Reply to The hardest thing you've forgiven?

Forum Index » Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)

Reply to "The hardest thing you've forgiven?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Forgave him for his infidelity and massive lies to me.

Forgiveness however does not mean that one has to continue to extend trust, to remain in relationship, to forget, or to respect.

I was surprised at the extent to which “forgiveness” was a proxy (by him and by therapists) to force me to do one of these other verbs - trust, stay, forget, respect.

I forgave DH for the infidelity and lies because I came to see how his then undiagnosed mental illness and upbringing as a child of an alcoholic led him to behave the way he did.

But, since he never stopped lying or fooling around, he was never able to earn my trust again.  Since his behavior involved addictive use of porn and prostitutes, which really betrayed his fundamental lack of concern for women and his willingness to abuse and use others to meet his needs, I was never able to respect him again as a partner or a father.   As result of all that, I was not able to stay with him.

Of course, the whole experience was so traumatic, I will never forget it.  Ten years later I still have occassional flashbacks and triggers.

Forgiveness is a great thing when it happens organically, but be careful that the demand for forgiveness isn’t being wielded as a weapon to force the victim to continue to endure abusive and inappropriate behavior. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics