Do you believe in forgiveness?

Depends on the person and the offense. There are some people I will give multiple passes, and some that don't get any.

[quote] There are some people I will give multiple passes, and some that don't get any.

R1 Yeah I'm the same way. I suppose it's impossible to give everybody the same treatment. I'm finding myself closer to friends than blood relatives these days. Ironically my family is less forgiving than my friends. Go figure.

I can forgive, but from experience I cannot trust them anymore. Once the trust is lost, I find it almost impossible to feel it again.

I forgive then I cut them out of my life. Once trust is broken I'm done.

I try to understand from their point of view, and generally succeed, if that counts as forgiveness. But as others have posted, trust is lost and I don't allow them the opportunity to abuse me again.

Freddie Highmore

It gets to a point where you can forgive people, but you really can’t deal with them any more. I’ve fallen out with mst of my siblings. I’ve forgiven them, they haven’t forgiven me, but there’s nothing to say, and what was once a big part of my life is gone ,but I can’t bring myself to contact them. They probably wouldn’t want to talk.

Nurse that grudge.

I will forgive premature ejaculation once. ONCE!

After that I can neither forgive, nor forget.

The more I know, the less I understand, all the things I thought I knew, I'm learning again. If you’ve been tryin' to get down to the heart of the matter but your will gets weak and your thoughts seem to scatter I think it's about forgiveness. Forgiveness. Even if, even if they don't love you anymore.

Nope, I am a bitter old queen and carry my grudges to the grave. Go -F Yourself.

Understand. The first word I ever heard out of any of you was that word...'understand'.

There's a difference between a hurt directed at something inherent to you, or unchangeable in your life, and a more circumstantial situation.

For example, if you're dating your friend's ex and he's not over him yet, so your friend arcs up at you, that's not hard to forgive as long as he shows remorse afterwards. If you're going to settle down with the ex things will be dicey until friend is happy in another relationship, but then it should be OK. (Even better if you and the ex break up; then the two of you can reunite over a Ben and Jerry's to hate on the ex.)

Whereas if a friend tells you the book he knows you've spent years writing is rubbish fit only for the incinerator, your relationship is never going to be the same whatever you do in the long run. Because that's not constructive criticism. He's taken aim at your core. There is something about you that he cannot forgive, and he probably won't even if you forgive him.

I tend to forget evil shit and the people who do it. I could not care less about forgiving others.

So my option is never forgive, just forget.

Interesting topic

I try my hardest to forgive but lord sometimes it’s hard. There’s one man that owes me the biggest apology out of everyone I know and he’ll never do it. As a matter of fact, he likes to send folks my way just to give me a hard time and stir up these awful feelings. I’m in my 50s and he and his friends are in their 40s and 50s and they stalk and harass me online, on social media, on apps. I’m serious. Men in their 40s and 50s acting like junior high school kids and being mean and petty. And I know this because we still hav enough mutual friends that guys will tell me that so and so is actually a friend of his, chatted me up online, and then reported back to him! So fucking childish and it’s made me extremely wary of taking to ANYONE online and I have to keep my social media accounts fully private because they would come in and tell him what I’ve posted. He’s kept me blocked from contacting him for years but I don’t doubt he’d take me off, peak at my Instagram, and then block me again. So finally I locked it all down.

I’m fairly certain that he’s created fake profiles on Scruff to talk to me because I’ll get these friendly hellos and have a friendly conversation then BAM! I’m being told I’m obnoxious and ugly and a waste of their time, when we had barely said anything to one another. So I won’t even talk to guys unless their profile is verified BUT EVEN THAT DOESN’T MATTER! He’ll have his friends contact me, I don’t know they are friends, but a mutual friend will let me know that the guy that contracted me is talking about me to him openly on fucking Facebook! 🙄

And right before Thanksgiving, his current boyfriend, who knows who I am and knows I know who he is and had me blocked online for a year or more, WOOFS ME.

That was the last straw. I don’t use scruff for hooking up (anymore). I used it to make new friends (and apparently enemies) but I deleted my account.

Has anyone else dealt with a psycho ex who seems determined to make your life miserable?

Well, I’m still trying to find forgiveness for this asshole. I won’t talk about him to mutual friends and they all know we can never be in the same room at the same time. Ever. I probably don’t get invited to things because they know he’ll be there and they don’t want the drama anymore than I do.

But I want to forgive him. Because holding on to the sadness and anger he’s caused me makes me sick to my stomach.

