Working on trust, resentment and forgiveness
 

One of the hardest things for me to do is forgive someone who has hurt me. I rarely let things go. I am a very loyal person and I don't think I am wrong for expecting loyalty back. I either trust people or I don't, simple as that.

I know that my resentments are only hurting me.
I've tried to forgive and let people regain my trust but for some reason I can't let go of the past. I will bring it up any time it is bugging me and it isn't healthy.

I am the most loving and loyal person but if you betray me I will never let you forget it.
Every day I think about something someone has done to me and I hate it. I want to be able to be peaceful and I've been able to change a lot of things in my life to make me happier except this.

Any advice?
Thanks

Have you ever went to Celebrate Recovery or Alanon? I attend CR for codependency and about a year and a half ago did a 12 step study. This had me literally work through just these types of issues and taught me how to let them go. The thing is, YOU are the one hurting by carrying around all this resentment. It hurts you much more so than anyone else, as you are expressing.

I do understand, however I know there are differences between forgetting and forgiving.

God Bless!

I struggled with forgiveness for so long too. Then I remember and have been reminded that I too need to be forgiven for things I have done wrong. The hardest concept for me to remember is that the people who have hurt me are children of God and deserve forgiveness too.

sounds like your loyalty, which is a choice, comes with conditions....I will be loyal and YOU will be eternally grateful. we deal with other faulty humans...they WILL let us down at some point....no one can be dedicated to meeting our expectations at all times. we can become too attached to OUR loyalty, OUR good will.....and forget that others always have free will to act according to their own life's principals....

the only person that our resentments hurt is us. we can choose to hold them or release them. people don't do things TO us....we choose to take what they do personally.

Just because you've forgiven someone, doesn't mean they're trustworthy. Sure, dragging resentment around only hurts the resenter, but to me, the solution is to be realistic about what I can and can't expect from a specific person. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, unless major changes have occurred.

I definitely agree with this.

I do not go to any meetings but I know I would benefit from them. I'm a very shy person and like to be a homebody.

I am also a recovering addict. I was addicted to opioids and went to meeting for a while and started their 12-steps but could not for the life of me get into it.
I have done a lot of reading and talking but it is still so hard.

I can forget things for a while but that's as far as it gets.

Many people have regained their trust in me and I'm grateful for that.
I don't know how they did it

Maybe I'm not supposed to have the people who I can't forgive and trust in my life and that's why I can't forgive or trust them.

It was an epiphany for me to hear that if I forgive someone, I don't have to let them back in my life.

If you have not been wronged, you have no need to forgive. The fact that you have been wronged is a given when it comes to forgiveness. For me forgiveness is not about restoring the offender to the position they held in my life prior to the offense, but about letting go of the hurt & any resentment associated with it.

Forgiveness is an act of will and can be done regardless of the temperature of the heart. I may also need to let go of some expectations. It would be silly to trust an untrustworthy person. It also avails me nothing to hang on to the hurt of betrayal or to be absorbed in anger or resentment at the person who committed the act. I can acknowledge the pain and grief the loss of trust and then be proactive in my recovery process by realizing that everyone including me has character defects. Some people have not dealt with their defects and may never.

That is not my business. My Business is not seeking revenge (two wrongs will never make a right), not requiring amends and not judging another's defects to be "worse" than my own. Have I too not wronged people, was there not a period when I would not have concerned myself with that fact? Have I neglected relationships? Not done what I know I should have done in a situation? Has my HP forgiven me for such acts?

I can turn over whatever Karma or consequences another might face to their HP and seek help from my HP to do so. I can ask for help in healing. I can learn from my misjudgments or the mistakes of others. I can detach & maintain my peace and serenity.

I need not tolerate unacceptable behavior, but I can realize that wallowing in self-pity or holding on to anger will not alter the situation. Not even God can change the past. It can only be accepted as it was. Today I will not place my focus in the past. I have learned and I will focus instead on moving onward and upward.

I just wanted to come here and let the OP know that I understand what their struggle is. I suffer from the same affliction. My AH has always said I was the most loyal person he knew, yet he would take that loyalty and take advantage of it by lying, gas lighting, blaming, etc. I could never understand why what I put out in the world wasn't coming back to me, it was coming back all twisted up and misshapen.

I had to remember, though, that humans are humans just as I am and that they are going to fail, just as I do. Even though I know this, I still struggle with resentments and it's something I am truly working on daily at this point in my own recovery. Taking the focus off of them(whoever they are) and putting it on me and working on my own character defects (of which there are plenty). I have enough work to do, I certainly can't fix someone else.