The HOW of forgiveness? Anyone know?

What thoughts does one need to have in order to forgive unbelievably atrocious acts of cruelty and inhuman treatment? Especially when those acts were committed deliberately and consciously?

Well... I don't know as I have the answer to this myself. Perhaps other members will have some insights they can offer. In the meantime though here are links to 6 articles, from PC's archives, on the subject of forgiveness:

What is Forgiveness?

Finding Freedom in Forgiveness

The Challenge of Forgiveness

Forgiveness: Why You Should Consider It and How to Forgive

Forgiveness: Letting Go of Negative Energy

https://psychcentral.com/blog/forgiv...energy-part-2/

Ooh, this could be a doozy of a conversation. Did you have a particular situation in mind when you posed this question? Or are you speaking more broadly, as a way to handle forgiveness throughout one's life?

Either way, I think there are two major factors in one's ability to forgive: Knowledge and willpower.

Knowledge that vengeance is an empty victory. Often, people choose vengeance as a way to help mitigate their emotional pain, and rarely does it solve the problem. For example, a murderer kills your friend, so you kill the murderer to avenge your friend. It won't bring your friend back, and you're still left with the emotional turmoil of losing your friend. On a broader level, a philosophy where vengeance is highly valued can lead to a violent society full of strife and misery. Take the death penalty - there's evidence to suggest that countries and states which use the death penalty have more violent crimes and murders than states that do not.

Willpower to ignore your base instincts. You need to be able to see the issue clearly so that you can work to solve the problem, even if that's merely stopping the cycle of violence. To see the issue clearly, often this means you need to be able to understand the motives of the one who committed the crime.

The Stoics have a lot to say on this subject, and I'd be happy to discuss their thoughts, if you'd like.

Thanks so much!! Very kind of u to post these! I will take a look at the articles when I can! Based on the titles alone, not sure if they’ll cover exactly what I’m looking for... I need to know what thoughts to carry about a person who has committed the unforgivable, in order to forgive and fully let go of the pain they caused. Thank you though, I will look at these and maybe they can help!

Thank you! I am referring to a specific abusive situation where abuse occurred (not physical). So I’m not talking generally.

I need to know how one forgives the deliberate cause of emotional pain, deliberate abuse and deliberate conning, lying and covering up.

Golden_eve, what do you think forgiveness means?

Why do you want to forgive someone's actions if they were cruel and deliberately aimed to harm you?

When thinking of “unbelievably atrocious acts of cruelty and inhuman treatment” I think of Holocaust or Khmer Rouge or Rwandan Genocide etc etc

We lost most of our family in the Holocaust, my great grandparents and all many siblings of my grandparents etc etc my grandparents were the only who survived. I have no intention to forgive what was done to them but we don’t tend to live in anger. We move on and continue surviving and living well being a living proof that attempts to get rid of us obviously didn’t work and never will. The other way to go about it is to channel that negative energy helping others of advocating for other minorities who might be victims of discrimination and potential inhumane treatment.

I don’t believe we need to forgive atrocities but I also don’t believe in vengeance, we could do something productive and positive with that lack of forgiveness such as helping others in need and living good life making difference every day either in our jobs or our families.

Now if you aren’t talking about such extreme cases but just about some random nasty people I tend not to give it much thought.

Previously mentioned atrocities were committed against people’s will and there was no escape and no way to fight.

If it’s just simply not seeing red flags and being in denial consciously or subconsciously allowing bad treatment (none of us is immune to that) then my take on it is to learn your lesson, be smarter next time and do better next time, live your life well, focus on positives and don’t agonize over what was done. Focusing on forgiveness doesn’t serve any purpose for me. I urge to resist rumination over what can’t be changed.

I have to add that if someone you feel you need to forgive is someone in your life and has to remain
that way: a parent with explosive temper or unhelpful sibling then I could see a desire to forgive. If however it’s just some boyfriend who absolutely doesn’t need to be in your life at all, then what’s the point of worrying to forgive him. Possibly it’s better to focus on forgiving yourself for allowing bad treatment and do better next time.

I sometimes wonder if your preoccupation with forgiving men who treated/treat you poorly is due to you not forgiving yourself for allowing it. It’s not as much about forgiving them as about you learning and getting better in recognizing abuse. No need to worry about forgiving them. I also suggest you stop any contacts with exes because it tends to cause all these thoughts (like that ex with cheating and porn issues etc). Let them all go.

Hi Golden_eve, this is a very hard question.
I'm just going to put down some thoughts, I have no answers, living is too messy.

Sometimes I feel I have more idea what forgiveness is NOT rather than what it is.
It is NOT pretending to feel that everything is ok and that you no longer feel hurt.
It is NOT keeping up contact with someone if they deliberately make you suffer.