I know this all sounds unbelievable. I never thought I’d have a psycho stalker ex who plays games like a teenager at my age. But I got one. And it sucks.

This obviously isn’t a daily occurrence, but it pops its head up about 4 times a year and when it does happen, it just makes me miserable. So maybe he’s winning his game? If the goal was to continue to make me unhappy, he’s down a damn good job of it.

I just want it to end, and then I want to forgive and forget about him. But yes make sure I can’t.

Rarely. Since I seem to follow more or less pagan principles, there is no admonition to forgive that seems relevant to my condition. I've been fucked over by some real experts in my life, there is little time to worry about them and in the end I found I mostly needed a tougher hide.

Ugh! Premature post!

I was signing it “We dated obviously. I’ll let you guess who dumped who”

I don’t think I’ve ever been hurt on purpose- and I have been hurt. That said- I have been seriously abused by a parent, mostly verbal and life long. And yes in deed do I believe in forgiveness. It’s really the only thing that delivers you from pain and prevent you from hurting yourself further with anger and resentment. Forgiveness is continuous, and it is one of the great lessons in life, to enable a better life.

I forgive if and when I’m ready to. Whether they apologise or not. Forgiveness is something I do for myself, not for the other person.

R19, I’m sorry you’ve been though parental abuse, but that is almost certainly intentional.

I’ve been hurt unintentionally by guys who ghosted me after I thought we had a nice time together. That hurt. But the one guy whose sole mission in life seems to be to constantly twist the knife when I’m not expecting it-that hurts so much worse. Because he could stop, but he won’t.

In my minds intentionally hurting someone is worse. It hurts more. I’d like to say I don’t care what people think about me, but when there’s even just one person who I know hates me and plays games and wants to continually remind me hates me, it hurts. It hurts way more than losing a friend or a boyfriend who isn’t going to keep trying to twist that knife.

I have been hurt on purpose, with most instances having to to with their bigotry. One guy made it his mission to get me thrown out of our fraternity because I came out to a very small group of friends. He succeeded. One guy tried to get me kicked out of law school for joking around sexually with another guy in our friend group. Something about sexual harassment. The other guy happened to be my best friend.. He did not succeed.

Forgot to add that I will never forgive those two guys.

I can forgive and move on, but I'm not necessarily going to invite that person back into my life. I kicked a close friend to the curb several years ago because he crossed a line and shared our private communications publicly. It turned out he was on drugs for a certain amount of time. But I don't want to resume our friendship. When I think about it now (which is rarely) I can't believe I just rolled over and let someone stay in my life who insulted and hurt me regularly. I mean, shame on me, honestly. I've heard through mutual friends over the years that he wants to get back together, and I guess that means he hasn't found someone he enjoys abusing as much as me.

Forgive? Maybe. Forget? Never.

Indeed, post-homicidally.

Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.

I’m a huge believer in the saying “Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

It’s absolutely true. If I am so angry at someone who hurt me and I continue to hold a grudge, it eats away at me. It doesn’t make me stronger or better repeated for the next person in line waiting to hurt me. It only damages me, so I have to forgive the terrible people who have done terrible things in my life, because otherwise it will eat me alive.

I don’t need (and won’t ever get) closure or an apology from any of them, but I have to forgive them or I’d go mad.

You want to know what holding onto a grudge looks like? It’s a fat orange man who is full of so much hatred and bile that he wants to burn the world down. And it looks like the millions of people who like that about him and will vote for him to be the President.

Forgive. Forget if you can. But for gods sake don’t hold onto it!

When I forgive someone, it releases a burden on me.

So, yeah. Doesn’t mean the relationship will ever me the same but it’s much healthier for me.

It's hard to forgive. But to quote Ann Landers, ""hanging onto resentment is letting someone you despise live rent-free in your head." Sometimes I have to put distance between the other person and myself until I cool down and think of all the reasons that maybe that person said or did whatever he said or did that pissed me off. In the case of abusive behavior though, I think that distance has to be far and permanent, because there is physical and/or psychological safety at stake.

R27 With all due respect, I think that's outdated advice. That whole philosophy came from a culture that wanted to normalize abuse. It's perfectly okay to not like the person who abused you, and you absolutely don't have to forgive them. I was abused, I've moved on, I rarely think about it, but if you think I'm going to absolve that motherfucker for what he did to me you are absolutely wrong. And why would you want me to?

Whenever someone tells you not to have a natural human response to something you should really be suspect of why they are telling you this.

