Does forgiveness have an expiration?

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This topic has 30 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 9 years ago by Anonymous.

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March 17, 2016 at 6:21 am #99242

flyby
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I have accepted that I can’t change other people or make people do anything. I have found the best me and I am happy being alone. I have a friend who I was sexually and emotionally involved with on an off for 20 year. I was treated poorly. I left. I got over the anger and through the hurt. I moved on various times unsuccessfully. He comes back up. I make boundaries. I forgive when I see progress. He eventually does not folllow through.

This has repeated several times and I can’t keep allowing damage. The lack of respect for what it took to forgive and then to continue the same pattern of hurt leave me deeply hurt. I have always believed in true forgiveness. I dont know how else to come to terms with the hurt and avoid the toxic anger.

Is it okay not to forgive and if you don’t forgive, how can you not be angry?

March 17, 2016 at 6:32 am #99243

HippieChick
Participant

I think you’re confusing forgiveness with acceptance. You can forgive him without accepting him back into your life in a position to hurt you the same way again. Realize that he is who he is. Forgive him whether he changes or not, whether he apologizes or not. But distance yourself from him now that it is becoming evident that he’s repeating a pattern. Forgiving does not require you to become a doormat or continue to accept the same treatment. The forgiveness is in big part for you…not him.

March 17, 2016 at 6:43 am #99248

flyby
Participant

Thank you for the response. I agree the forgiveness is for me. I think I need to learn more about acceptance.

March 17, 2016 at 9:07 am #99264

Anonymous
Guest

Dear flyby:

It is wrong and ineffective to ignore your anger for the purpose of forgiving. One’s goal in life should not be to forgive but to take good care of oneself. For the purpose of taking good care of yourself, you should listen to the valid messages behind your emotions. And your anger is a very important emotion because it has a very valid message every time you feel the anger.

You continue to feel angry at the man because you repeatedly ignore the message behind your anger. So what do you do? Aim at not feeling angry and forgiving or do you listen and respect the message behind the anger?

Your anger at him, the message, is it not, that he is hurting you, that you have been unable to set boundaries with him, and therefore you should have no contact with him?

If so, respect that message. Once you do, the anger having delivered its message- and trusting you to continue to respect the message over time- will weaken, dissipate. Message delivered. What do you think?

anita

March 17, 2016 at 10:17 am #99270

flyby
Participant

I think that is a very valid way to think about my anger. I have only begun to really understand it.

The cycle had been a loosely defined relationship where I was ultimately isolated from his social world. He didn’t mention he had a girlfriend(s) and just led me on to believe there was a future, when clearly there was not. We grew up and were in love had the same friends for years, that fire never burned out, but after moving to New York City (unrelated to him but he was there), he began this selfish behavior. The hurt and shame that I experienced were things I consciously worked through and I fully got over the pain. Forgiveness, and insert the initial post.

That message in my head, you mention… that’s my Best friend and everyone else from home too. Recently I have accepted that I am a classic case of someone with abandonment issues, although nothing of major trauma. And you are correct, I should have no contact with him.

Interestingly enough the woman he just got after abandoning me with “i don’t deserve to be in your life. im not okay enough to be in a relationship right now”, well she’s a PsyD. so all I can hope for is he finds the forgiveness for himself.

March 17, 2016 at 1:20 pm #99297

Anonymous
Guest

Dear flyby:

Your hurt and anger are tangible, almost, in your posts. I think I understand: 20 years of this and unsuccessful attempts at other relationships has to be very frustrating, intensely painful.

All this time, over 20 years, invested, emotions invested and it seems for nothing as he is involved with another woman. And it is so, in my life, as well as in so many people’s lives, maybe most people… that so much of our times and efforts were spent for nothing. Wasted. Some people try to soften the blow of such realization with convenient thinking, saying to themselves this had made them stronger and such.. when in fact it was nothing but waste, repeating something ineffective over and over again.

This is one of the painful aspects of life, accepting the wasted time and wasted efforts, lost hopes.

Once accepted, it makes space to new hope, living in a new way, new and effective.

Please do post again with new thoughts…?

anita

March 17, 2016 at 2:37 pm #99313

william
Participant

completely lost

I have been involved with a woman who I have an incredible, insatiable amount of love for and she loves me in return, we cant be together, but we cant seem to give each other up either.
there is so much passion when we spend time together, we have a strong need for each other. Is love wrong?
There is more to the story if anyone is interested in giving some advice.

March 17, 2016 at 2:40 pm #99315

Anonymous
Guest

* Dear William: I would like to read more of your story and reply. Can you start your new thread with your story (Click Forums above, get the screen with categories, choose one (Tough Times, Emotional Mastery are two categories), click that, go down the screen to the bottom where there is a box with space for a title and the body of your post). Looking forward to reading your thread.
anita

March 17, 2016 at 3:47 pm #99323

flyby
Participant

Yeah, I think the waste of time is the larger issue I need to work on accepting. That and what I consider loss of faith, although not religiously based, still its losing something I believed in that believed in me.

