Forgive But Never Forget

"To Err Is Human, To Forgive Divine"

Yeah, it sounds good in theory, proves itself pretty difficult in the heat of the moment.

A neighbor I was chatting with once mentioned forgiveness toward our harasser, and I about verbally ripped her head off. In hindsight I now understand what she was talking about. I have since spoke with her and told her she was right.

I believe the one thing that is too often, and incorrectly associated with forgiveness is the thought that forgiveness means that you think it's alright, or that you condone or accept the action against you by the other person/group.

Forgiveness, as I now see it, is the simple matter of letting it go as something that happened that you must put behind you to move on.

What our harasser has done has caused harm and distress to my young children and my wife, distress to me, and is an act (actually, series of acts) that I will never ever forget, nor will I have any tolerance for again. However, I forgive her, not because I think it's OK that she did the things she did, but because it's over, I can't change them, and we, as a family must move beyond it, heal and use it as a learning tool for our children.

I have pity and compassion for her husband and children that are dealing with somebody that operates like this in their daily lives, I have pity for her (having a hard time with any compassion) as she is obviously suffering from something, my personal opinion is Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and is not treating it, and it appears completely unaware, or is unwilling to acknowledge because, well, narcissist's don't admit weakness or shortcomings to anyone, that's the nature of the illness. The family can not be unaware, only blind to it. For that I feel bad, because she is raising children, who will almost certainly wind up the same way, which is very sad. One can only hope that behind closed doors dad is working very hard to counter act the incredibly mixed up messages that mom is teaching those children regarding what is acceptable behavior and situational responses and what is not.

Forgiveness is not necessarily an act of human kindness or compassion, it is a means for you to move forward and heal.

Forgive, but never forget.