Forgiveness

[madcatladyforever]

I welcome comments from all religions on this subject.
I have a problem with forgiveness. OK if someone does something awful to me then sometime later begs my forgiveness, apologises and asks how they can help with damage they did then yes I would probably forgive them.
But nobody who has hurt me badly in my life has ever shown a single shred of remorse so I have never forgiven them. Why would I. It shows they cannot be trusted and don't deserve forgiveness.
I cant see any point of forgiving someone who is not sorry because it is meaningless.
So why am I told to forgive all the time?
I dont burn with hatred but neither do I forgive. Surely if you are not sorry and continue to do things that hurt people how is my forgiveness meaningful in any way and how will it help the person who hurt me or help me?
It is a concept I cant get my head round.
Anyone?

I agree.

I have people in my past who have hurt me badly.
I will never forgive them, but they are no longer a part of my life and I rarely give them a second thought.
I forgve many people, but I don't have any great need to forgive everyone.

From the Bible point of view, if Christians dont forgive people, then God does not forgive us.

I have never been sure if that is conditional on the other person saying sorry or not. I dont think so?
But for me, there is no way I dont want God's forgiveness, so every month or so, I go through in my head, whether there is anyone I havent forgiven.

Forgiveness is hard. When I was in the middle of a horrible and bruising experience a very wise Christian advised me not to forgive too quickly. In hindsight she was right. I had to work through the emotions of anger and grief and it took years. At its worst I've asked God to forgive because right then I couldn't.

I've been to a number of talks by these people www.theforgivenessproject.com and I've found them really helpful.

So my take on this is that forgiveness is work in progress and not dependent on an apology from the one who inflicted the hurt.

It's over rated.

I often think the opposite of forgiveness is bitterness. I have no idea if my rapist is sorry or not for what he did, but if I am bitter towards him then the only person that harms is me. To choose to forgive brings me an immense sense of freedom.

I am not a fan of forgiveness

For small things perhaps

Otherwise no. There is rarely a benefit.

It's an odd thing to discuss in a general context though. The situations described by OP, no, I agree, why forgive? If OP is still here, I totally see your point.

You don't have to forgive to move on, you just move on.

Interesting points made, particularly about god's forgiveness. In order to give, I feel that the person who wronged you needs to show real remorse about their actions and demonstrate real change in their behaviour. Personally, I really struggle with forgiveness because whenever I see someone who wronged me, I have flashbacks of what they've done. I was recently having a conversation with a friend regarding this subject and her opinion was: one can't be a practising or real Christian/ Muslim if they can't forgive. I supppose it's easier said than done.

I think its important to forgive the situation but not the person.

Forgiving the situation to me means being at peace with it. Letting it go. Accepting that it happened while acknowledging it was shit.

I think this enables us to not be bitter.

Repentance has to come before forgiveness.
Even God doesn’t forgive sinners unless they repent.
If your abuser is not genuinely sorry and has not asked for forgiveness, I don’t believe you are under any obligation to offer it gratis, OP.
However, if forgiving them would give you closure and be emotionally helpful to you, crack on.

I work on the same premise as a pp.
I need to forgive others who have wronged me very badly as I don't want to be eaten up by bitterness. I have found the people who hurt the deepest rarely feel remorse.

However just because a person has been forgiven does not mean they should not be punished for their actions if they broke the law for example.
And I don't think just because I have forgiven a person we need to be best friends. I just need to let the hurt go and not dwell on it.

Genuinely forgiving somebody allows the forgiver to be able to move on from the pain caused by the one who wronged you. Hanging onto pain is like drinking poison and hoping it will damage the person who wronged you.

Do you find it hard to forgive yourself for "wrongdoings"?

I think this rabbi says it best.

According to Jewish law, a person may not expect forgiveness unless he undergoes a sincere effort to perform “teshuvah,” meaning “repentance” or “return.” The elements of teshuvah include rigorous self-examination and require the perpetrator to engage with the victim, by confessing, expressing regret and making every effort possible to right the wrong that he committed.

By sincerely fulfilling all of these elements of “teshuvah,” the offender has done everything in his power to earn the right to ask the victim for forgiveness. So, Jewish law states that a truly repentant “returnee” whose repeated requests for forgiveness are rejected on three occasions by his victim, has done all he can and need not make further efforts at reconciliation. At this point, the blame for the lack of resolution is transferred to the victim of the original offense.

It remains clear, however, that if the perpetrator fails to perform the requirements of teshuvah, forgiveness has not been earned and cannot be granted. For while granting earned forgiveness is an act of grace that may be emotionally restorative, uplifting and inspiring, nevertheless, to grant unearned forgiveness is not kind but callous, and can only further desensitize both the perpetrator and the victim to distinctions of morality.

