Has anyone managed to forgive someone who has done them serious harm?

[superstarheartbreaker]

In terms of abuse. I'm still struggling to forgive my abuser for derailing my promising career in science. My mental health problems that resulted meant that I couldn't return to my field . Maybe I will in the future but tbh I'd rather I'd never met him... He spoilt my life.

If you have managed to forgive, how did you do it? Do you still interact with that person or are you nc? Stories please. I don't know if forgiveness will be good for me or if acceptance is more achievable.

Also, self forgiveness is tricky. I cannot fathom why I stayed with him and put up with his shit for 5 sodding years! I just don't get it.

I don't really know what forgiveness is. Wish I did. Though I've worked out there are a few things it isn't:

• it doesn't mean that whatever it was doesn't happen. You can cut someone's leg off; they might forgive you but it doesn't mean they still have two legs. A simplistic example but sometimes the damage really is that simple. Someone I met had both arms cut off in a Somalian conflict. Sometimes the damage is far subtler. Still holds.

• It doesn't mean that what happened is OK.

• It does not mean that you have to be in contact with whomever hurt you. To forgive is to not hold a grudge, maybe? But to walk back into a situation voluntarily where you will get hurt again is not forgiveness - it's lack of sense.

• you can't really be pushed by other people to forgive. Doesn't work.

• it's a lot easier to forgive if the other person is genuinely sorry for what they have done and tries to make amends as far as possible.

• If they aren't then it's down to you to forgive or not. It seems that when not-forgiving is draining, it's because there's a lot of emotional energy involved. Also it can lead to bitterness (corrosive to you) and to revenge ... which can get out of control and hurt other people nearby.

• So ... if you are knotted up and angry then a good reason to forgive is to stop living with those uncomfortable feelings. Thats when forgiveness benefits YOU. If you aren't angry then it's more of an intellectual decision to forgive or not.

• if it's a purely intellectual decision to forgive or not it doesn't matter so much if you do or don't, because you're not so wound up about it. That's what's important, getting on with your life and making it the best that's possible even when you have to live with the damage that's done.

and oh, really important, forgiveness does absolutely not mean letting the same thing happen all over again.

An excellent post Meerka.

I think looking back - I'm in my fifties now - I have gained more insight into what my parents did and why.

It seems almost certain that my father had high-functioning autism, which made it harder for him to appreciate other people's needs. His life would have been shaped by the death of his own mother before he was two.

He'd have chosen my mother because she was from another country, and would be less able to see the ways in which he wasn't 'normal.' I think that it's likely that she wasn't neurotypical either. She would accept a partner who was remote, uncommunicative, and adhered rigidly to routine. She had obsessive rituals of her own.

What I do struggle with is not the issue of forgiveness, but a sense of grief and loss. Sometimes it is hard to go forward and take the good things which are there to be taken.

Marianne this is just to acknowledge your post because of so many similarities, with one difference being the generation.

Thank you CariadsDarling. (Like the name.)

What I do struggle with is not the issue of forgiveness, but a sense of grief and loss.

I relate to this too Marianne (in my 40s) perhaps because I've only recently been able to admit to myself how bad it was. I spent so long minimising it myself and trying to tell myself I was tough and I would be fine - which did get me through for a long time.

But I think you go through stages with this kind of issue – it will always be part of you, but you can have grieving times and stronger times. One thing I struggle with is the sense that I'm still not "over" it all and I feel like I should stop being sorry for myself. But it comes in waves that have to be accepted I think.

Forgiveness isn't saying it's ok it happened! That's insanity.

I think a good way to look at forgiveness is letting go. NOT making out it didn't matter but cutting the ties and letting them bob down the river on whatever course. I don't want to be tied to the person who did those things to me and 'unforgiveness' ties me to them.

ime my abuser was killed in an accident and in all honesty I was overjoyed relieved. Justice? I wouldn't have wanted him dead, exactly she lies , but I did want justice. That makes me sound like a monster. It's a long story (the abuse was ungoing because I was tied to him in other ways - no hope of release. I remember thinking the only way to get release was when I was dead. I was erm delighted it didn't mean my death but his).

Forgiveness doesn't mean not being angry - or, indeed, grappling with the effects of the abuse. I am very, very angry about the abuse I suffered - I was completely innocent. My career prospects were also mortally wounded and my career has never recovered.

Have you done the Freedom Programme OP? Knowledge is power and the FP really is wonderful for making sense of what happened - and seeing it for what it is: not your fault. I agree with pp that you need to forgive yourself before you can let him and what he did go. It's not a once-for-all thing, either - ime it comes up now and again and you have to deal with it afresh. I am dead set that I don't want my life blighted by what he did, so I keep a close eye on it. I don't want what he did to have any more mileage than it already has.

I was emotionally abused by my ex. He was the most wonderful H imaginable and all of a sudden he turned on me, left me, lied about me, told me it was all my fault. I was gaslighted, manipulated and hung out to dry. Like broken above, I was also made to believe it genuinely WAS my fault.

He was depressed at the time, so for a long time I "blamed" that, but really, I think it was just him and he played a role for the years before that. I suspect he was a sociopath or a narcissist or some other severe personality disorder.

I forgive him in the sense that I don't carry the anger around with me like a dead weight, and I forgive him in the sense that I don't wish him ill and have no fantasties of revenge.

I don't, and will never forgive him in the sense of allowing him near me again, or of giving him back my trust or my life.

To me forgiveness doesn't mean saying "it's ok", it just means that you stop carrying around the scorecard.

Somewhere in all of this, and even the most horrific cases of abuse - the abuser is someone to be pitied. By mistreating those they should love I suppose they are cheating themselves of the real beauty of the human experience.

I feel sorry for my ex. He lost far more than I did and I will rise from the mess that he left me in.