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I want to move on but i can't forgive her

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  • This topic has 12 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 6 years ago by Anonymous.
Viewing 13 posts - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
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  • #197189
    Tom
    Participant

    I have been suffering from problems regarding a girl for the past 7 years (whom i now call “bitch face”; it helps me cope) i wrote about it on here ages ago, basically i was used by her as a emotional support strut when her boyfriend wasn’t around and she allowed me to kiss her while her boyfriend was present; was part of a bet and not one of my better moments (I was in love with her and she knew it, yet i allowed it to happen even though i knew she had a bf)

    As well as other emotional manipulations

    Anyway i’m finally starting to rid her from my mind but i keep reading that the only way to deal with the past is to forgive one’s transgressors. Thing is that i will never forgive her for what she did to me and how she manipulated me emotionally. Is there a way i can deal with the past but not ‘forgive’ her for what she did

    To me this incident is something that can never been forgiven; it’s on the same level as cheating to me (Which is basically what she did when she let me kiss her, and i let it happen to)

    #197203
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Tom:

    I don’t think it is necessary or even a good idea that you forgive this woman. You can move on while not forgiving her, if you consider that there are a few women out there who will not misuse you and avail yourself to meet women, evaluate their trustworthiness- or lack on- and make your choice to get closer or withdraw, accordingly.

    Is this woman the first person in your life to have misused you, manipulated you?

    anita

    #197209
    Tom
    Participant

    To this level yes, i’ve been lied to before but i learnt to deal with that as life; this was the first women i ever loved and likewise she was the first person i ever trusted (I had trust issues from being bullied a lot, since this situation i’ve lost all trust (for the most part) in people in general not just women) and she was also the first person to use me like that

    #197213
    Peter
    Participant

    My observation has been that people use the word forgiveness without really understanding what they mean by it.   (Often, we use words forgetting that they are place holders for an idea or process and not the thing itself – we mistake the map for the territory. )

    I have done a fair amount of study on the idea of forgiveness which is a process and turns out more often then not has very little to do with the person that hurt us. Forgiveness is a process of letting go of our grasping on to pain of the experience and not a process of forgetting (though there is an aspect of forgetting as in making the choice to not to dwell).

    Forgiveness also does not remove accountability, responsibility – break the law of karma/action – as in cause and effect.  If you steal from me I can forgive, let go of the pain, let go of vengeance, free myself from dwelling, wish you well… however you’re still going to jail. Not out of anger or hate but Love. If our actions had no consequence there would be no meaning, purpose or Love.

    A result of authentically working through the process of forgiveness allows a person to detach the emotions from the memory (detachment is not interference or stoicism). When remembering a hurtful experience (re–membering is a act of recreating) we may re-memeber sadness however we do not become sad. I feel sad vice I am sad. In this way or fixation on the memory fads. We learn what we can learn from the experience and move on with our lives as those that hurt us move on with theirs.

    What does forgiveness mean to you?

     

     

    • This reply was modified 6 years ago by Peter.
    #197221
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Tom:

    It hurts a lot to be misused, to be lied to, to be dishonestly manipulated, to be betrayed.

    When you were bullied earlier in life, did your parents try to help you, to protect you somehow from being bullied?

    anita

    #197279
    Peter
    Participant

    Correction on my initial post – detachment is not indifference or stoicism

     

    Just another note on forgiveness

    When a person says they will never forgive, perhaps because they associate forgiveness with letting someone off the hook… The danger is that subconsciously they may be saying “I refuse to let go of the pain that was done to me. As long as I hold onto the hurt… I hurt and punish the one that hurt me… and I blame myself…

    Anita is right, you don’t need to consciously go through the process of forgiveness. It may not even be advisable if you are unclear as to what forgiveness means. Anita will help you learn what you need to learn from the experience and so hopefully move on… which can also be an important part of the forgiveness process.

    It is my hope that when you do find your way past the experience that hate and anger your feel will have dissipated as the danger is to become bitter.

     

    Joseph Campbell Tells the following story. It may not appear to be about forgiveness however it does I think point to why the process of forgiveness is important to becoming.

    A samurai warrior had the duty to avenge the murder of his overlord. After some time, he found and cornered the man who had murdered his overlord. As he was about to deal with him with his samurai sword, when this man in the corner, in the passion of terror, spat in his face. In this moment the samurai sheathed the sword and walked away. Why did he do that?