I can only hope now to find a way not to carry this with me. Ive certainly done it before, but its probably about sticking to what that voice says. Thanks.

March 18, 2016 at 5:07 am #99345

Anonymous
Guest

Dear flyby:

Will you tell more about your loss of faith? You wrote it is not a religiously based faith. What is it?

anita

March 18, 2016 at 6:25 am #99355
flyby
Participant
It is in part due to the abandonment issues I’ve come to realize. I lost my mom about 10 years ago to cancer, and it was kept from me until 2 weeks before she passed away. I am the only child. My Father soon moved on to a woman closer to my age than his with two very young children, and I am currently not speaking to him for this reason. My 2 best friends are getting married. This guy was really something I was holding onto. I believed in him, and us, in a way that I just have never really believed in anyone before. No matter what we went through, we kept coming back to each other. Yet as described the cycle continued. Regardless I had faith in him as a person. That he was truly working on himself and he really would be with me in the end. I mean it’s also my fault for believing time after time, but its the only thing I thought I didn’t need concrete proof of. I really believed that he loved me.
- This reply was modified 9 years ago by flyby.
March 18, 2016 at 11:08 am #99395

Anonymous
Guest

Dear flyby:

You lost faith in the idea that someone can love you, is that correct? The fact that you were not told that your mother was sick until 2 weeks before she passed away means there was something important that was hidden from you, obviously very important: the very life and death of your own mother! Hiding something so important from you does not indicate love, is that it? And your father’s love for your mother was proven random like as he got involved with another woman so soon after your mother’s passing. That indicates he really didn’t love your mother, does it?

It is almost fitting your topic to be: Love does have an expiration…

Your heart is broken, I think.

Keep posting, please.

anita

March 18, 2016 at 1:02 pm #99423

flyby
Participant

Thank you again anita. I have my first therapy session coming up next week, so this helps me get a little better oriented with what my larger goals are to work on besides just the one man.

I have felt unlovable since my mother’s death 10 years ago, and it is something I also dealt with as a child. Prior to her death I was in a healthy long term relationship that probably would have continued if I hadn’t suffered the trauma of how she chose died. I ended that relationship and avoided any others for 6 years while I was absorbed in my Masters Degree. It was around that time this cycle started with the guy I’ve mentioned. I allowed him not to love me for obvious reasons at first, to replace the non love of my parents, but as I came to realize this, I was honest with him and drew my boundaries. Again, to no avail. It really was my last bit of faith in someone loving me. The love was proven as he returned every time I pushed him away and no one else did. I thought he was there when no one else was.

I do love myself, let me be clear about that. The first real relationship I had following the 6 year hiatus was with someone who was bipolar and stopped taking his meds. I found myself in an abusive relationship that lasted a year. I was diagnosed with PTSD and worked with a therapist at that time on gaining self esteem. I haven’t dated anyone else seriously in 4 years partly for fear, but then to continue trying to work things out with this guy giving time space and boundaries while he just didn’t know what he wanted.

As much as my heart is broken, I do feel happy knowing he is out of my life and there is now time and space to heal. I enjoy being alone, but I would like to start dating again. I just don’t know how to be loved or how to date someone who would treat me any differently.

I am also hoping to open communications with my father, but it doesnt feel right. I feel like the distance with him is also a reason I have a problem with trusting men in general.

March 18, 2016 at 4:23 pm #99439

Anonymous
Guest

Dear flyby:

I don’t know the details of what happened with your mother and your father, but if your father is part of the problem (certainly doesn’t seem like he has been a part of the solution)- it may very well be self sabotaging to try and open communication with him!

As far as dating again and not knowing how to be loved- good point. How would you identify being loved? Is it like the other guy: you pushing him away and him coming back? That is not necessarily love that kept him coming back! Could be he felt safe expecting you pushing him away again. Something to examine in therapy: what is love? How do you know you are loved? Excellent topic to examine.

One way I know is if a person hears me, cares about what I said, cares enough to remember and to pay attention to over time. If I care about something, and over time he remembers it… and if he cares about my mental well being. Through honest, ongoing communication. No abuse. ..?

anita

March 18, 2016 at 7:02 pm #99458

flyby
Participant

Figuring out how to recognize love is definitely a long term objective with therapy.

“Could be he felt safe, expecting you to push him away again?”
This is something I hadn’t really thought of before. I gave up trying to figure him out long ago. I am interested in the short term to figure out what was making him keep me within arms reach. It’s not about him, but in the past I have found it helpful to try and figure out what I was susceptible to so I can recognize and avoid it.
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