Nope. It's not my job to make someone feel better about the shitty things they've done.

I believe in letting go.

Forgiveness as a way of letting go and moving on is healthy and good. Forgiveness for purely religious reasons or out of peer pressure to let something rest is unhealthy.

Yes. It’s the only reason we are not all killing each other.

I'm no 'Swiftie' by any means but this is probably the only time on planet earth I've ever agreed with this woman.

Off with their heads!

Unforgivable:

Have You Ever Wished You Were Straight? I'm not talking about "praying the gay away" or conversion therapy but that life would be easier and simpler as a heterosexual? Sometimes I'll see a heterosexual dad playing with his kids and feel a twinge of sadness. Being gay can be incredibly lonely especially this time of year if you're estranged from family.

A Bisexual Love Affair [quote] I am actually starting to believe Chris and Jada fucked at one time and I’m talking since she and Will have been married.

Here's another idiot R104. When you're a woman who's used to fucking the likes of Tupac Shakur and Will Smith would you even get wet for a bucktoothed gremlin like Chris Rock? I'm mean honestly reread your statement, it makes zero sense. If he actually fucked her he wouldn't be going at both of them so hard he would have the confidence of a man who gets pussy but Rock doesn't have that energy and never has. He's no Bill Bellamy. This has the stench of a loser who shot his shot and was rejected. He's jealous of the Smith family, especially Will. Rock was never the popular guy with his weird voice and pencil thin body he got by on his humor and willingness to tapdance for white acceptance.

Matthew Perry is DEAD TO ME, Part 2: Curse of the Jacuzzii [quote] Poor dude. I hope he’s at peace.

This man was anything but poor and I personally find it hard to feel sorry for someone with tremendous wealth and access to the best mental health care this country has to offer. Instead he destroyed his colon and obsessed over Keanu Reeves. And by all accounts he had a good relationship and support from his parents so it's a mystery why he hated himself so much that he would willingly destroy his life with drugs. His cast mates don't appear to have the same issues.

Brad Pitt's son reads him to FILTH [quote] Remember, he was there before Brad. And Angelina is clearly Mia Farrow 2.0.

Wrong Asian boy dumbfuck R1. This is Pax the younger one not Maddox the oldest. And Angelina is clearly no Mia farrow despite being a mess herself none of her six kids have been in the news for commiting crimes and the two oldest ones are already enrolled in college. Since alcoholic deadbeat Brad isn't around the kids you can only credit Angelina for the good things they're doing.

To me, I’ve forgiven a “transgression” if I’m no longer angry about it. I don’t always do that, but I’m able to forget the anger if it’s someone very important to me. I think the closer you are to a person the more chance they might’ve done something that you’re forced to reckon with in this way.

Less important to me? More likely to let go of the anger, but less likely to forget the transgression.

R36 You are an obsessed stalker with more time on your hands than brain cells in your fucked up head. No I dont want your nasty stubby dick no matter how many things you look up about me. I'm not accepting new members to my fan club sweetie you can kindly fuck off now. I just know you dont get laid and lie around a basement all day. Pathetic little hemorrhoid.

I give people lots of chances and in that sense I am very forgiving. I can empathize with people and understand that very few do things with the intent to harm. But when I cut them, I cut them, that's it. There's no going back.

Both of my parents are like that too. I think to some extent it depends what you learned in childhood.

If you can't forgive you will eventually lose all your friends because everybody does something stupid over time.

There's a difference between "doing something stupid" and doing something so serious that it erodes trust. Relationships can be irrevocably fractured and that's when I pull the plug. That being said, you can still forgive the person, without ever giving them an opening to fuck you over again. Forgiving is not forgetting.

No

[quote] Whereas if a friend tells you the book he knows you've spent years writing is rubbish fit only for the incinerator, your relationship is never going to be the same

R13, this sounds very specific.

I'm like Michael Corleone, but I don't kill anyone. Once trust is gone or if someone is taking me for granted, I will walk away. I try to walk away before something digs into my soul and lives rent-free in my head. People will repeat behaviors and I don't want to subject myself to that.

That said, I allowed one of my siblings to repeatedly do bad things. We don't see each other (live far apart), but do have phone contact.

