How to forgive someone who is not sorry
 

How do you do that? I was told that in order to move on I have to forgive AH... Not forgive his actions but forgive the person he was... I just cannot do that and I need to be happy but for myself and dd.... But he has this smug face on him all of the time and he looks at me like he pity's me... It's so hard to forgive?

tangled....I don't think forgiveness is possible, right away....if it ever is to be anyway. Especially---if the thing you are trying to forgive is ongoing and right in your face..
Sometimes, it takes years.... The way I look at it---it is arriving at the accepting of reality....and the knowledge that history is never going to change itself....

dandylion

T-
I am not sure why you need to forgive to move on. I feel time is a huge factor in my recovery. I guess I don't really believe that.

I take one day at a time. I work on myself to be a better person. That's really the only thing we can do for ourselves. The pain subsides and eventually your heart softens to maybe one day forgive.

Don't be so hard on yourself to do that, or have a time frame that only when I forgive I will heal. You will get there, just not today.

Hugs my friend!!

Hi Tangled, a Trappist monk once told me that the first step in forgiveness was to say, "I'm not ready to forgive." You might not be ready for a long time. Also it is something you do (in a way it is more done TO you) for yourself.

Are you still married to and living with AH?

You don't have to forgive him today-one day you'll get there. I realized over time that my anger was not serving any purpose but to keep me held back-and truly felt awful for my ex as his burdens and cross to bear are growing by the day. I do forgive him for what he's done and what he has yet to do. It's helped me move on to peace for me and my girls. Forgiving myself, that's the tougher one (I wrote about this recently). You'll get there....

Peace to you, friend.

It's a process.
It took years for me to truly forgive my mother after she died,
but I was open to it and that seemed to be enough.

Eventually, the anger and pain mostly drained away.
Let it happen and don't force it if it doesn't feel authentic right now.

foregiveness is a funny thing. for example, in the Catholic tradition there is the sacrament of Penance, where a person confesses their "sins" to a priest and receives absolution. sin creates a BARRIER between ourselves and God and our community. we are then pardoned thru God's mercy and the barrier is removed.

that's not the type of forgiveness we are talking about here. you are not a priest absolving HIM of his sin. it's not really even about him.......it's about you no longer having to carry the burden of the hurt and the shame, the guilt, remorse and anger. you "Drop the Rock" so to speak. you learn the lesson, but leave the experience behind.

AND that doesn't happen in a week.......or a month......or a year. it's an ongoing process as we continue to shed our skins and renew.

Forcing forgiveness doesn't work, it has to come naturally on its own when you are ready for it. You are in no way obligated to forgive people for hurting you.

The root purpose of forgiveness is to let go of negative emotions that contend with your ability to heal and be at peace.

Being at peace is the goal, and forgiveness is but a single path that can help you arrive at that goal, but it is not the only path.

How about this . . . forget about forgiveness. Let's talk about acceptance. You accept that he is who he is and that there is nothing you can do about it.You accept that what happened happened. For me, forgiveness means to let go of my own negative emotions. I will not revenge, I will not hope that he gets hit by a train. It does not mean I am going to forget. I've learned a bitter lesson, but there is no need to let the thoughts of him poison my life any longer.

Tangled,

One description I heard that may help: forgiveness is giving up all hope for a better past. In that sense, it's really not forgiving the person in question, but letting go of the hurt associated with their actions. Until you are able to do that, those past actions will always have a measure of control over you and your happiness.

Thank you all for the responses.... Yip I am nowhere near ready to forgive and sometimes I do wish he would just disappear... He is the last person I think about at night and the first person I think about in the morning... He makes me sad one minute and angry the next and I know I am hurting no one but myself... I will just pray for him and I don't even want to do that !

We are still married but I have been living on my own in our house with dd for almost a year now... I asked him to leave last year in the hope that he would get help for his drinking but he just got worse and within a few weeks met someone else and he is now playing happy families with her and her child while I am raising dd on my own.... His lack of empathy for dd and I is unreal and he is very arrogant... It will take a very long time to forgive him

Tangled I have wrestled with this problem myself over the last couple of years. A friend attacked me out of the blue - she knows she was in the wrong but can't bring herself to admit it. She went so far as to justify her actions with mutual friends (who know the real situation - she has history). Long story short, she won't apologise and because of that I'm still angry although I would have forgiven her right away.

So where does that leave me? I can forgive in one sense, that I understand she lost her temper, but I can't pretend it's ok and I don't want to be around her.

