How to Forgive?

[Tincup]

Hi,

It has been a long time since I posted on this forum.  Yes, I recycled for the XX time (I honestly can't remember how many).  This time she ended things out of the blue because of an issue she has with projection (her problem is MY problem).

Anyway, my question is how do you forgive?  I hear that forgiveness is the way to move on, and release you.  I am frustrated, angry, sad, etc but this time I am done.  But I want to know how to forgive so I can move on.  I have read things and they just don't seem to go into how to forgive.  This whole thing is so crazy I also am not sure what I am forgiving if that makes any sense.  Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated.

[BuildingFromScratch]

You forgive by understanding that her poor behavior reflects on her own self worth and not yours. That you mistakenly got your self worth from her instead of from yourself. And just understanding that they are children emotionally and will and have suffered probably more than you ever will. They have been tortured their entire life because they got rejected early and so they rejected themselves and never really know themselves or others in any way except "you good, you bad, I can't be bad, can I? please mommy don't say I'm bad!" It's sad that I keep pretending she's an adult, but the truth is she's not. She's just more dangerous because she is in an adult body with an above average intelligence.

[seeking balance]

Great Question!

Forgiving is 2-fold with this for me - forgive ex, but also forgive myself.

For me, the book The Shack helped me put it into perspective. Sometimes bad things happen, that anger is important in detaching, but it will eat us alive if we let it.  I forgave through a lot of tears... .and it is a practice/process not an event for me.

For me, this falls into a spiritual process (not religious) - letting go.

Big question - how have you forgiven in the past?

[Regular_Joe]

I'd venture to say that regarding forgiveness, the "How" is often the least difficult part about it (you don't even need your exBPD to do it)... .it's the "Why" that is contentious for most.

I apologize; I'm not sure how to link to another thread, but check out the one I posted Nov 2 (maybe Nov 3) entitled "Forgive your BPDex?" There's a link in there that might help you wrap your head around the whole forgiveness thing, as well as some great replies by other members. This is an ongoing struggle for many here, so I'm sure you can find additional posts on the topic if you keyword search for "forgiveness" or "forgive".

Adding to SuperiorOutlook's excellent points - remember that forgiveness is ultimately for your own well being... .not your ex-partner's.

Hope that helps!

[Tincup]

How have I forgiven in the past?  That is an outstanding question... .probably with time.  But I have to say the difference between forgiving other people is that the circumstances were more black and white (bad analogy in the case).  For example my ex wife had an affair which led to the end of the marriage.  There was a definitive cause which ended things.

So maybe i need closure, not necessarily to forgive.  Everything is so much different in this relationship because it makes so little sense.  My exUBPDgf would not rage at me in person, only on text or email.  I could always sense when it was coming because she would almost detach herself.  She would say nothing was wrong, and within 24 hours boom.

Maybe closure and forgiveness in this case go hand in hand, not sure how to get there.  I always need to MAKE SENSE of things, but I can't here.  

[DownandOut]

I don't believe you always have to forgive to move on. The truth is, some of the things that were done to us are unforgivable. That doesn't mean we must feel and hold on to anger, hatred, sadness or contempt, etc., but we can still move forward simply by understanding why we were treated the way we were and accepting it. You don't need to forgive someone that has hurt you, but you must forgive yourself for anything you might hold yourself responsible for in the r/s or it's end.

[willbegood]

This whole thing is so crazy I also am not sure what I am forgiving if that makes any sense. 

Yes it makes complete sense!

I always believed and still do believe my ex was a good person. Unfortunately BPD is controlling her life and she can't control the things she did to me.

I don't know if I'd say I forgive her, rather I don't blame her and accept she had no real control over what she did to me.

Now if someone brings her name up I'm not bitter or angry. I'm pretty much at peace with myself about the whole situation now.

[Ironmanrises]

For me, i cant even forgive myself. I knowingly let her back in knowing she was going to leave me again. That is a betrayal of myself, my very core, against myself. I cant forgive my exUBPDgf because her disorder will not allow her to give me a genuine, lasting apology for horrendous behavior directed at only me, the person who did nothing to her except try to love and understand her. I was able to forgive previous ex's(she was only one with a PD), because they actually attempted to part ways in a respectable and honorable way. A clear distinction. One with enormous ramifications. How to forgive? For me, there is no forgiveness. Just my perspective.

[Tincup]

IRONMANFALLS-Pretty much exactly how I feel as well.  What are you doing to move past this and not feel so much pent up stress/anxiety/frustration/ etc?

