I guess every now and then the threads roll around to "How do I forgive?" or "Why do I still resent my FWS?" or other questions along those lines.

I've been around here awhile (around 4 and a half years). Over my lifetime, I have had some "opportunities" sent my way to practice resenting others, and also to practice forgiving. I guess I have to look at it that way, because it's the way things have worked out in my life. If you are a Christian person and lived my life, you might say that God had a plan in sending me these "opportunities". If you were of other religions or beliefs, you might say that the universe had a plan to teach me what it was I needed to understand about life. (Whatever your belief system, I respect it because I have studied many approaches to religion and spirituality, and all have offered me something toward this "learning process", to tell you the truth.)

I've spoken some about my history here. My past contains rapes and long-term molestation in my childhood, physical and mental abuse (felony level) as a child, and the multiple affairs of my husband. My marriage also has been scarred by my own ONS. I have also been involved prior to my marriage in a relationship in which I was the victim of a physically abusive lover, which involved police action and protective custody placement for me, as well as stalking by him.

I also was an alcohol abuser during my later teen years. I have been homeless twice in my life, once in fourth grade, and once as a young mother.

I suppose you can say I have run the gauntlet of just about everything a person could "never want to experience".

In the end, I have come out the other side of my adversities with LOTS of experience - and somehow I think I have made it with my psyche fairly intact. At least I kept my sense of humor (there are those who might disagree.... )

My story does contain some hard truths.

The actual and final truth that saved me each and every time?


Forgiveness.

I just wanted to say that. In spite of what I have endured, I managed - through forgiveness - to repair the relationship with my father, and my husband. I actually can face one of the rapists without any emotional upheaval whatsoever, because I have forgiven him (he "was" a family member, and although technically still is, my ties to him are no longer - in my mind - valid). If I were to ever see the other rapist, I would not care, because I understand his brokenness, too.

As far as the other offenses, the abuse by the boyfriend, he too was broken.


And resentment - maybe I view this in a strange way, but resentment is something like carrying a desire for some sort of "evenness" to me.

How could it ever be "even" for me?

It couldn't. I cannot choose anything else but to forgive it - to be done.

There is nothing to make even, as no restitution could possibly make things "even" for me.

I guess this is just the way my world has come to be understood in my head. I see the brokenness - the complete and utter brokenness - of those who have sinned against me.

And in the moment of my realization of their brokenness, I fully understand that I actually am somehow stronger, somehow in the position to have mercy, for they are pathetic in their sin.

It is with this thought, in seeing their true brokenness and pathetic crisis before God, that I can only forgive and let them figure out how they will right things for themselves.

It is not for me to repair, and they cannot make it "even". I do not want anything from them - because

they already have NOTHING.

In their brokenness, I see that they have nothing.

And I actually have my own power, my own worth, my own sense of connectedness to God, through forgiving them.


I hope this makes sense.

Schoolbus

Thank you for posting this. It does make sense.
Nesre

Thanks for the post, I haven't felt a lot of resentment myself or that getting even feeling.......I don't get how that would help in any way.....would I not be the same as the one who did me wrong........I couldn't live with myself then.
I feel hurt by my husband's affair....I know he was broken himself and that he just was responding to his own hurt and guilt. I think he now knows how selfish his act has been to me, his boys and the OW and her family......I worry he will never forgive himself........
For me who has also lived with some loss in my life I have learned I have to forgive to survive and I have to understand that God has a plan for all of us even if we don't know what that is.....
I hang on to that and I trust that everything will work out....
Inner strength is something you do learn about yourself and you learn that you just can't control what anyone else does and you learn that you certainly are not responsible for anyone else's actions........
I live my life and make my decisions for me and I try to accept that those around me do the same for their reasons....
We are all the same but so different, what is important to one might not be for someone else, we just need to respect that it is for them and be supportive....
I don't know what the purpose of all we live through and for some of us it seems like a tougher road but I do know there is a reason it is all happening.....
I trust and believe that and it keeps me strong and sane....

When it comes to forgiving, it took me a very long time to learn that lesson the first time around.

I would pray at night that God would take the memories away. I would beg for that.

I would pray at times that I would never have to see my Dad.

I would pray that somehow my life would magically change.


God had other plans.


Ultimately, I had an epiphany regarding this life of mine, and the brokenness of those who had sinned against me. That they were so much more broken than I was. How could I not see that I was stronger than they were? Of course I was - and in that understanding, I had no choice but to forgive them.


There are other reasons for forgiving, which are much more persuasive. The most outstanding to me is this:


If you are a Christian, you are asked to follow the teachings of Christ, to be as Christ-like as you can.

If this man asks Christ's forgiveness, Christ would immediately forgive - correct?

I had not a choice but to forgive my husband from what I have learned. He was remorseful, he was repentant, he was willing to do what it took to make amends and not repeat the sin. He was broken. In understanding of the teaching of Christ, and my recognition of this man's brokenness, my forgiveness was the logical choice.

What about the other sinners - those who did not appear remorseful, those who never admitted to me their sin, the child rapists, for example? Why did I forgive them?

They are so broken, so pathetic, so far into the depths of their own depravity, that their crimes against me and my pain over it were but a grain of sand in the bucket of the judgements they will answer as they stand before God. I recognized that I could hold onto my anger and pain, and allow them to remain in my life, constantly having a hold on me in this way - being an anchor to me, chaining me to those events and defining me forever - OR....I could release this by forgiving them and realizing who they really were:

broken, pathetic, powerless, weak, depraved, pitiful, useless men.

In that forgiveness, I released the incidents, the men, their control over me, the constant memories and replays of the events, the pain, the worry, and these mens' victories of power over me. That forgiveness set ME free.


And it allowed me to completely regain WHO I AM.

In that moment, the world regained its color, smell, sound, and glory.

Truth.


SB

I did a search for forgiveness and resentment and found this thread buried. I found it very helpful and thought it could use a bump.

bump

This has to be the greatest thread on forgiveness that I have ever read. What insite! Thank you.

I have considered some things on forgiveness.

A few more thoughts:


It is hard to forgive yourself. The one thing that you have to remember is that if you are a Christian, you need only ask God one time to forgive you. He forgives you on that first request. After that, the problem with forgiving yourself is YOUR problem, not God's. So you don't need to keep begging Him to forgive you. (Can you imagine being God in this? He's up there saying, "I already forgave you already!!! For the love of ME, you're forgiven already!:)")

You need to ask Him for help with figuring out how you go about with the next steps in the process, and getting to work on those: acts of restitution, acts of apology, confession, changing yourself to prevent future repetition of the behavior, understanding why you have done this in the first place, etc.

If you are on the side of this where you are faced with a decision of whether you "should" or "should not" forgive, I always think of this as something that unfolds. It isn't something that is a decision you sit on the couch and say, "okay, I have to decide right now, will I or won't I forgive?". Forgiveness kind of creeps up on you, when or if you are ready. I think a person has to understand, though, that it does not mean that it includes a restoration of a relationship. You can forgive someone, and never speak to that person again.


You can be on a ship, weigh anchor, and never return to that port of call again.

The weight of the anchor is no longer your burden, just the same. You need not return to pick it up.




Love may be unconditional, but relationships ARE conditional.



SB

sb, as usual you are spot-on.