Is it OK to forgive someone who hurt you? (2023)

Is it okay to forgive someone who hurt you?

The act that hurt or offended you might always be with you, but forgiveness can lessen its grip on you and help free you from the control of the person who harmed you. Forgiveness can even lead to feelings of understanding, empathy and compassion for the one who hurt you.

It begins your healing process. It removes the anger and malice from your heart. You're no longer giving someone else authority over your mind and heart. You'll will have a peace of mind.

If forgiving someone guarantees that they're back in your life, and if that puts those around you (like your children or family) at risk. If that person pressures you to partake in negative behaviors, for example, drinking if you're sober. If that person doesn't respect your boundaries.

Forgiveness is an important skill, and it can be positive. It may improve both your mental and physical health and lead to resolution and personal growth in some cases. And even though you've forgiven someone, it doesn't mean you have to forget their offense.

The three types of forgiveness are: exoneration, forbearance and release.

Matthew 6:14-15 (Right after the Lord's prayer, by the way), Jesus tells us: For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Forgiveness makes forgetting easier, according to a study which lends weight to the adage that it is best to do both. Victims of a transgression are more likely to ignore the precise details of what happened if they have pardoned the mistake, psychologists found.

Forgiving is Not Forgetting

You can forgive someone for their offenses against you even if you can't forget. It seems flippant to tell someone to just forgive and let it go when emotional and/or physical trauma has been experienced by the hand of another person.

Forgiveness is necessary for both personal and relationship healing, but trust is not required for personal healing. For some, the choice NOT to trust is a healthier one. You can fully forgive someone and yet never trust them again, but you cannot fully trust someone if you have not forgiven them.

What is something you could never forgive in a relationship?

Constant Lying

If your partner keeps lying to you, he or she can't be trusted, and it's a level of disrespect and shadiness that might not be forgiven in a relationship, says Ziegler.

Forgiveness does not mean forgetting, nor does it mean condoning or excusing offenses. Though forgiveness can help repair a damaged relationship, it doesn't obligate you to reconcile with the person who harmed you, or release them from legal accountability.

True forgiveness is way beyond letting go and involves: Offering something positive. Developing empathy, compassion, and understanding toward the offender.

The highest form of forgiveness is to realise that the other committed a mistake out of ignorance, and having a sense of compassion for them. Forgiving others with a sense of compassion is the best form of forgiveness.

Forgiveness should come when the person who's been hurt has decided to heal. And the forgiver can decide to forgive, but then walk away rather than engage again. And there's nothing wrong with that. Do not feel pressure to stay in a relationship with someone who has broken you.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” “Love prospers when a fault is forgiven, but dwelling on it separates close friends.”

Forgiving and reconciling are not the same. You are free to forgive, if you so choose, even if the other refuses to apologize.

Offering an apology implies that they've harmed another person in some way, which can elicit feelings of shame. People who cannot apologize often have such deep feelings of low self-worth that their fragile egos cannot absorb the blow of admitting they were wrong.

The negative consequences of not forgiving has been documented in studies that show that it can lead to emotional pain of anger, hate, hurt, resentment, bitterness and so on and as a consequence can create health issues, affect relationships and stop us from experiencing the freedom that forgiveness enables.

What are the benefits of forgiving someone?

The good news: Studies have found that the act of forgiveness can reap huge rewards for your health, lowering the risk of heart attack; improving cholesterol levels and sleep; and reducing pain, blood pressure, and levels of anxiety, depression and stress.

Our internal sense of justice goes against the idea of forgiveness; instead, our instinctive reaction is exactly the opposite – we feel the need to make things even. That is what makes forgiveness so hard – it's contrary to our automatic reaction that comes from our deep belief of what's fair.

THE BASICS

When a person "moves on," then that person is going beyond the situation, trying to not let what happened influence emotions, thoughts, or behaviors now. When a person forgives, then that person actually is focusing on the other or others who have been unfair.

Forgiveness is completely separate from forgetting. They must always remain independent. Forgiveness allows you to move forward wholly, but forgetting will keep you in a cycle of now and never enable you to evolve. Never forgetting keeps you from making bad investments in the future.

We unconsciously layer the new hurt to the old hurt, until we are facing something too big and overwhelming to forgive and forget. For example, if our partner leaves us, we can experience feelings of rejection that can pile on top of unresolved experiences of abandonment from childhood.