- Fear that if I tell
them I forgive them, they will get mad at me because they don’t think they did anything wrong.
- Fear of letting the other person get away with something.
- Fear that forgiving the other person sends a message that what they did was okay.
- Fear of not getting to be “right” or “superior” to the
other person in some way.
- Fear of being hurt again by that same person.
- Fear of being perceived as weak or a pushover.
If you take the time to really examine the above statements, you'll find they are not really valid reasons to withhold forgiveness from someone.
Read on to find out why.
It's easy to understand why forgiveness, can be confusing. If you look up synonyms for the word "forgive" in a thesaurus, words such as condone, forget, excuse and phrases like “kiss and make up” are listed. But, forgiveness is not about condoning, forgetting, excusing or reuniting with someone you don’t want to be around.
You don’t need to tell someone that you forgive them, in fact, in many cases, it’s better not to have any discussion with that person at all.
When you forgive someone, it does not mean you now have to be friends with them or remarry them or invite them to your house for dinner. If you’re one of those people who needs to be "right", I can tell you
from experience, that being right, isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Being right can give you some temporary personal satisfaction, but chances are very good that you will still be disturbed by thoughts of revenge, disappointment or resentment. You can choose to be "right" and tormented, or choose to let the "wrongdoer" go and have peace.
As far as being perceived as weak, does another person’s opinion of
you really mean that much to you? Is their opinion more important than your own opinion of yourself? When we forgive someone, we do not deny the past happened and we are not in any way saying what happened was okay. Instead, we accept that it happened, but we choose to leave it in the past. We let go of our need to control that person and we allow them to live their life as they see fit. We consider the person who harmed us and we acknowledge that person possesses
emotionally healthy as well as unhealthy aspects to their personality just as we do. Whatever happened between us, showed us what we do not want in a relationship. We forgive them because it allows us to put down the burden of resentment and move on with our life.
Stop waiting for an apology to validate your pain or set you free. It may never come.