[seeking balance]

By becoming a student of the disorder itself, I was able to detach enough to where I could see this was not done to hurt me... .it is from a mentally ill person.

By radically accepting BPD facts and mental illness, I was able to grieve, deal with my own hurts and let go and forgive.

Forgiveness doesn't mean you forget or that you even have to be around the person... .it means letting that heaviness out of your own gut.

[Gidget]

I forgave all the hurtful things my daughter has said to me for so many years. I forgave immed. all the times she has accused me of not being there for her when I ran the minute she called me. When she was younger it was easier but now as adult it gets much harder to deal with the what I call "Unprovoked attacks" I forgive her, now all I feel is the hurt. I am trying very hard to understand. I have finally began to see where this is coming from. I now can put a word on the problem and understand after the attacks and she would call and say I am a rotten daughter or I said those things out of frustration. I now realize I was the sounding board for what is bottled up inside that she is unable to get out. It still just hurts.

[Ironmanrises]

Tincup,

I am closing in on 5 months of NC after being left for a second time by my exUBPDgf. The hurt is still there. I am slowly healing(at the speed of a snail). Besides crying my eyes out to release the pent up frustration/anger of allowing this to be done to me, i come on this forum. A refuge where i am understood in the simplest of ways, in which i am simply heard. My panic/anxiety has subsided a few weeks into NC. I have been learning a new language(Japanese) to distract/occupy my time from the ruminations, but that has its limits. I have yet to properly face myself in the fact that i betrayed myself as much as she ended up betraying me by leaving me again. This forum has been the most helpful in terms of what i have at my disposal.

[damage control]

I tend to agree with D+O:

I don't ever see me forgiving what he has done ... I don't think I should. I don't believe in holding onto hurt/anger/resentment ... that will fade, it is already but, really ... forgiving his transgressions ... .probably not ever.

I had a (very) toxic relationship about 10 years ago that was crazymaking and ended in (him) cheating etc ... he gaslighted and did a bunch of PD-ed behaviours - I have NEVER forgiven him but ... I rarely think of him and when I do it is with indifference,but he is not one of my ex's that I will ever, EVER have anything to do with again (I am in touch with a couple of ex's and we have a good RS). I never forgave - but I forgot and moved on ...

[iluminati]

In my experience, forgiveness is a selfish act.  It's something that one decides 100% to do on their own.  Only you can say when the time is right to move on.  However, you also have to make that effort to move on from what happened.  It's hard work, but the results are truly and deeply worth it. 

[santa]

I don't see any need to forgive them. They're terrible people. Their actions are inexcusable. Whether they have a personality disorder or can't help it or whatever, they still do awful things to you.

As for forgiving yourself, that's the tough part. Obviously they tricked you. They made you think they're this great person that you can share your life with. Then, they terrorize you with their craziness until they decide they're done and abandon you at a moment's notice and go on their merry way. The way I've forgiven myself is that I had no idea she was a psycho. I'd never dealt with mental illness before. I didn't get out when I started to see red flags because frankly the whole thing was exciting. You really don't realize how bad it is until you're so far down the rabbit hole that you can't get out unscathed. Unless you're a doctor or psychiatrist, it's hard to imagine that these people are out there or how they behave. The best way to forgive is to just chalk it up to being duped and not knowing what you were getting yourself into and learning from it.

[Learning_curve74]

Forgiveness means giving up all hope of a better past.

I just saw the above quote from Landrum Bolling on Marsha Linehan's website. Dr. Linehan is the psychologist with BPD who developed Dialectical Behavior Therapy. She also had BPD, so it is quite amazing that she had the self-awareness to develop a therapy to treat it! I imagine her self-forgiveness helped give her the strength to create DBT.

Anyhow, reading that quote just floored me. Maybe we should call this "radical forgiveness". The common sense of forgiveness is to say that everything is alright almost like we give it our approval. But there are bad things that other people do to us that we cannot and should not ever approve of. This forgiveness -- giving up hope of a better past -- is a lot like "radical acceptance" where we see clearly and understand what is reality. We see the past as the past without judging it needing to be better.

Like they say, "Let go or be dragged." Maybe forgiveness is just a way to stop being dragged by the past?