The problem is that nurturing and feeding resentment and anger will do little more than make you feel awful and grow a stomach ulcer. It harms you and not the perpetrator.
However, you have the right to feel what you feel. Your emotions are for a good reason and you need them.

I like to think of letting go of what the abuse has told us about our worth as a human being which is all lies. The adviser wants you to feel worthless and bad.
You are unique and valuable. You're a human being and therefore precious.
You are strong, or you would not be here reaching out.

If you are out of the abusive situation and you are an adult then in theory though can choose more healthy relationships and choose how you live and who you speak to.

Maybe the unforgivable cannot be forgiven.

Maybe there is a way to let go of bitterness but still be honest that harm was done.

Maybe there is a way to live with the mental injury and look to build a future where that is NOT the important thing about you.

Think of someone who got beaten up armed now walks with a limp. They limp because they hurt but they still try to live as well as they can and do normal things. They can't do everything because of the pain but if they worry about the beating they get more scared and can't do anything. If they go out, with help if they need it, they can make a new life.
The new life is affected because they are hurting but limping is not the most important thing about them and their energy goes more into life than thinking about being beaten.

I feel like I'm writing rubbish because it is so hard to put into words.

All I know is that it is so very very hard to do but also that resentment and revenge/vengefulness makes us sick, physically as well as mentally.

One thing that helps me is to keep repeating to myself that I'm ok (which for me means not evil). I might say "I'm good" but I find that's too hard.
Reminding myself all the time that I'm "good enough" helps me not to focus so much on what I'm feeling about the past. And I may feel a little more able to look forward.

Please understand this is not"the answer" to your question, just some thoughts on an almost impossible question meant kindly.

Be kind to yourself if you can, YOU'RE worth it.

I guess I overstated in my original post. Forgiveness to me means letting go of the anger and pain I feel as a result. Or perhaps mainly the anger and outrage. . I cannot let go of the anger and pain of an abusive relationship. To me it was atrocious and inhuman. To me he’s a monster. I just cannot get over it. No matter what I think or do.

I do forgive myself and have (I think). I just cannot forgive him or let go of my anger.

And thank you all for your kind and thoughtful replies. I’m just very stuck. I want to let it go FULLY so very badly but I just cannot seem to, no matter what thoughts I have.

The poster who mentioned the affirmations.. @Fizzyo? Thank you... I’ve tried that route as well. It’s like I need to hear the affirmation from HIM.

Even therapy isn’t helping me. I’m so stuck!!

I wrote another thread on the topic in the abuse forum. This is copied from my post there:

I get very deeply upset by injustices. And I hold onto an injustice far longer than I should in the eyes of society.

That relationship, he, was unjust towards me.

What gets me the most is in the surface he seems like a very caring, decent and wonderful person. But he’s not. He’s a total con artist and a pathological liar underneath that facade.

Then to learn that while I was stressing about financially supporting both of us that he was secretly buying and using drugs (on MY credit card) while I needed him to get a job ASAP? Then to later tell me that he loved his other ex more????

Yes two years later and I am still beside myself over his behavior. Maybe I’m nowhere near forgiveness.

Here's the history:

I uprooted my whole life to save him from homelessness.

I supported him financially for four months while he supposedly was "looking for a job" to help out

He never got a job, was always in the bathroom when making his "business calls"

I bought him weed every week to help with his nausea (coming off an antidepressant he claimed)

Then I learned recently that in fact, he was charging DXM on my credit card and was high on drugs while he was supposed to finding a job (while I was supporting him)

He was an abusive alcoholic to boot -- would verbally and emotionally abuse me every single time he drank too much

I eventually kicked him out of the apartment and got fed up

We go back together a month later (stupid, I know)

I spent another $200 giving him a bus ride back to his home state because it wasn't going to work out here..

I even convinced his grandmother to take him back in, when she had kicked him out and didn't want to

Then a couple months later, I caught him emotionally cheating on me

So we broke up, and he tells me that he loved his other ex fiance more than me!

I am most exasperated to recently learn that he was using MY debit card WITHOUT asking me to buy drugs while I was stressing about money trying to support the both of us.

The real icing on the cake, after he abused me multiple times when drinking, was when he said he loved his other ex more than me.

I guess what I still feel, and continue to feel is PURE OUTRAGE. I am enraged.

And I am stuck. I cannot get past this at all, no matter what I do.

I am even married now, and I cannot let it go fully. It's not as though it's a constant, but it's there, in the background each and every day haunting me.

And I have made progress since him (meaning my life has progressed). It's now been two years.

And what he said about loving his ex more? That completely denigrated ME, everything I had done to help him AND our entire relationship!!!!

And I am still burning up over the entirety of it all...

And I will never know the truth of the matter (whether he loved her more).

Even if he said it to hurt me, it still denigrates the entire relationship and makes ME look so entirely unimportant & worthless to him, AFTER ALL I HAD DONE TO HELP HIM.

