Forgiveness

[WRITE]

I won't interrupt the thread on theories of Narcissism but someone just posted this on forgiveness, I wanted to think more about it:

An unforgiving person should
be someone who is easily offended, highly invested in collecting
on debts owed to the self, and determined to assert his or her rights
in a principled effort to maintain self-respect.

I guess in the above statement the word 'unforgiving' might well be replaced by 'unhealed', but is the opposite true?

eg a forgiving person is not easily offended, not invested in collecting on debts owed to self and not determined to assert his or her rights in a principled effort to maintain self-respect....

I don't think that works, the last bit. I am determined to assert my rights, albeit in a gentle way by choice. But I will be forceful if necessary, I will go away if I have to!

That doesn't make me unforgiving. I think forgiveness is like everything else, it has its boundaries.

If someone has perpetrated great abuse on me I should not expect myself to be forgiving as in open to a new relationship with them; if that someone has demonstrated their unwillingness or inability to change then I want to prioritise my healing over theirs. That's self-care.

And I am extremely forgiving with my ex as y'all know. But there are boundaries and limits, more so as time goes on and I see again and again the NPD.

Even if he were to recover and become his best self I would be unlikely to forgive to the extent of let's start over, to love him uncconditionally. I forgive within a context that is all. And mostly because I don't want to hold on to anger or bitterness.

What do other people think?

[isittoolate]

and determined to assert his or her rights
in a principled effort to maintain self-respect.

hi Write.

I say that is for everyone. THat is what I am trying to do! Healthy people do it!

An unforgiving or healed person likley fits this part:
[quote]should (ought)
be someone who is easily offended, highly (and be) invested in collecting
on debts owed to the self[/quote] oh that won't go purple because of my strikethroughs

OK! That reminds me that I totally dislike the word SHOULD. It is a controlling word--Think about it!!  OUGHT is better but still not perfect for the meaning.

Y&R is on and I forget where I was going

BBL
Izzy

[Hopalong]

Hi Write,
IMO, forgiving has NOTHING to do with contact.

You can forgive someone without ever seeing or speaking to them. Reconciliation is when the forgiveness leads to a renewed relationship. With many Ns, that's not possible, and often, not advisable.

To conflate forgiveness and reconciliation is to deny yourself the healing that forgiveness brings you.

You can always tell another, if you have a need to, I forgive you. But if that's going to mean that the other pounds on your boundaries henceforth because they do not know that forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation, best to do it privately, for your own well-being.

It's not about rescuing anyone else or abandoning your self-care, not at all.

love
Hops

[Margo]

Hi Write,
IMO, forgiving has NOTHING to do with contact.

You can forgive someone without ever seeing or speaking to them. Reconciliation is when the forgiveness leads to a renewed relationship. With many Ns, that's not possible, and often, not advisable.

To conflate forgiveness and reconciliation is to deny yourself the healing that forgiveness brings you.

You can always tell another, if you have a need to, I forgive you. But if that's going to mean that the other pounds on your boundaries henceforth because they do not know that forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation, best to do it privately, for your own well-being.

It's not about rescuing anyone else or abandoning your self-care, not at all.

love
Hops

Ya... what Hops said.  Margo

[tayana]

An unforgiving person should
be someone who is easily offended, highly invested in collecting
on debts owed to the self, and determined to assert his or her rights
in a principled effort to maintain self-respect.

I agree with this statement.  My Nmom is the most unforgiving person I know, and she holds a grudge so tight it squeals.  She is easily offended, and everything revolves around appearance.  She doesn't want people over to the house unless it's spotless.  If we have out of town company, she wants things repainted and every problem around fixed.  It doesn't matter if she's been complaining about these things for months, she'll wait until a week before the event and then demand that all of that work gets done.  And she won't be happy unless she does it all herself.  The only time she'll be remorseful is when she's caught in a lie and has to do something to regain her self-respect.

Forgiveness has nothing to do with contact, like hops said.  Forgiveness can be done without ever speaking to the person.  I forgave my son's father for walking out on me without ever seeing or speaking to him.  Now, we do speak a little now, but not much.  I've not invited him back into my life.

I think another major part of forgiveness has to do with forgiving yourself.  We've been hurt, and I know I carry around a lot of feelings of shame because I am angry and resentful towards both my parents, my Nmom and my enabler father.  Part of my healing process is going to be saying its okay that I don't want to be around them that much.  It's okay to be angry with them.  And I have to forgive myself for putting up with what I have for so long.  It's my life, not theirs.

[teartracks]

Hi,

A friend recently emailed me this definiion of forgiveness.  I think it was taken from a book  Free of Charge by Miroslav Volf.