[goldylamont]

hopefully all of you will forgive me for posting all these quotes!  . this book and perspective are what speaks to me the most about forgiveness. very powerful. i love this book  . hope you all enjoy:

(italics/bolding are mine, parts that i liked)

Real forgiveness isn’t a polite and teary gesture, made with a bowed head and demurely folded hands. Real forgiveness would never, ever say, “I see that you were doing the best you knew how, and I forgive you.” No! Real forgiveness has an entirely different take on the subject. Real forgiveness does not make excuses for other people’s improper behavior. Real forgiveness does not tell itself that everyone always does the best they know how, because that’s preposterous. Do you always do your best? Do I? Of course not! We all make mistakes, and we all do things we’re not proud of. Real forgiveness knows this; it doesn’t set itself up as an advocate for the tormentors in your life. It doesn’t make excuses for the disruptive behavior of others—because that sort of nonsense only increases your cycling between stages one and two.

Real forgiveness says, “I see that you were doing what worked for you at the time, but it never, ever worked for me!” Real forgiveness knows that real wounding took place; therefore, real fingers have to be pointed so that real movement through the underworld of suffering can occur. When that real movement has been made, real forgiveness raises you up off the ground, wipes off the spit, pulls the twigs out of your hair, and testifies, “You can’t hurt me anymore! It’s over and I’m free! You have no power in my life!” Real forgiveness is a process that creates true separations from torment and tormentors, and true separations require the proper application of boundary-restoring anger, or they won’t mean a thing. When your anger-supported boundaries are restored again, forgiveness will be as easy as falling off a log. Forgiveness naturally follows the honorable restoration of your sense of self. Anger and forgiveness are *not* opposing forces; they are completely equal partners in the true healing of your soul.

When people hear that forgiveness is good and anger is bad, they generally do that first kind of demure, head-bowing forgiveness. It looks very evolved and saintly on the outside, but it has very bad effects in the inner world. Forgiveness performed from the unconscious position of stages one and two does two things: it excuses the behavior of others, and it reduces our ability to be conscious and present with the pain we truly feel. When we rush to forgiveness, we lose our connection to our original wounds. Forgiving before we’ve fully engaged with our wounding only short-circuits the healing process. We tell ourselves we’re done because we’ve forgiven, but the wound and all of its attendant emotions only moves into the shadow. The pain goes underground—and then it goes haywire.

McLaren, Karla (2010-06-01). The Language of Emotions (pp. 119-120). Sounds True. Kindle Edition.

[goldylamont]

okay okay i couldn't help myself, here's a couple more quotes.

Ironman, I was thinking about you when (re)reading the end of the chapter. I think your (our!) anger is part of the process of forgiving by restoring us to ourselves before the ordeal:

Anger and forgiveness are not bitterly warring enemies; they are essential and irreplaceable aspects of the process of fully healing and restoring the entire self, and this process can only be undertaken in a soulful, and therefore emotive, way.

McLaren, Karla (2010-06-01). The Language of Emotions (p. 122). Sounds True. Kindle Edition.

... .and, regarding those who "forgive" too soon...

I’ve seen, for example, people forgive their fathers from stages one and two and then distrust all authority figures, or create insanely close relationships with people who behave just as their fathers did. The anger moves off the father and then oozes unchecked through their psyche and the world. I’ve seen people forgive their grandmothers before they’ve moved to stage three and then hate all women or all signs of the mature feminine, or enter into relationships and jobs that mimic exactly the emotional atmosphere of their early lives. Again, the grandmother is protected to a certain extent, but the individual and the world he or she inhabits becomes utterly toxic. When we forgive before we’re done feeling the effects of our initiatory experiences, we artificially remove our gaze from the actual wounding event or person. We lose our connection to our emotional realities and to the wounds we carry, and then those wounds careen and lurch unchecked throughout our lives and our culture. Forgiving from stages one and two creates nothing but more wounding.

In true forgiveness, we return to the original stage-one initiatory moment (to that sense or feeling) with the help of our boundary-defining anger and our intuition-restoring fear. Both emotions move us through imbalance and into understanding, and then they contribute the energy we need to move to blessed resolution.

McLaren, Karla (2010-06-01). The Language of Emotions (p. 120). Sounds True. Kindle Edition.

[bpdspell]

Forgiveness is different for everyone and I think we tend to forgive based on how it was modeled to us by our primary caregivers. (Mom, Dad, grandparents, Aunts, Uncles)

My mom is very unforgiving and will probably hold grudges for the rest of her life. It's affected her face, her body, and overall she's just one big uptight prune. Her lack of insight into her own behavior is ginormous and she's always the victim. Many people in my family are like this: unforgiving, hateful, stubborn stuck, lacking insight and fighting for the right to be right no matter the cost of the relationship.