The last part is particularly important. Unconditional forgiveness is not a loving act. The rabbi makes this clear and explains why.

Forgiveness is a gift I may or may not choose to bestow. That is my prerogative and mine alone.

I find it easy to move on but don’t for one moment assume I have forgiven

You can’t unilaterally forgive someone, s as t best it’s a waste of effort, at worst it’s asserting moral superiority.

You can only forgive your own reaction to an event and allow yourself to let go and move on and leave the other person to do the same.

@OutwiththeOutCrowd

I think this rabbi says it best.

According to Jewish law, a person may not expect forgiveness unless he undergoes a sincere effort to perform “teshuvah,” meaning “repentance” or “return.” The elements of teshuvah include rigorous self-examination and require the perpetrator to engage with the victim, by confessing, expressing regret and making every effort possible to right the wrong that he committed.

By sincerely fulfilling all of these elements of “teshuvah,” the offender has done everything in his power to earn the right to ask the victim for forgiveness. So, Jewish law states that a truly repentant “returnee” whose repeated requests for forgiveness are rejected on three occasions by his victim, has done all he can and need not make further efforts at reconciliation. At this point, the blame for the lack of resolution is transferred to the victim of the original offense.

It remains clear, however, that if the perpetrator fails to perform the requirements of teshuvah, forgiveness has not been earned and cannot be granted. For while granting earned forgiveness is an act of grace that may be emotionally restorative, uplifting and inspiring, nevertheless, to grant unearned forgiveness is not kind but callous, and can only further desensitize both the perpetrator and the victim to distinctions of morality.

I love that.

I find it useful to think of two types of forgiveness.

The first is the type where the transgressors acknowledges what they did wrong; apologises, makes amends and asks for forgiveness. That’s the type of forgiveness where it’s possible (although not in any way guaranteed) that there might be some kind of relationship going forward. That depends on what was done, how sincere the transgressors is, whether they really change, whether they add anything to your life.

The second can be expressed as “Forgiveness is giving up hope for a better past”. It’s is a narrower in scope. It’s more like acceptance. Not of the person, but that what happened happened and can’t be changed.

It based in the idea that being angry with someone is useful when it can lead to change, either in you, in the relationship or possibly in them. But when there is no hope of change, when there is no future to the relationship anger is pointless and unresolved anger can be toxic to the person who feels it. “Holding into anger is like drinking poison and expecting it to hurt someone else””. It’s a frustrated hope for change that will never come.

So you use the anger that you feel as emotional fuel to give you the strength to take that person out of your life as far as you can, to make you wiser and less likely to get into that type of situation in the future. It’s almost like you let it cauterise a wound.

And the act of doing that uses up ithe anger in a useful way, lets you leave that anger behind and move on. And it is better for you if you can do that.

So it’s forgiveness in the sense of forgiving a debt. You give up all hope of getting that money back. But it also means you won’t ever lend that person money again. It doesn’t mean you have to see them as a good person, or let them back in your life. You can be wary of them and people like them.

Whisky, that's very well expressed!

Forgiveness is only useful if it is of benefit to the person doing the forgiving. If not, it's meaningless. I haven't forgiven my late husband for all the things he did to my DDs and to me. Part of that is because he did nothing to show that he had changed or felt remorse - he only ever felt sorry for himself. Part of it is also that all three of us are still living with the consequences of his choices. I see no benefit in forgiving him. If that ever changes, I will probably find a way to do it.

However, we have moved on. We don't give him headspace enough that he still affects our everyday lives.

You really need to rethink the way you understand forgiveness because this isn't healthy for YOU.
Type "Oprah forgiveness aha" into YouTube. There's something like a two minute video and it might really change your world

I’m a born again Christian (last summer) and God came to expose lies to me and walk me through healing. I was abused as a child by an immediate family member. My head was twisted and I was blaming myself. I went from thinking I could never forgive myself, to realising it wasn’t me who I needed to forgive.

This world was created by God so going against His design, by not forgiving, welcomes a whole host of negativity.

Moving forward with forgiveness sets you free. It doesn’t matter, whether the person is remorseful or not. You can choose to let go, knowing that God remembers your hurt and delivers justice. Where do you think the saying ‘what goes around, comes around’ and ‘good and bad karma’ originate from. The idea as been sliced from the actual truth. God delivers justice and if you forgive, you are forgiven.

If the person isn’t remorseful and you hold onto the hurt and pain, who are you really hurting in the end?