Forgiveness by definition has two components:  1) naming the offense, revealing it to the offender, and 2) freely choosing to give the offender the gift of forgiveness.  This is not the same as ignoring the offense, or stewing about it silently, or letting it roll off your back.  It is saying, "you have wronged me in these specific ways, and I choose give you a gift by not counting the wrongdoing against you."  The offender knows what they have done, and they know that you know it, and they know that you have forgiven them.  The rest is up to them - between them and God.  By doing this, rather than demanding retribution, or storing up resentment which then gets dumped back on the offender or on someone else, you are effectively breaking the chain of evil.  It goes no further than you.  Leo Tolstoy said, "By forgiving a person, one 'swallows' up evil into oneself and thereby prevents it from going further."

tt

[camper]

An unforgiving person should
be someone who is easily offended, highly invested in collecting
on debts owed to the self, and determined to assert his or her rights
in a principled effort to maintain self-respect.

I think I am the one who went to the website Michael suggested and found this.  This made perfect sense to me.  My H is so like this.  He is so easily offended and he collects this stuff from me and saves it as a future weapon.  In his entitlement, he demands from me, a reaction that will get him respect.  He will use emotional blackmail to get me to apologize and tell him how wrong I was and how right he was.  Write, you are looking at it from the victim stance.  In an "N", there is the entitlement where the "N" is determined to assert his rights with the end result being that of forced respect which would give him self-respect.  Am I making any sense?

[mum]

This issue of forgiveness is one I think about a lot. The idea of forgiving and keeping distance and boundaries (or in my case actual, geographic distance) seems to be something we all see....

I forgive my exNh because he is human, and I am human. Our humanity (and our children!) is what we have in common. Being human is not easy, and we are all in this together, and at our essence we are the same. My ex may not know that, or ever see that, and because of his disconnect from this basic truth (which I believe is the issue with N's), he is someone I do not like, and can barely even deal with. I keep my boundaries with him, because it is truly the most compassionate thing to do....for him....for me...for my kids.

But I forgive him, because although he acts like he knows exactly what he is doing (his "cockiness", his cruelty, manipulations, etc), he truly has NO IDEA what this all REALLY means (big picture stuff). To not forgive him for his floundering attempt at humanity is to also not forgive myself for mine. I don't need to be right and him wrong. I know how I want to live and love, and that is my guide. He can do as he wishes, so I do what I can to show my children how to love, while allowing them to walk their own path (knowing they will learn from him as well). That part is easily said, not so easily done.

My exN is one of the most important teachers of my life, as my difficult relationship with him is all about lessons in pain and boundaries and forgiveness.

[michael]

I won't interrupt the thread on theories of Narcissism but someone just posted this on forgiveness, I wanted to think more about it:

An unforgiving person should
be someone who is easily offended, highly invested in collecting
on debts owed to the self, and determined to assert his or her rights
in a principled effort to maintain self-respect.

I guess in the above statement the word 'unforgiving' might well be replaced by 'unhealed', but is the opposite true?

eg a forgiving person is not easily offended, not invested in collecting on debts owed to self and not determined to assert his or her rights in a principled effort to maintain self-respect....

I don't think that works, the last bit. I am determined to assert my rights, albeit in a gentle way by choice. But I will be forceful if necessary, I will go away if I have to!

That doesn't make me unforgiving. I think forgiveness is like everything else, it has its boundaries.

If someone has perpetrated great abuse on me I should not expect myself to be forgiving as in open to a new relationship with them; if that someone has demonstrated their unwillingness or inability to change then I want to prioritise my healing over theirs. That's self-care.

And I am extremely forgiving with my ex as y'all know. But there are boundaries and limits, more so as time goes on and I see again and again the NPD.

Even if he were to recover and become his best self I would be unlikely to forgive to the extent of let's start over, to love him uncconditionally. I forgive within a context that is all. And mostly because I don't want to hold on to anger or bitterness.

What do other people think?

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE HAS JESUS SAYING IN LUKE 17:3
if your brother offends you, rebuke him AND WHEN HE REPENTS forgive him....
the rebuke is out of love in order to help bring the person to a positive change thru repentance...
even tho by discernment one knows that the other might successfully bring more troubles upon oneself for rebuking them...
that they might use what they know of the world to turn others against one for doing the right thing...
that they might even know some of our weaknesses and vulnerabilities better than we do ourselves
and to make one hesitate from doing the right thing they give off an aura of emotional intimidation
that you might not even fully recognize how it affects you for giving a more real and true emotional response to them
and tho they might  or might not believe that they are being more emotionally true than you are to them...
the narcissist would tend to think they are more emotionally true mostly and the
malignant narcissist or psychopath more likely knows they are using emotional blackmail and threats on the other more clearly.