As many have said, forgiveness is not equal to giving someone a free pass to behave badly and treat you in horrible ways. To me, forgiveness means trying to understand a situation with a 360 degree perspective, which often means that the person who hurt you did so because there is something they don't know, or had been hurt themselves. Forgiveness means not condemning someone to hell for making a mistake. We all make mistakes. The most difficult people to forgive for me have always been in my family-- as usual, it's it's my family I find opportunities to learn and grow from the most. Very difficult to forgive when someone has been given every opportunity to learn and change yet continue to transgress. I take it one day at a time, some days I feel more benevolent than others lol. I truly do believe there is nothing more healing than forgiveness and unconditional love, for others and for ourselves.

Forgive me, OP.

Nah, I let many things pass but I do not forget. I note it about someone's character.

R29, points for quoting Ann Landers.

There’s a great scene in Women Talking about this. The discussion is about the power and freedom derived of forgiveness, but that perpetrators can confuse this with permission. See the film it’s fabulous.

Depends on what they did and if they apologize and if they’re truly sorry. Doing something on purpose to hurt someone is a red flag. Sociopathic behavior.

No. Unless they apologize for their part in it. Which never happens. One sided forgiveness has never worked for me.

I honestly forget I’m angry with someone pretty quickly. Is it forgiveness if you’ve simply forgotten about the offense?

Alzheimer’s.

I’ve been thinking…The concept of forgiveness seems tied in with the ability to judge and condemn as being superior to the people you are condemning . So let me put it this way, some people have behaved so badly in my life, that I just run away. Nothing to forgive because who am I to judge them? Am I making sense?

It depends on who the offender is and what the infraction is. I don't usually hold grudges. And I am an empathetic person by nature, but once I experience betrayal I might give someone a second chance. Maybe even a third chance. But when I reach my saturation level...you are dead to me. Erased. I don't even think of you anymore. I don't seeth about it or agonize, or plan revenge, I just learn from it and erase the culprit. Poof. Gone. I don't avoid them in future, I have the ability to look right through someone. I also can smile nicely and be cordial to my enemies even as I pray for their demise.

No, George, but you can always hide behind your drag persona.

Sure, I believe in forgiveness.

But across the board forgiveness? Or the idea that forgiveness is always the right path? No.

It's sometimes best to overlook or forget some perceived transgression. It's the expedient and best course. Do that long enough and it can become indistinguible from forgiveness. Time does heal many things and extending that time to people who have disappointed you is often -not always- a good route.

For rare egregious acts with intent behind them, sometimes it's best just to strike those people from your list when they reveal themselves. Cut the problem straight away and cut out the root and you've opened the way for better dealings with better people.

Generally it's better to forgive and/or forget, moving on as best you can, with with some new limits in some cases.

People are measurable by the same yardstick, and not all infractions score the sane points. There's no point in a long-term position of forgetting or forgiving that one friend who is always late, who always waits for others to call him, who like being a guest but not a host. That's who he is in that regard; presumably he has other virtues. Recognize that he's always going to be late but that that he isa grat friend in other respects.

Who really benefits from excessive scorekeeping of every micro-transgression of dumb things. Save forgiveness for people who have genuinely disappointed and use it as the person and situations suggest.

Its easy for me to cut off some people before I know them. If they have any virtues, I'll never know and that's fine. I try to let people reveal themselves as they are comfortable doing, but occasionally you cross paths with someone who rubs you the wrong way and the charitable thing is to not probe deeper.

Forgiveness can be for many things, but it's rather easy in many circumstances and trickier in a few. Putting a hold on keeping score with an exe can be both difficult but ultimately rewarding, or not. There's no uniform answer.

I don't forgive in the religious sense because I am not religious, but I try not to hold grudges. That takes too much effort, but I also don't forget when someone wrongs me, there will be distance between us from that point on.

r9, r12 why do you have nine identical accounts? What is the point? If you're ignored, all nine go to ignore.

Agreed R29's Ann Landers quote is bullshit. You can maintain hatred for someone and not let it take over your life.

It's not an either/or situation.

I can forgive people - but it doesn't mean I will ever let them in my life again. I forgive from a distance. And I still hate some of them - for very good reasons.

It really depends.

I practice fauxgiveness. You think I have forgiven you, but the clock is ticking on when I’ll serve up you a dose of karma. Since you think we’re cool, you’ll never expect it was me. It’s even more fun when you tell me about it and I laugh inside knowing it was me.

No.

r62, revenge fantasies are not forgiveness.

Within the past two years, two friends have hurt me. We’re still friends, but I trust them less. I became more distant. My younger self would’ve cut both of them out of my life.

r65, you are doing a slow ghosting. Perfectly acceptable.