The anger & rage I feel eats me up inside.

Maybe just a guess here. Maybe the one you need to forgive is yourself for letting him treat you that way? Maybe I'm misreading, but I get this tone from your posts here that you're mad at yourself for helping him. And mad at yourself for being fooled by him. Maybe start by forgiving yourself?

I could be way off but I have this little hunch bc you and I are very similar in many ways.

Also...(¹) you dont have to forgive a monster and (²) monsters behave like monsters because they are monsters. It's just their nature. You cant blame them for their nature. You just make sure to stay away once you learn there's a monster there.

Thanks Seesaw. I have done that.. or perhaps not enough? Maybe I'm still not forgiving myself and I don't even realize it? I wrote about it in my journal though for a long time... I forgave myself long ago because I had been very vulnerable, needy and particularly at a low point in my life. I had previously processed those emotions and decided to give myself some compassion over making a bad choice.. that was over a year ago. So I don't know anymore if it's about self forgiveness or just my continued outrage? I JUST learned that he had also stolen money from me, which most certainly resurfaces all the rage I felt before.

Thanks for the clarification. I took a peek at your other post to better understand why you're seeking advice on forgiveness. And yeah, there are a lot of articles expounding on the benefits of "letting go of anger and resentment," but few of them explain how exactly to do that. I suppose it depends on each person, what they need in order to make peace with the situation, but I'll explain how I do it, or how I attempt to do it.

So, a common theme in Stoic philosophy is to focus on what is in your control, and to let go of things which are not in your control, and I've found this very helpful in situations where I've been wronged. Don't dwell on past misdeeds; you no longer have any control over these things, nor do you have any control over your ex's actions in the present. However, you do have control over how you respond to them, what lessons you take from them, and even (to some extent) what emotions arise from their misdeeds.

If I were betrayed by a romantic partner, I would first try to remember that, if I feel no resentment towards him, then he hasn't really harmed me. He's only really succeeded in harming himself, for his wrongdoings have caused his relationship with me to fail. By realizing this, I'm able to let go of that resentment, and then I can begin to see things a little more clearly. It's kind of a weird process because it requires some tricky introspection and cognitive gymnastics.

Once that fog of anger has passed and I can see the issue more clearly, I can respond in a much more effective way. And that's the goal, ultimately, to be able to respond in the best way possible. Anger often gets in the way of that and leads us to do things we regret, which is why we try to let it go as often as possible.

So, basically, focus on the ultimate goal - what can you do to respond to this situation in the best way possible? Maybe that's confronting him about his behavior with a stoic attitude, so that you can clearly tell him where he is wrong (what he does with that information is on him). Maybe it's simply understanding why he's done the things that he's done, perhaps so you're more prepared for such behavior in the future, either from him or others.

I also try to understand that there are no monsters in this world. Seeing him as a monster makes him bigger and more intimidating than he really is, like he's unstoppable, like he has no weaknesses. But he's just a man.

When I suggested that you have to forgive yourself for allowing bad treatment and doing all these things for him, you said you forgave yourself. But it doesn’t sound like you did. Honestly. You sound like deep inside you are upset that you did all these things for a guy who wasn’t worth it. But you aren’t alone in it. We can all relate in one way or the other wasting time or money or whatever else on wrong people at some point.

The thing is you can’t expect him to be a nice guy and you can’t expect of him to apologize. You know that fable about frog and a scorpion. Scorpion bites because that’s what they do. This guy is an addict and abuser and uses women because that’s what he does. You don’t go to bread shop to buy veggies because they aren’t selling them. You don’t go for answers to people who can’t and won’t provide them

And again my favorite quote of my t: it’s a waste of time trying to understand why people do what they do as you’ll never have an answer. All you could do is focus on why you do what you do, that’s all that you can control.

Theoretical makes really good points re stoicism. . Stoic philosophy gets me through life. Control what you can control, and go off the rest.

Are you really hurt because he did all that terrible stuff, or are you more hurt because he said he loved his ex more than you?

Obviously all that other stuff is pretty horrible behavior, but clearly at some point it was not, on its own, an absolute dealbreaker.

It seems like the real thing that pushed you into this level of anger is to think that after all that, maybe he didn't love you as much as you believed he did.

I mean, you seem like a person who would move mountains for someone that you loved. You must have really wanted to help him.

It's one thing to find out someone was taking advantage of your time or effort or money, but it's really a whole other thing entirely to find out that someone was taking advantage of your heart.

It seems like you only put up with all that stuff as long as you still believed he loved you. Maybe that is part of the problem here. Do you perhaps have a tendency to be self-sacrificing in order to feel worthy of other people's love?

(I have this tendency myself and have been similarly hurt so... I hope I don't sound like I'm coming from a place of judgment.)