now the context in luke is if it is someone who is a christian many want to say
and perhaps they are right in that context
but still i think there is a greater context
where brother is symbolic of someone who consciously [male being symbolic here of the active conscious mind in both sexes]
trying to take advantage of you in a way that is abusive to your spiritual integrity so as to rob you of your soul energy
in a way that will serve their own self aggrandizement.
one does not hate them for that seeing as they have lost their true understanding
of how such a kind of spiritual rebellion can be more damaging to their soul
but also that it can be dangerous to the energy of other souls who let themselves get caught up in their soul vampirish ways....
and the best response is rebuke even tho the other might try to crucify them on a cross:) hmmm am i christian
suffering for the sake of righteousness is part of the sermon on the mount and i think there is no way around
that for those who are true seekers...and no way around too suffering for the sake of others...but a need to be careful of not falling into a lessening of one's good energy by way of a false matyr complex....

[poetprose]

>>if your brother offends you, rebuke him AND WHEN HE REPENTS forgive him<<<

I understand brother to mean all people, we don't know who is christian or who is not, it is not like we can go arround and ask people if they are a christian or not , then decide based on the above to forgive or not forgive ( as if we had a choice)

still it is important  --> WHEN HE repents forgive him......... AMEN!



Rumi quote: Beyond all our right doings and wrong doings there is a field I will meet you there!

[poetprose]

>>>I have a child who is locked in unforgiveness.  His lack of forgiveness of his dad is spilling over into every other relationship that he has.  It causes him to latch onto some people, whom he views as worthy, and to reject others whom he views as having hurt him--either by their actions or their lack of attention.  He has rejected people who have been very kind to us because they didnt take a personal interest in him, individually.  He has a giant forcefield erected around him that is angry and offputting.  <<<<

oh boy you have described my step son to a T!!!!

this is exactly what he has done, ONLY what I see happening is , this unforgivness of his  has turned him into the wounder as well as the wounded, but he just doesn't see that, or he sees it and deny's it.....  the problem with him being "an Accountant" is that while he is keeping all these accounts on his dad...... these accounts have stacked up so high, effecting him to be able to see the accounts he is doing to others arround him............... and so he is able to justify his actions

[Portia]

Hi Write

Right now I don't think forgiveness is an easy conscious choice. Maybe it's a conscious choice to want to forgive, to work for it, but the thing itself.....it's not like an intellectual decision? Forgiveness, for me, is a lack - a lack of wanting any revenge, apology or anything. Forgiveness is unconditional. i don't think it's linked to boundaries. I can forgive someone but still be wary of them and maintain my boundaries. Forgiveness seems to involve a lack of investment, a lack of caring about how the other person relates to you/oneself.

Hmmm maybe I'm talking here about something different than forgiveness? i don't know.

or.................what preceeds forgiveness? What needs to exist before forgiveness is necessary? A perceived injury i guess.

So..........I suppose it depends on what we see as injuries to ourselves? How personally we take things.

ramble ramble!

An unforgiving person should
be someone who is easily offended, highly invested in collecting
on debts owed to the self, and determined to assert his or her rights
in a principled effort to maintain self-respect.

sounds about right to me.

If one has to maintain self-respect through principled efforts to assert rights:

why does self-respect need maintaining in the first place? isn't self-respect something that is bedrock...it can be built, but maintained, once built?  maintained suggests it is false.

principled efforts....based on (external?) principle and not on self-respect?

assert rights....okay, sometimes with twerps with need to assert rights: "I was first in this queue" but otherwise, we own our rights, we have our rights, they are part of us - we don't need to be determined to assert them in order to bolster up some facade

anyway that's what I think I think right now, but it's open to change

[axa]

just a quick post on this topic have not had time to read thread in depth.

I am working on forgiving myself for not caring for myself.  I believe when I can do this the Ns in my life are not an issue they just drift away like smoke.  By not forgiving myself I am tied to them and give them power over me.  I have no interest in reconcilling with an abuser but I do want to experience my own forgiveness

axa

[Portia]

absolutely Axa
how do I forgive myself? i understand and come to accept how I was tied to them: i see them realistically and forgive myself for my part in the dance, I become detached from the 'me' that was dancing and it/she becomes - irrelevant to who i am now, irrelevant in as much as it is not today, although it made up what is today. There is no shame and no attachment. I'm talking a lot of garbage today. For  a change

[Overcomer]

DO NOT FORGIVE AND IT IS LIKE DRINKING POISON AND WAITING FOR THE PERSON YOU REFUSE TO FORGIVE TO DIE!  I HAVE LEARNED THIS THE HARD WAY.  My life has been one turmoil after another because my anger and unforgiveness turned to bitterness.  I have carried extra weight, depression, and all lines of other ailments all because I HAD to harbour unforgiveness!