it is harder to forgive people you have to continue to have contact with (such as parents) who may regularly repeat the hurtful behaviours, thereby almost requiring repeated forgiveness if that makes sense?

This Forgiveness Project is very interesting and moving.

I think forgiveness can minimise what the perpetrator has done which doesn't help anyone. You have to accept what you have been through, learn from it, become strong. But to forgive someone, nah.

yes but its hard when the perpertrators are STILL hurting you, and they wont go away and you cant get away from them.

things come back to bite you often.

so its very very difficult to 'park it' sometimes.

You can only truly forgive when whatever happened no longer affects you.

Forgiveness can be passive aggressive sometimes too I think when it is forced eg I forgive you whether you want me to or not as I am a better person than you.

It is not about religion. It is not about condoning what the other has done. it is not a warm sentimental feeling associated with saying sorry like we have when we are kids, it is a hard self protection strategy offered to us as adults. Forgivness is something we do for ourselves, not the wrongdoer. We set ourselves free from the ties of them and constantly reliving the agony.

I know how hard it is to do this. I was there five years ago screaming for someone to tell me how to do it when I was filled with anger and vengefulness. I wanted sharia law when the adultery of my husband and friend was exposed.

People trot out the bitterness lines but I really dont beleive that they understand how hard it is to forgive. I no longer think of it as forgiving those who have wronged me, instead I think of it as "how do I escape from these thoughts and emotions that plague me when I think of what they did". When I see it in it in a context which is entirely about me and what is best for me I can just abou grasp it.

The method is difficult.
When I think about them, I push the thoughts out of my mind .
When I feel sad.angry, desperate I acknowledge the feelings and ask them to leave and use actions that I enjoy to replace the feelings (for me these are swimming, having a bath, sleeping, watching a film that i Love, looking at beautiful things, reading or rereading my fave book- ANYTHING that distracts me.

Sometimes when I feel very charitiable I allow my mind to play with the idea that I have let them off. I can allow this idea to play for only seconds sometimes but I keep perservering.

It is so hard. So very hard. But I know that I have been helped by trying these things. My face has softened, my demeanour has softened and my life has become easier. I do not put myself in positions where I will be forced to face my perpetrators, I avoid them and if I see them I ignore them. MY forgiveness is not of them, it is of me, it frees me to be me. I push all the responsibility onto them and I cut my ties, all ties with those things that hurt. I said on a thread the other day that when Jesus said turn the other cheek, he did not mean let them slap you again, he meant, turn away from the bad and turn towards the good. The light, the truth.

I am using Jesus' example here because it is one I was brought up with. I am an agnostic and use any religious stories as metaphors to help me deal with the presenting situaition.

"You can only truly forgive when whatever happened no longer affects you."

Sometimes we are changed forever though.

I was raped, abused and beaten by my ex husband. It took a lot of courage for me to leave, despite the death threats, suicide threats, but I did.

I entered that marriage as a very naiive 19 year old, brought up by a closeted 1950's style mother who taught me how to be a good subserviant woman.

I tried that, but unfprtunatly my OH turned out to be a malevolent man.

The experience changed me though- I found my courage, my voice, the realisation that women were not put on Earth to serve men.

The experience and the personal transformation that has brought about have been to my benefit.
I met a lovely man who respected me as much as I now respected myself, and I have been able to bring up my DD to trust her instincts, to value herself, to have self esteem.

So my bad experiences have affected me, they have shaped who I am.

I don't need to forgive to embrace the positive transformations that my previous experiences have had upon me, and now I wouldn't want to.

THey are my past, but also my now and my future.

Not a book I have heard of but may well look for it.

There are two people who have affected my life and neither are sorry and won't acknowledge or admit the pain they have caused me. It has been suggested I am hurting myself by not forgiving them.

It's maybe an insensitive way to put it that 'you are hurting yourself' itsfab...but could you see it as by not forgiving then you are continuing to let them/what they did cause you pain? I have seen forgiveness defined as a conscious decision to give up your justifiable right to revenge-if this can be achieved on a cognitive level then emotions typically follow, the people and actions that hurt you no longer have the power to do so and you are freed from the bad feelings that affect you. None of this 'lets off' the wrong or wrongdoer - they are often oblivious and/or unbothered about your forgiveness, to me it is all about forgiving for your benefit....

The thing is that the people who engage in damaging behaviour, that are totally unrepentant, often are so because they are deeply damaged themselves.

If there were no forgiveness, at all, by no one, available to them there would be little hope for their repentance because their repentance would become a futile act. They would still be punished and still not forgiven.

If you want to have any hope that they may turn away from their damaging behaviour offering forgiveness is the only option. It is upsetting when they are unrepentant but IMO forgiveness is still the best hope we have in providing an opportunity where repentance can take place.

I agree with your first paragraph capsium but the ones that follow come from the point of view of giving something to the perpetrator of a hurtful/damaging act - whether they are repentant and seeking forgiveness or not. I am coming from the pov of the person doing the forgiving and what they gain from this, as, I believe is the OP. My viewpoint as I stated before, has nothing to do with religion, more psychology.

Sleep I see it as giving something to a society as a whole. If the perpetrators have no opportunity for repentance and we have no hope for their reform, what do you do with them?

I don't agree with the death penalty.

combust you must be so proud of yourself - hope that is not patronising. What I meant I suppose it there comes a point where forgiveness is irrelevant as you have moved on so much. I agree there is no need to make yourself forgive. It either arises or it doesn't. Forgiveness can't be forced - it's not an act of will.