How can it be....?

Question

that people can say they are able to honestly and sincerely forgive when, because of memory, they can never truly forget?
To forgive someone is to wipe the slate clean, never to be brought up again but say....

you forgive someone for cheating and continue the relationship...somewhere along the line something will bring it back to memory (even if not intentional) and you will bring the situation up again. You will always have that feeling of probability that it may happen again. How did you forgive?

Someone steals from you... you will always be watching you things for the possibility of it happening again. How is that forgiveness?

So with us being human, and memory (without a medical excuse) is part of our brain function, how can we honestly with all sincerity forgive?

Answer 1

To "forgive and forget" is more of a hope and effort than an actual thing that happens. When one "forgives and forgets" one attempts to act as though there is a clean slate, even if the offending event comes to mind.

"somewhere along the line something will bring it back to memory (even if not intentional) and you will bring the situation up again."

While something may happen to bring the past transgression to mind, one does not have to "bring the situation up again." That is part of the "forgive and forget"

Forgiveness is not linked to forgetting. Forgiveness involves believing in the other person and not holding their past transgressions against them in the future. It is not bringing up the past after one has said "I forgive you", for if one brings up the past, one is still holding the past against that person.

It is not what actually happens that matters, but rather how one acts that matters.

Answer 2

I think that you need to define "forgive." To me, forgiving means not to let the action/event affect or change the relationship going forward. It means being willing to continue interacting with the person(s) and not demand retribution for whatever action occurred.

Let's turn it around: what does it mean not to forgive? One's relationship with the other person is changed, perhaps communication is discontinued or signifciantly curtailed. Grudges are borne; some recompense is demanded.

I do not believe that you should equate forgiving with complete forgetting. I might remember, without dwelling on it, some offense that I felt was perpetrated against me. That does not mean that I cannot relate to the person and interact with him/her in whatever relationship we have. If I could not, then I have not forgiven.

Answer 3

We all forgive and forget when things had reasons different from our assumptions - good memories prevail on the bad ones.
If we don't forgive/forget is because we were truly wrong on our expectations and no good will ever come. In other words if we were all the time mistaken on the good stuff............

Answer 4

To "forget" in this sense means to forget the pain and misery caused by the action, but not literally. Its a courtesy since you care about the person and accept their apology, so to speak.


As far as the other circumstances are concerned, i think the power of saying something out-loud helps the process of getting over something...

Answer 5

You do not necessarily have to forget to forgive. You simply have to move on with your life. To wallow in past wrongs is to die in the present and destroy your future. Forgiveness is a hard thing to do, but is ultimately the greatest thing you can do.

Answer 6

u will always remember the past and there is really know way to forget.
so... i think that if u still cant forgive them then they havent done nothing to prove to u that they can be trusted.

Answer 7

Despite that you posted the definitions for all of us for forgive and forget you seem to not understand them yourself.