Originally Posted by GingerM

When a bank forgives a loan, they essentially say "we're never going to get our money back, and we give up on trying." They do NOT say "oh, that money we loaned you? Yeah, well, you aren't really responsible for it, it's okay, you don't have to pay it back, life is full of rainbows and unicorns, and we don't mind that you didn't pay it back." Nope, banks don't do that. They say "we're never going to get what you owe us, so we will quit accepting it. We do not remove from you your responsibility to pay it back, and we're dinging your credit rating, and we will never give you another loan, but we're going to quit wasting our time trying to get our money back from you."

In the sense that a bank forgives a loan, I have forgiven my parents.