Guest guest Posted May 10, 2012 Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 , I completely agree with you. Like many people, I think you may be confusing forgiving with forgetting. Forgiveness is about letting go, and is something you do for you. It is a conscious effort to learn from the incident, accept the perceived offender for who they are (their limits), then move on. By doing this, you relinquish their control over your emotions so that the anger/grudge/whatever doesn't poison your spirit (and possibly the relationship). Forgetting is a completely different critter. Once you learn that a person cannot be trusted with X or Y, it would not be in your best interest to forget that. Not forgetting is what prevents you from placing yourself in that vulnerable position again with that person. Ideally, the learning process should involve both parties. However, in the real world it often doesn't work that way. By forgiving the person (yet not forgetting the lesson), you stop dwelling on " fault " and " blame " and move on with your life regardless of what they do (or don't do). It's about taking back your power, and minimizing their ability to hurt you in the present and the future. I realize that in marriage this is difficult, especially if you want (or need) to remain married and your spouse won't accept responsibility for whatever they did that resulted in harm to you. Still, there are things that you can do to minimize the potential for present and future damage to your emotional well-being, and these strategies will be different for each person. I would need to know more about your own personal situation in order to make suggestions for you to consider implementing. [i know you don't want to share the specifics, so I'm not asking... just saying that my ability to help is limited without further information.] Best, ~CJ > Thanks CJ. While I'm not qualified to argue with Buddhism, I do feel > there's also another side to this issue: > > If you let them get away with it once, what's to stop them coming back > and hurting you again? > > Somehow, when hurt or injury occurs, some kind of learning process > needs to take place to avoid a recurrence. " Fault " and " blame " are > likely to be in dispute, so the learning process should involve both > the aggrievor and the aggrievee (two new words I've just made up). > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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