Forgive and Forget: Do You Practise It? Or Do You Disagree With It?

can you please READ my post? not the title. but the paragraphs i actually wrote below and give me your thoughts after you have read them. thank you so much! :) i love the honesty in your reply by the way, but i do not think you ever read what i wrote before actually answering :p

i give you a plus rating for saying what you said! good for you :) thanks for replying. it was stupid of me to have assumed you didn't.

actually i READ your posts and not just once but TWICE, and at the end you said... "so there. what are your thoughts?:)" quite honestly, i put in what was in my thoughts and my experience... next time if you want specific answers and want something to read WHAT YOU WANT, then be specific with it... and please try to correctly connect the title to what you want members here to respond to your discussion... and dont add that what are your thoughts question in the end... :P

this actually scared me. did you READ my post? not the question, but the actual post i made. i know about controlling our emotions and not letting it drive what we do. not letting our anger decide what we should say and do to whoever made us angry. this is called composure. and i dont think we need to walk away, because it is also possible that the person we were talking to needed us to stay and finish the conversation. if we do walk away we might give the implication that we were insulting them? but its smart to cool off. if we are known to go with our anger and pride, and give time to ourselves to REALLY think about what happened. i call this stepping back and looking at the situation as a scientist :) but when you said you FORGET first and then you forgive? this scares me even more. because you never really find out what happened. if you HAVE read the post i wrote BELOW the TITLE of this discussion? you would notice that i am against forgiving AND FORGETTING. specifically about forgetting. because i cannot see any significance why when we do decide to forgive someone we NEED TO FORGET? we are NOT ROBOTS! we do not forget. unless we have memory problems then i guess that's an entirely different story. but what i was meaning to point out from posting the discussion was, it is critical to REMEMBER. if we are friends with somebody and they did something bad to us? or they betrayed us? if i am truly friends with them? and it hurt me so bad? if i want to live healthy? i would forgive them, but if at all possible, i would have their foreheads tattood and written on it is the act that they did. and i would want them to do the same to me! because if we are friends at all? i would want us to keep REMEMBER what we did because IT HAPPENED, we chose to do those things and THESE ARE THE HORRIBLE BAD THINGS WE ARE CAPABLE OF DOING! if we remember it, step back? and observe it together, figure out what happened? talk about it, not be TOO ATTACHED and just separate ourselves from the acts we did do: why did you do that to me? because you were doing this to me! really? that was not my intention! you should tell me next time, so it will not keep repeating.. this way, we get to pinpoint what went wrong! we get to make numerous solutions what we can do next time to keep it from ever happening again! this is why it is important to remember. and with most people, they think that if we do forgive, and NOT FORGOTTEN? then we never really forgave at all! this is so not true!!!! :c its got nothing to do with forgetting! if we do forgive someone, and we think they are bad for us because its possible they will not change? then we simply cut our ties with them. forgiving does not mean that we KEEP the relationship! we forgive the act, but IT IS OK TO LEAVE because the person never really changed. Yet, at least. anywho, thank you nonetheless for bothering to answer. i did post this discussion to have people open their eyes to this truth. and i hope at least even some people get something out of it. take care

I was reading your response. It was as if I was reading what happened to me. I too, had a friend who was like a brother to me. I trusted him. He supported me morally. He gave me strength to cope with my own problems. He also had problems and I gave him the same support as he gave me. Then he met a woman. She was cautious of me. I think that she was jealous of me. After all, I am 13 years younger than her. I should have read the signs before I started talking to her but I gave her the benefit of the doubt. While we were talking she would say one thing. For example, I would ask her if she was feeling comfortable with what I was saying. She would tell me yes. She even asked me for help which I was happy to offer. Then she had gone to her partner/my friend, and told him that she wasn't comfortable with what I was saying. She had told him that it freaked her out. Both of them decided to turned their backs on me by not contacting me. They were not even going to tell me. They may have hoped that I would vanish into the darkness. But I got in contact with my friend, he accused me of things I didn't do. What he had said really upset me. The things that he said made me hate myself. I didn't want anything to do with him or her. I ended the friendship. I got so sick over the time. I thought enough is enough after 5 months. I have to think of myself and started getting answers. I also wanted to try and rebuild the friendship with him if I could. His last contact with me, was 2 months ago. I replied with remarks that really didn't bring the best out of me. My response was quite ugly. For example he told me to get off the computer and my response to that was, 'do you really think I am on the computer 24/7?' I do blame her to a point, but at the same time, I don't blame her. I can understand if what she has done was through jealousy. I also do blame him but at the same time, I don't because he is in love with this woman. He only believes her because of her being his partner that he loves. If I told him that the sky is blue, and she would tell him the sky is purple, he would believe the sky is purple. Now the reason why I say I don't blame them because in my life, I have been put into situations that they are in. Recently, I had a 17 year old girl hanging off my husband right in front of me. Even when leaving she planted a kiss on his lips. The problem was that this girl looked simular to an actress that my husband would comment that he would like to be with her. I was jealous with seeing this young girl do what she did. I said nothing because I want to trust my husband. The other situation I was in was many years ago. I was in love with a guy (before my husband's time). A friend of mine told me that the boyfriend was going to break up with me because I was not of the same nationality. I didn't believe her because I was in love with this guy. No one would destroy my happiness with him. Days later, he did end the relationship. I found out later that the next girl he dated was of the same nationality. My friend was telling me the truth and I didn't believe her. Because of this, I can forgive them, but I won't forget. Our stories my be different but there are simularities. I could almost understand how you feel through my story.

I too had a fall out with my sister over a man. I didnt talk to her fo four years and my poor mum's heart couldnt handle it. But for the sake of her we made ammends. I forgave her and well lets say now its forgotten and we're back to where we used to be as loving sisters. Forgiving and forgetting is a healthy thing to do. just forgiving without forgetting is like carrying excess baggage in your life. For me I forgive and forget because I believe that not makes me move on with my life but it is a sense of achievement. When you hold unforgiveness you're only hurting yourself and making your life a misery so forgiveness is good for the soul..