Thursday, January 12, 2012
Holding on to things that can not be changed only harms one person and that is you. Some people are unable to forgive a mistake, a hurt, a bad situation or carelessly spoken word. We hold on to the pain we feel as if our life depended on it. Ironically in many ways it does depend on it, only we are going about it backwards. When you can not forgive (and I didn't say forget the lesson you learned from it or even blindly trust that person again) you are holding yourself back from the potential of growth and being your personal best.
Not only are we holding on to the mistakes of others so, oftentimes we can't forgive ourselves either. It is almost as if we are saying: "I don't deserve to be forgiven. If I forgive myself the person I have hurt my think I am not really sorry about this and will hate me or make me suffer more. I am supposed to be perfect and I wasn't! I simply can't forgive myself or I may do it again!"
Do you see just how foolish that really is?
You do have to make a decision if you can remain where you are at and move on or not. I mentioned cheating above and sadly in most relationships that happens at least once. So far I am extremely lucky in my current marriage that to the best of my knowledge my husband has never cheated on me and I know that I have never cheated on him. I know neither of us is perfect, but I don't need that either. I am lucky that I have found a good man this time around (I wasn't so fortunate the times before) and belief me I made some huge mistakes in the past (which I haven't for many years now) and took what others told me or what I perceived as signs that he was cheating one me and accused him of it. A lesser man would have said:"Fine bitch if you accuse me off it anyways I might as well do it." As I said to the best of my knowledge he was more honorable than that and I am grateful for this.
In my last marriage however I was not so fortunate and my husband was a cheater. Both emotionally as well as physically. I took it for a long time because my situation was one in which I could not just leave. I had children to consider. Yet the consequences were dire regardless. I distant myself emotionally from him and whatever "love" I thought I had for him died out and actually turned to hatred instead. Did I forgive him? Yes now I have, but I would never trust him again.
Sadly of course that was what originally caused my "seeing signs" and listening to those who simply love to cause problems. Gratefully I know have learned by watching, getting to know and seeing proof that my honey now deserves to be trusted and can be trusted. He hasn't let me down yet. I am going to continue to beat myself up about having made those mistakes until I learned differently? No. Will I allow it to be put into my face or used as a way to keep me quiet when something does look wrong? No. But instead of accusing, I will state it as what it is. Just a ungentlemanly behavior or a misbehavior by a woman. I know he won't follow through on it. He would earlier leave me and go to her for good than cheat on me.
My current husband and I have a completely different way of saying things. That is partially because we are a different gender, from a different upbringing, have a different personality and of course we originate from different countries as well. He is born in America where I was born and raised in Germany until I was 18 years old. So belief if or not no matter how good I speak English there is often still a small language barrier, because I take some words a lot more extreme in meaning than he would. I don't always get a meaning if he says it in what I call "half finished sentences".
We both have said some horrible things to each other in the past, either out of anger, because we didn't realize what it would sound like to the other, or maybe because we weren't thinking past our own needs period. I hope he has forgiven me by now for them, but I don't know that for sure of course. I know I forgave him and I learned from it too.
I learned that when I do say something and I see a reaction that looks as if he could possibly have misunderstood what I was tyring to say, I correct it immediately. With other words I tell him: "I don't think you understood me correctly, let me try it this way." and rephrase it, or try to give him a "not about us" example to demonstrate my point. Likewise I try not to take what he says so hard anymore, try to find his unique brand of humor (which I don't always recognize at first), or make him aware that I am really hurt by what I just understood and repeat it back to him in my own words. Now he has the option to correct me or to show me the reason behind his statement. That works our really well as long both our hearts and lines of communication are open and engaged. Some days his mind is somewhere else and they won't be, most days so it works pretty good. I think (you noticed I said think, not know) that we both finally learned to look past our past mistakes and try to judge the other on the here and now instead. We both (yes both) still had a lot of growing up to do in some areas of our life and belief it or not that is a fact for all of us. It is nobodies fault and just the way it is. Remember that we always think of ourselves as mature, but that is not always true. We won't see just how immature we really were in something until we have grown past that stage and can now honestly look back and admit we weren't at our best.
Instead of pointing fingers at the other one or ones and blame them for it so, it is really much more realistic to look at it in ourselves. No matter what the reason behind it may have been, no matter who started it, we had a choice to stop - take a real look and break the cycle (which doesn't always mean depart, but open the lines of communication), or to give tit for tat. Which sadly as long as we are in an immature state of mind or a very hurt state of mind, we are going to automatically do. It's part of life. Once we have moved past it so, we need to take at least some of the responsibility and be willing to forgive both parties.
Forgiving yourself or others doesn't mean having things remain the same, it just means that you understand you made a mistake and are ready to grow from it now. It means you are taking the energy you would be wasting on feeling angry and using it in a much more positive way. You'd be surprised how much further you get once you do that and just how many positive changes come out of it.
Sometimes forgive is not possible right away and that is understandable too, but you should try to strive for it as soon as possible.
Not only are we holding on to the mistakes of others so, oftentimes we can't forgive ourselves either. It is almost as if we are saying: "I don't deserve to be forgiven. If I forgive myself the person I have hurt my think I am not really sorry about this and will hate me or make me suffer more. I am supposed to be perfect and I wasn't! I simply can't forgive myself or I may do it again!"
Do you see just how foolish that really is?
- Nobody is perfect, we all make mistakes from time to time. Most of the time those who can't forgive them-selves are the ones that didn't mean to cause pain to begin with. They did it by accident, because they were hurting them-selves and didn't think about what they said or did, or because they didn't even know that it would hurt someone. Trust me those that hurt you on purpose have no feeling of regret period, because they did it to hurt you to begin with.
