Originally posted by vraiblonde
Let's don't confuse "forgiveness" with moving on with your life and leaving the past behind. To me, forgiving means exoneration.
This explains at least partly why you and I differ so. To me, forgiveness isn't exoneration. When I've forgiven, I have said to the other (when I've been able to do it in person), "You hurt me but I no longer bear a grudge." There's more to it than that, but it doesn't make what the person has done, or his/her actions or effects, go away.
It's easier to tell what I mean if I give an example. I had a psychotic lover when I was in college. Her name was Karen, and she was my first girlfriend. Things were nice for months, but she started getting weird on me. For that and for many other reasons, I tried to break up with her.
Bad idea. Do the words "I'm not gonna be
ignored, Dan" ring any bells? Basically, it was, "I can't live without you, and I won't let you live without me." She attempted suicide once, in her car, with me in it, and another time she held a handgun to my head, said it would be our suicide pact. (If I'd mentioned that a pact involves two
willing members, I wouldn't be here.... she didn't much like sarcasm.)
She was the first I forgave, and the hardest. Maybe because the least time elapsed between the three years I was stuck with her and when I began the process that led to my forgiving her. I will still always hurt a little bit because of the things she did to me. But it no longer tears out my soul when I think about that time. I learned from it--both from the miserable time when she was an inevitable part of my life and from the process of forgiving her.
Since I had to cut off contact completely, I wasn't able to offer forgiveness to her face. She is one of the two I've been through this process with that I will never allow myself to be in the same state with again. I don't trust her in the least little bit. Forgiveness did not restore a relationship, not even the friendship of ex-lovers. I don't want that. It was something I had to do because I couldn't let that pain weigh me down forever. In that case forgiveness was my dismissing the miserable cancer she left in her wake. It was demolishing the power I'd allowed her to continue to hold over me.
Originally posted by vraiblonde
If some bastard hurt one of my kids, I'd never forgive them. I might be able to put it behind me and go on with life, but I wouldn't wipe the slate clean and become their penpal or anything.
No one, least of all me, would expect you to. The notion's absurd. Read on . . .
Originally posted by vraiblonde
The death penalty serves one purpose and one purpose only: to ensure that that particular predator will never victimize anyone ever again. Just because one victim forgives them doesn't mean the next one will.
If nothing else, Vrai, Please at least get this:
With one exception, the people I have forgiven will never be invited back into my life. My mother's gone and I have to say that I do love her. But three are still living and I don't love them; in fact I don't give a flying sh!t about them. I don't want or need them in my life. Forgiveness doesn't equal "everything's everything, come on and be my chum again, let's go out to lunch." All it means is that the power the miserable losers who can't stop hurting other people had over me is gone.
Forgiving them doesn't mean I would want them free from prison, free to hurt someone else. Because I know that my forgiveness isn't some magic healing tonic. A sick, evil b@stard is a sick, evil b@stard and IMO nothing but his death will cure him.
Yeah, I thought you'd like that. Who says when he dies is the only thing we differ on.