Displaying true forgiveness and forgetting about the situation…Is it easier said than done?
By: Taren Vaughan
“I’m sorry, will you please forgive me?”
This question alone sounds so simple yet it can be so complex in certain situations. Forgiveness is something that varies from person to person. Some people just can’t bring themselves to forgive someone for their actions no matter what the wrongdoing was. On the other hand, some of us don’t think twice about whether or not we are going to forgive someone. Now forgiving a person may seem like the toughest part but forgetting about what happened is even harder to do.
Can you truly forgive someone for their actions or the things that they have said or done to you? Can you erase these wrongdoings completely from your memory?
Some would say: “It depends on what they did”. The severity of your wrongdoings can affect how easily someone forgives you or whether or not they will forgive you at all. Now you may be thinking to yourself, what is considered severe?. Well that depends on you. Some women say if their spouse cheats on them that is an unforgivable act but there are some who totally disagree and would stay with their spouse and try to work things out.
Well now what about the things that come out of our mouths? Is being lied to by someone something that you can look past?
The little “white lies” that we tell to our spouses or significant others can seem harmless to some but once you begin to brush off these lies, you could potentially open the door to more unacceptable behavior. You should really think about addressing the situation in order to prevent future occurrences from happening. Being forgiving is one thing but being naive is another.
Now am I saying not to forgive a person for what they have done to you? Absolutely not.
Everyone is different and so is every situation that we are involved in. There are people who will stick by their spouses/significant others through cheating incidents, serving jail time, etc. Sometimes the love that you have for a person allows you to forgive them even when outside influences (we all know who those outside influences are) are trying to tell you how they would handle YOUR situation. Remember, a boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife relationship consists of only two individuals.
But if you do chose to forgive a person for what they have done, don’t keep bringing up the situation over and over again. Leave it in the past. There have been too many incidents where we travel back in time, constantly reminding someone of how bad they hurt your feelings or how you can’t believe they did that to you. Is all that really necessary? I mean you did say that you forgive them right?
All it does is prove to the other person that you are still hanging on to what they did. We worry about how apologetic our significant others are and if they really mean what they say when we really should be focused on the sincerity of the forgiver. Do THEY mean what they say?
So before you are so quick to dismiss a person from your life for what they have done, think about how much your relationship with that person means to you. Yes you can forgive someone but can you really forget about what they did to you? Forgiving is the easier thing to do. It’s the forgetting that’s the hard part.