    Because he was made angry, and if he had killed that man then, it would have been a personal act, of another kind of act, that’s not what he had come to do.

    The samurai’s mission was not simply to kill the murderer, but to honor his master and fulfill his duty. Killing the murderer out of anger would not have fulfilled the intrinsic call of his duty. To an observer, whether he killed the culprit motivated by honor or anger, it wouldn’t have mattered. The murderer would be dead either way.

    But to the samurai, his own motivation made all the difference. He needed a crystal clear answer for why he was taking action, and a reactive response out of anger would not only be dishonorable, it would negate the reason for his quest.

    You can choose your response. You can observe an unhelpful emotion take hold, but you don’t have to react. You always can choose to act in a way that honors the vision of the person you truly want to be.

    Nothing is just a means to an end. Every action is an end in itself. The path is the destination, right? It’s the journey that matters.

    #197561
    abubin
    Participant

    Hi Tom,

    It’s okay not to forgive a person for what she did to you. It is more important not to have any vengeful or anger feelings to her. Try to put this person in an insignificant part of your memory and move on with your life. She is just a page in your life and you actually learn about being manipulated. You will know next time not to fall into the same trap again.

    #197891
    Tom
    Participant

    To be honest i can’t fully remember anything before i was 18 and it’s very hard for me to remember whether my parents helped me. I like to think they did but not in a way which help all they did if i recall correctly was complain to the school

    #197903
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Tom:

    You wrote last August on your other thread: “I was the biggest pessimist you’d ever meet because to me that was the logical and practical thing to do”. It was logical and practical to expect the worst of people because you did, in reality, receive the worst.

    It is very painful to trust, to expect the best and then, to receive the worst. It is a long fall down. But when you expect the worst and receive it, you don’t fall. This is why it is logical and practical to be a pessimist, isn’t it?

    The happening with this woman magnified for you the experience of hurt that you suffered long before you met her. It brought that pain to your attention. To trust, to hope- and then to be let down, to be betrayed. There is that fall again.

    I wish there was a way for you to attend quality psychotherapy for the purpose of addressing the earlier hurts, the bullying, the lack of protection by your parents, other hurts that you don’t remember. These hurts need to be seen and processed in such a way that they will no longer stand between you and living a better life.

    I hope you post again.

    anita

    #197989
    Tom
    Participant

    I learnt from a very young age that trusting people was a fools errand; i was only friends with the people at school because i had to be, unfortunately it took me till 2nd year of uni to realise that and then adopt the “fuck it all” attitude towards them and basically have the motto of “If they don’t wanna help me out in my times of need even when my times of need might be no where near as bad as theirs; then i have no need for them”

    There is always someone worse off than you; i learnt that, however that doesn’t give people the right to throw that in your face just because i may have it better than them doesn’t mean i don’t go through troubles. I actually had one of these aforementioned school friends tell me “You’ve got nothing to be depressed about”

    Oh ok let me just flick the switch off for depression and while i at it i’ll cut out the part of my brain that deals with self image shall i … what makes this funny is that the person in question also was going through something very similar to me just on a different scale (She was from a worser background than me)

    So after that i learnt to rely on only myself and that people were only friends till the opportunity arose to stab them in the back with a prank or something

    #197995
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Tom:

    When people say to depressed people: ‘You’ve got nothing to be depressed about”, or to anxious people: you’ve got nothing to be anxious about”- these are ignorant statements. People who say it are not able to … follow their advice when they are depressed or anxious, or both.

    The comparisons people make are also not realistic. When you are suffering from X, you only know X. You don’t have parallel lives and parallel experiences of Y and Z as well. You only have X. So you can’t compare. Same for others.

    You don’t trust people, I understand. Many people are not trustworthy. Are you trustworthy? Make sure that you are, that you keep your word, that you behave in a way that is right (not submitting to abuse, that is not right). If you are trustworthy, there are a few others out there who are trustworthy as well.

    Be selective, learn who this or that person is and proceed with caution, wisely.

    anita

    #198001
    Tom
    Participant

    I’m the most trustworthy people most people know

    #198109
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Tom:

    I am glad to read this. And I do hope you can move on (your goal, in the title of your thread), but not forget-and-forgive as you move on, but learn and remember, so to minimize your chances of being hurt yet again, in the future.

    anita

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