If the person dies before me, yes. Otherwise, no.

In 2006 in Nickle Mines, Pennsylvania, a guy shot students in an Amish school, Five died. Their parents went to the home of his wife to console her. They forgave him. Amish believe death is God's will and were grateful for their remaining children.

R67, I have a list of people I want to outlive.

I call this the Piss On Their Graves Tour List.

I forgive, but I never forget.

That's the classic saying. Right? Well, I think what was said upstream is accurate. Don't trust advice that says ignore you basic human instinct. That forgiving thing is really rooted in religious teachings. I get it, if you dwell on shit, it makes your life more miserable than the guy who did you wrong. But lets look at history. Did great Roman emperors or kings of Europe just forgive their enemies? Nope. Wars went on for decades.

It's human nature to want to fight back or "get even" if someone attacks you. It's human nature to want to survive. We were given these emotions as a tool set to survive in the wild. To remember if that wild animal bit you, don't go trying to pet it like a kitten. Do you have to hold a grudge because it bit you? No, but you should also not forget what it did. Which means it's always capable of doing it again. Should you forgive that animal? Sure, it's just doing what IT'S natural behavior is as well. But at what point when it keeps coming back in the middle of the night killing every member in your clan that you have to kill it to stop? Is that revenge? Is that a grudge? Or is it just survival?

Forgive, sure, forget, never.

Not at all. I haven't forgiven the fucking drag queen that snatched the Easter ham off the buffet and ran out of the gay bar back in 1989. We were just trying to feed the gay boys that didn't have a family.

no one is important enough for this to really matter,

Yes

Forgiveness is not denial. You aren’t actually forgiving if there is no recognition of a wrong.

Sometimes distance is the kindest thing, not just for yourself but for the person you are forgiving; if you are a temptation for say anger to that person.

No……

I’m a melodramatic freak who wrings all meaning out of any wound, so forgiveness is another phase of comprehension for me.

I can’t do take-backs on forgiveness; most of my wounds come from mentally ill family members who wouldn’t change. Distance and time healed most of those wounds

Money does help you isolate yourself from harmful people.

[quote]In 2006 in Nickle Mines, Pennsylvania, a guy shot students in an Amish school, Five died. Their parents went to the home of his wife to console her. They forgave him. Amish believe death is God's will and were grateful for their remaining children.

I have to admit that I think that there's something wrong with people like that. I don't like the idea of that if someone killed me, my family/friends wouldn't be angry with the person who killed me. It reads like they don't really care about the victim. It just vibes as not a normal human response. Also, the phrase 'a leopard can't change its spots' has a lot of truth in my experience. Not always but often enough that it's important that there need to be deterrents and protections.

For thoughtlessness or human error, of course. For acts of malicious intent, no.

R65 here.

I’d joke around with my two friends about my sex adventures. We’d laugh about it together, but they once said really nasty, judgemental remarks about it. It was hurtful and I never discussed my sex life again. They both knew they crossed a line and they apologized. Yet, it’ll never be the same again. I’m gradually withdrawing from them. To be fair, they’ve been very kind to me and vice versa.

R66, you’re absolutely right. I’m gradually ghosting them. Thank you.

Amish people have 7 to 8 children. Maybe one child dying is not such a huge deal when you have 6 to 7 children surviving. Maybe that's one of the reasons for having 7 to 8 children. So that you have many spares.

Right now I’m dealing with someone who is clearly displeased with something I’ve said or done, but who is being frosty and unresponsive rather than telling me where I’ve erred. AND I HAVE NO IDEA.

I think you know r80, and if you don’t, I’m not telling you.

I do, because I’ve given others plenty of reasons to forgive me. Most of them have.

Give and ye shall receive.

[quote]I’d joke around with my two friends about my sex adventures. We’d laugh about it together, but they once said really nasty, judgemental remarks about it.

MARY! You laughed and talked about your sex life and then got mad someone else you did that with did the same? Crossed the line? You opened the door, and invited them in to laugh with you, what did you expect them to do as you blabbered on and on about your sex life? Just shut up and listen but no comment?

I think he wanted them to tell him how he was the hottest man in the world, nay the universe, and no wonder every able bodied man in his time zone practically lined up outside his house waiting and waiting for him to honor them with his three inches of throbbing thunder, R83. No scratch that, he’s a narcissist.

In terms of forgiveness, no. I don’t forgive awful behavior. Fuck that.