So changing the narrative of what you've emotionally inherited is HARD WORK. We're talking about interrupting a family pattern here and it involves a lot a rewriting the script which is no easy feat.

There are people in my life that I thought I'd forgiven but really didn't. I just wanted to not deal with the hurt so I'd masked my negative feelings with "forgiveness" so I wouldn't have to process. In reality I'm a really sensitive person and if you hurt me it takes a loong time for me to work through that injury. It's just how I am and I've learned to accept that. There are many times I believe I've forgiven my ex for physically assaulting me but then BOOM….I get triggered and rage filled…and I'm reminded of just how angry I still am with him. Overall forgiveness is a very slow process for me.

Forgiveness has always been a struggle for me because I emotionally believe that there should be some type of amends attached to it on the other end in order for me to fully forgive. It sucks that I feel this way and I want to change this belief. In other words…it's waaaaay easier to forgive when a person is truly sorry for the injury they've caused. Not so much with our BP'd ex's or those of us who are continually hurt by people who lack insight (like my mom).

I agree with many others on here that forgiving yourself first and foremost is most important in the healing process. When you forgive yourself you are allowing your human side to what it is designed to be: imperfect.

Spell

[BuildingFromScratch]

I think it's like a child. Their adore and affection is whimsical and forgetful. Their hate is both childish and to protect themselves from completely hating themselves, since that's probably what they felt like with their mothers. If you look at the core of these people, which is that child, it's all rather sad. It's the web of lies that the majority of their life and mind are built on that is ugly, aka the condition. We however have a right to hold resentment, anger and have outrage at what was done to us. But these are not adults, they don't calculate very much at all. They have very little self awareness. I think after the anger has run it's course and served it's purpose I can come to peace with that. That the poor rejected, self loathing, scared little child it's beautiful and I could have loved that child if she let it out. But she can't even let it out and accept it. This will allow me to forgive.

[Tincup]

I want to thank everyone that replied to this.  I am struggling with the forgiveness piece, and I think it is because I was looking at things the wrong way.  I was trying to forgive HER in my mind for things.  In order to forgive her i was trying to UNDERSTAND her and her motives/actions.  I have never been able to do this before, and realize I never will.

BUT I can work toward forgiving myself for staying with the craziness.  I can work toward forgiving how I reacted to her, etc.  Yes I have anger, and no I WILL NEVER FORGET.  And all of this is ok.  I read an article on setting boundaries yesterday, which also made me realize I don't do that well at all.  If I did, I would not of been in this mess from the beginning. 

By forgiving myself I think I can gain what I need in order to more forward.  WE ALL do not deserve to be stuck in the mud because of someone's  poor behavior.  This is the piece of the puzzle that I have never been able to put together. 

[Velocon]

I have read the thread and struggled with this issue personally.  I cannot recall where I read this, but an idea that has helped me in this struggle is to focus on acceptance rather than forgiveness.  Some (many!) things were done to me and my family that are by their nature not worthy of forgiveness. But if I understand that these acts flowed from a mental illness the pwBPD did not choose to have (& is in fact tortured by), is to a large part controlled by & are a manifestation of the illness, I can find acceptance of what occurred and some peace.  Put simply, I can accept factually that I was collateral damage to a BPD accident.  Maybe I can forgive in its full sense over time, but for now acceptance is allowing me to find some peace and move forward.

[Pearl55]

I don't think I'm able to forgive my husband at all but I know and believe his pathalogical issues are far more serious than I can imagine I'm very surprised when I read some recovery stories which I'm not able to believe!

They are in TOTAL control of what they doing and often enjoy it. My problem is I can't forgive myself, how ignorant I was, how ignored all the red flags. I know I have to be kind to myself but how I could trust this man for Soo long?

[myself]

Forgiveness can be a way for us to set some of our burdens down, to relieve ourselves of the hopes and dreams of the past as well as the pains. If forgiving someone, or yourself, helps you do this, great. If hanging onto resentments helps you, great. It needs to lead to healing. In so many of our stories, the people we're forgiving will never even know about it, so it's up to us whether this is a process we need to go through or not. I tend to agree that forgiveness only goes so far, that too many lines may have been crossed to ever shine that kind of light on everything that happened. It won't erase the scars, but may stop new ones from occurring. How or why is up to each of us.