With your AH it's a lot simpler to maintain the anger because he's still behaving like an AH. You're probably going to keep getting angry for a while until he loses the power to push your buttons. I'm pretty sure that day will come, just not right away.

T,
I agree about the praying part. Once on the A forum, someone told me to pray for my axh. They felt my anger and felt the only way I could soften, was to pray for him, even though I couldn't at the time. I needed to definetly soften.

When I build up resentment towards his easy, carefree life, and it consumes me, I do pray for him.

We do what ever we can to get through another day. Hugs my friend, I hope you have an awesome day.

I realize today that I need to and should love everyone
but
I don't have to like them.

A pastor that I talked with many years ago seemed to agree with this.

Bob

Hi Tangled,

I agree with everybody here. Forgiveness is only a path. There are many others too. Forgiveness, or any other path you may choose, is a process.

Please note that what I'm gonna say is my opinion, and only an opinion, and I might be mistaken. There are 3 things you said that make me think that you have a lot to do in this process before even getting to the point of contemplation forgiving him.
You said you wanted to be happy for you and your DD. You have every right to be happy, and you deserve happiness. However, you have to keep in mind that your happiness is in your hands, and your hands only. Nobody will make you happy, you have to make yourself happy. It doesn't mean that other people's actions won't have an effect on you, some will have a negative effect on your happiness, others a positive one. But it's still your happiness. You are the only one in control of your life and your actions, and by extension your happiness. I know, it's easier said then done. I still have to remind myself of this daily.

You also said that your AH has a smug look on his face and that you feel he pities you. Here's my question for you: Do you pity yourself? What you feel he thinks of you is not important. What's important is what you think of yourself. There's no point in even thinking of forgiveness is you pity yourself. IMO, pity is one of those feelings that strip us of our power. I personally would work on that, and on forgiving myself first.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I also sense that your are still angry with him. I'm not saying your anger isn't justified, because it is. And anyway, I would be an hypocrite for saying it isn't as I am presently a ball of anger and rage! However, I don't think forgiveness is possible before you've shed all that anger.

Forgiveness is the very last step in the process.

One last thing I'd like to add to my novel-lenght response. You said you and your AH were separated. That you asked him last year to move out. And since then, his drinking hasn't got better and that he's even living with another woman. I'm guessing that this wasn't what you had in mind when you separated? It's none of my business, and you don't have to answer, but why are you still married to him? Clearly, his actions are not showing you that he wants to quit drinking and work on the marriage. You said you wanted and needed to move on, but I don't see how you can do this as the situation seems to keep you in limbo.

I hope you don't take my response the wrong way and that I didn't offend you, as it is not my intent. What you are going through is though, but you are on the right path. Keep working, keep concentrating on you. It will get better!

Hugs

Hi, and hugs to you...

In my experience, the smug look came when he knew he had me controlled. Once I filed for divorce, completed it quickly while he said "what's your hurry" (as he lived with his GF)...then set up my own house with our kids and never looked back except to collect child support...it was ME who gave him the smug look. Because he had nothing over me anymore and I knew who he was. He could no longer have any emotion from me.

Give yourself control over your life and take his emotional control away...whether or not he wears a smug look won't matter to you at that point, because you'll be free. Remaining trapped will only continue to hurt you and keep you from healing.

Just my experience...

^^Wise words. I have come to define forgiveness as nothing more than acceptance of what is & a lack of active resentments/anger over what was.

But that doesn't change what happened or stop me from being angry when those memories arise. It doesn't wipe away all the old feelings & magically make everything easier & smoother - time does that. Watching the next part of the story play out from a distance, does that.

Forgiveness is letting go of the other guy's throat - it's about letting go, for YOU. You'll get there, in your time, when you're ready if you stick to your own side of the street/program. I don't think you can "make" yourself get there any faster than naturally working through the process. :hug:

Praying-I second your words. Thst was my ex too...all about control. I haven't looked back either-no way, no how. Not ever. When you finally see them for who they truly are, you just kind of chuckle at their attempts to bully you-and thank your stars you're gone! T-you'll get to this place....acceptance and freedom and peace....you will!!

Tangled, when you are obsessing about him day and night do you put blame on yourself for asking him to leave? Do you second guess your decision?

When I left a long term relationship I left with allot of self blame and guilt that I really didn't own but was accepting. It took me a long time to work through all of that.