- Yes there are some things that are not forgivable. I am sorry but I don't consider murder a crime that should or can be forgiven by us. I can however not dwell on it and try to move on. A cheating spouse may be forgiven once, but I would not forgive it repeatedly. To be honest I am not even sure I would forgive it the first time unless I caused it myself to begin with. You can only push a person so far. Yet in general all deserve forgiveness. I am not going to beat myself up for the rest of my life, because I laughed at something stupid that I should not have laughed about. Because I said something wrong, because I wasn't thinking. Because I forgot something when my mind was so overworked already. I am human and so are you. I will make mistakes and I will probably make them pretty often without meaning to.
- If the person you hurt can not forgive you or accept your apology if you truly meant it and are working hard to show you won't do it again, than perhaps he or she is not worth the pain you are putting yourself through either. Have you ever considered that if you are being held in mental slavery just to give someone the upper hand over you that they are committing the greater wrong? Forgive yourself, learn from your mistake, don't do it again and if they still can't forgive you, maybe it is time to move on.
- There is a big difference between saying "I am sorry" and showing that you are sorry. You show you are sorry, by yes stating it and than trying really hard never to do it again. Not by constantly beating yourself up over it. Let me tell you from experience that some people can hold a grudge for a very long time and that they won't let you live a mistake down easily. That is their problem, not yours. They are the ones that have to live with the choice to remain miserable and distrusting. In some cases it isn't even a choice for them, they just never learned to get over things reasonably easy. In the end they are missing out on the opportunities to make the bond stronger. You can't change that for them. You are only in control of your own actions.
You do have to make a decision if you can remain where you are at and move on or not. I mentioned cheating above and sadly in most relationships that happens at least once. So far I am extremely lucky in my current marriage that to the best of my knowledge my husband has never cheated on me and I know that I have never cheated on him. I know neither of us is perfect, but I don't need that either. I am lucky that I have found a good man this time around (I wasn't so fortunate the times before) and belief me I made some huge mistakes in the past (which I haven't for many years now) and took what others told me or what I perceived as signs that he was cheating one me and accused him of it. A lesser man would have said:"Fine bitch if you accuse me off it anyways I might as well do it." As I said to the best of my knowledge he was more honorable than that and I am grateful for this.
In my last marriage however I was not so fortunate and my husband was a cheater. Both emotionally as well as physically. I took it for a long time because my situation was one in which I could not just leave. I had children to consider. Yet the consequences were dire regardless. I distant myself emotionally from him and whatever "love" I thought I had for him died out and actually turned to hatred instead. Did I forgive him? Yes now I have, but I would never trust him again.
Sadly of course that was what originally caused my "seeing signs" and listening to those who simply love to cause problems. Gratefully I know have learned by watching, getting to know and seeing proof that my honey now deserves to be trusted and can be trusted. He hasn't let me down yet. I am going to continue to beat myself up about having made those mistakes until I learned differently? No. Will I allow it to be put into my face or used as a way to keep me quiet when something does look wrong? No. But instead of accusing, I will state it as what it is. Just a ungentlemanly behavior or a misbehavior by a woman. I know he won't follow through on it. He would earlier leave me and go to her for good than cheat on me.
My current husband and I have a completely different way of saying things. That is partially because we are a different gender, from a different upbringing, have a different personality and of course we originate from different countries as well. He is born in America where I was born and raised in Germany until I was 18 years old. So belief if or not no matter how good I speak English there is often still a small language barrier, because I take some words a lot more extreme in meaning than he would. I don't always get a meaning if he says it in what I call "half finished sentences".
We both have said some horrible things to each other in the past, either out of anger, because we didn't realize what it would sound like to the other, or maybe because we weren't thinking past our own needs period. I hope he has forgiven me by now for them, but I don't know that for sure of course. I know I forgave him and I learned from it too.
I learned that when I do say something and I see a reaction that looks as if he could possibly have misunderstood what I was tyring to say, I correct it immediately. With other words I tell him: "I don't think you understood me correctly, let me try it this way." and rephrase it, or try to give him a "not about us" example to demonstrate my point. Likewise I try not to take what he says so hard anymore, try to find his unique brand of humor (which I don't always recognize at first), or make him aware that I am really hurt by what I just understood and repeat it back to him in my own words. Now he has the option to correct me or to show me the reason behind his statement. That works our really well as long both our hearts and lines of communication are open and engaged. Some days his mind is somewhere else and they won't be, most days so it works pretty good. I think (you noticed I said think, not know) that we both finally learned to look past our past mistakes and try to judge the other on the here and now instead. We both (yes both) still had a lot of growing up to do in some areas of our life and belief it or not that is a fact for all of us. It is nobodies fault and just the way it is. Remember that we always think of ourselves as mature, but that is not always true. We won't see just how immature we really were in something until we have grown past that stage and can now honestly look back and admit we weren't at our best.
Instead of pointing fingers at the other one or ones and blame them for it so, it is really much more realistic to look at it in ourselves. No matter what the reason behind it may have been, no matter who started it, we had a choice to stop - take a real look and break the cycle (which doesn't always mean depart, but open the lines of communication), or to give tit for tat. Which sadly as long as we are in an immature state of mind or a very hurt state of mind, we are going to automatically do. It's part of life. Once we have moved past it so, we need to take at least some of the responsibility and be willing to forgive both parties.
Forgiving yourself or others doesn't mean having things remain the same, it just means that you understand you made a mistake and are ready to grow from it now. It means you are taking the energy you would be wasting on feeling angry and using it in a much more positive way. You'd be surprised how much further you get once you do that and just how many positive changes come out of it.
Sometimes forgive is not possible right away and that is understandable too, but you should try to strive for it as soon as possible.
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