This business of forgiving others is very tricky. Everyone is sometimes victimized. It’s in the nature of this world and, therefore, the issue of forgiveness is big. The offenses done to you can range from being the victim of a crime(robbery, assault, abuse or rape) to facing betrayal by a loved one(being cheated on by a lover or lied to by a friend). There are two ways of responding to infractions. You can cling to anger and be unable to even approach forgiveness or you can rush to “forgive” very quickly to try an erase the offense.
There are problems with both of these attitudes.
Forgiveness is challenging. We need to forgive because not doing so takes up the time and emotional energy that would be better spent living your life. You need to forgive. The individual/individuals who assaulted or betrayed you don’t deserve any more of you. Harboring hatred and dwelling on revenge is too much of an investment and it keeps the abuser in your head. But it’s important to clarify that forgiveness doesn’t mean acting as if the offense never happened.
Some individuals hurry to forgive because they want to erase the horrible infraction and this just doesn’t work. We humans manage to behave very badly to one another, but denying that these offenses happened doesn’t help you heal. It can actually lay you open to being further victimized! While victims are in no way responsible for the abusers’ actions(the cheated-on sometimes have a hard time with this), it’s good to learn something from every challenge in your life. You don’t want to lay yourself open to being assaulted again.
So forgiveness is about learning and moving on. To do this, you have to be willing to look at the event without self-recrimination and learn from it. I recently read a great definition for forgiveness in a book recommended to me by a friend. “The Shack” by Wm. Paul Young tells the story of a man grappling with the brutal murder of his young daughter. While this book may not fit with your beliefs and may be too stimulating for some, near the end one character says, “Forgiveness is not about forgetting….It’s about letting go of another person’s throat.”
This is exactly what victims of assault or betrayal need to get to.
If you dwell on revenge and anger, you’re keeping your victimizer up close to you. You cannot keep a grip on another person’s throat without getting pretty darned close. Too close. You deserve better. No individual who offends or assaults you has any right to a place in your mind and soul. Let them go. Let them deal with the consequences–both legal and psychic–of their own behavior. It may see as if there are no consequences, as if the victimizer is getting away with the crime, but that’s not the way this world works.
In one form or another, individuals always get what they deserve, even if you don’t see it. Maybe what they deserve is a hard lesson; maybe they need to learn how to love themselves. One way or the other, they’ll get what they deserve. You don’t need to keep your hand around the offender’s throat.
Step back, take a deep breath and yield the bad guy to the universe. If you’ve done all you can do within the legal system, you deserve to let go of the person who victimized you. It’s best for you.