Forgive and Forget
Forgive and forget is not a philosophy I can live by. I would love to be able to. Just like I’d love to be a clean freak, because then my house would be tidy instead of a pig sty. And if I loved to study I would have learnt other languages and be extremely educated by now.
But it’s just not me. I have a deep mean streak. Mum taught me that I should forgive people and that I should never say I hate someone because it’s a very strong word and you should never hate someone. I love my mum more than anything, and she’s almost always right, but she never taught me how to do those things.
While many people (especially women) will forgive I believe most won’t forget and will simply find a way to move on.
I am a master of moving on. Issues get put to the back of my mind and I’ll build trust again with a promise that there will be no repeat performances. The issue doesn’t go away though, it is done, and I am unlikely to forget your betrayal.
You only get the gift of a second chance if I really care about you though. Bosses who repeatedly burn me are forever trapped in the “I hate you” section of my brain. The I hate you section is likely to gain attention in the form of humiliating revenge and secret celebrations of your demise until you are out of my life forever.
My reason for non-forgiveness is simple – I have not bern given a good reason for what you did (or any explanation at all) and therefore there is no excuse. Have I got the wrong idea? Is that not what forgiveness is about? The dictionary cites ‘forgive’ as both to excuse a fault and to renounce anger or resentment.
Are you the forgiving or moving on type?
13 Responses to “Forgive and Forget”
I’m pretty forgiving and I am guilty of giving everyone what is probably too many chances… but like you, I don’t forget.
I tend to forgive and forget – mainly because it’s too much effort for me to hold onto grudges and I forget about the anger/grudge until the next time I see someone and they repeat the original act of malice.
So I just see them less and make myself happy.
I only hold on to grudges in the back of my mind. I don’t tend to seethe on them unless I see the person often and something they do reminds me.
I don’t hold grudges. I don’t hate. I don’t always forgive, but usually I do. I do tend to seethe, but I keep this to myself. I try hardest to forget and move on.
But, there are exceptions. There is at least one person in this world that I’d love to punch in the face multiple times. I dream about this sometimes.
I agree with you Ms Constantine. I move on but I usually don’t forgive unless the wrong-doer shows genuine remorse and is apologetic.
It is even worse if they have wronged someone I love. Then they really don’t get forgiven!
I’m both, kind of.
I’m fairly quick to forgive. I hate simmering away in anger, so I usually resolve my grievances with the person not long after they wronged me. That said, my opinion of them changes. I don’t value them as much as I used to and scale back the amount of time I spend with them (sometimes to the point of years between catch-ups).
I am not particularly forgiving or forgetting – Nath says I’m “like a dog with a bone”, I just don’t let things go. This used to make me angry all the time, but I’m getting much better at just not letting it affect me – I hate certain people so much that I wish their faces would be ripped off with a meat hook sometimes, yes, but it just isn’t constructive for me to dwell on that.
In my relationship with my boyfriend, he did something to me that hurt so much and was so incredibly wrong that it still feels unforgivable. If I dealt with the situation rationally, we would have broken up; but I gave him another chance because I love him, a lot. I still haven’t forgiven him, I’m not sure if it will happen or how long it will take. But forgetting about what happened is much nicer than letting it consume me everyday; there is so much good in him and he brings so much happiness and love to my life (except for this one hideous dark mark against his name), so why focus on the bad? Especially if we’re trying to move forward.
I can totally relate to that The Boy is not perfect and we almost broke up once, and it still lingers in the back of my mind sometimes. But I just try not to think about it. It is a stinking black mark against his name though, and if it ever happened again we would be done! As you say there is so much good and I love him so much, so he’s one of the few that is given a second chance.
You write really well. I’m not able to forgive easily either.. I pretend that I do. I mean, I TRY to. But it’s always there on my mind. I know it takes a lot of energy to hold a grudge but I can’t let them go I have people I know that I will hate forever. How horrible is that….. and without them having had burned me I wouldn’t be as strong and I wouldn’t have learnt what I know now. Things would have been completely different I should thank them really but I wont. I hear ya! Preaching to the choir
x
Hilarious! Underneath the email version of your blog was a google ad for a free forgiveness mini-course “feel relief in just 45 minutes”
Haha, got to love contextual advertising. Have you seen the Probably Bad News blog?
Nope – link?
http://probablybadnews.com/
Leave a Reply