@BFTS,
That's the definition you use, but it differs from mine. It's possible that NMI's BS defines 'forgive' in a way that differs from your definition and mine.
I do understand this clearly.
In complete objectivity, if you forgive something that someone did to you, does that incident keep coming up in your life and interactions? In a disturbing emotional way, causing pain or distress uncomfortable for you and the other person.
If something is haunting and keeps coming up, to the point where you have to confront the other person with "we aren’t still good, we need to do more work to be good" - because of that thing you did - being the undertone, spoken or not. Then you can call it forgiveness, but is it really?
If it’s not settled the emotions it will causes will flutter. One moment you’ll feel fine and you feel you have forgiven. Then you are no more fine, and resentment anger and a galaxy of emotions floods you. Then another moment you are fine again.
You may say you are forgiving each time you qualm your stirring emotions. You can truly believe it. But then at the next wave of chaos you’ll feel those emotions again. That’s what I mean when I say it’s not true forgiveness.
A temporary forgiveness is not yet real. Is not even fair for the person you "forgiven". You need to reach peace of mind and emotions, so whenever you’re confronted by the memory of that wrong once again, the resentful emotions don’t light up.
It is a bad memory with no power over you. That’s when forgiveness is real. Permanent. It is now part of you, not a passing state.
And mind you, I am not saying here that’s an intentional manipulation of the meaning of words: unlike for the example a wayward who manipulates meanings "my understanding of cheating is different from yours. If there’s a condom is not cheating " - I get exactly that the feeling of the people calling "forgiveness" the not yet crystallized state, is genuine. They believe it is forgiveness because they truly feel it in that moment. They don’t fake it. Nor who forgives nor who gets forgiven. I assumed honesty, didn’t call out "liars".
But what we feel is different than the objective reality:
- you are a safe partner and a reformed wayward when you won’t cheat anymore. You are not if you are simply not cheating right now.
- you have forgiven your wayward if you won’t feel any anger or resentment etc whenever you’re confronted with the betrayal. You have not forgiven if you only don’t feel it right now.
It’s an abyssal difference and it’s about fairness towards both the BS and the WS.
Some people are just better predisposed to forgive than others. Some BSes really want to forgive and are driven to do it (over and over and over again again, hopefully to the point where it becomes true), and while it is commendable that’s an objective a goal, not yet reality.
Some other might have trouble to forgive (me included, let’s see if honesty works or just feeds confirmation bias).
In general when we stay or take them back, our final objective, the unspoken hope is to be able to forgive and not feel that horrible stuff when the matter hits us. No triggers, no pain, no resentment.
If we don’t feel capable to forgive we simply don’t stay with our betrayer, unless we’re forced by circumstances.
Yes I have "forgiven" my wayward too, the same, genuinely believed in it. Very early in fact, even before deciding to take her back. Then it hits you and you are in chaos and anger again. So what? Forgive again, this time you are sure. And you can strive to hold to it when you’re confronted with the emotions again, that’s the point when one might begin rugsweeping, because if "I forgave you" and still I feel anger and resentment and pain again for what you did, this time feels like it was I who wasn’t honest, how can you keep telling "I forgive you" and still feel that horrific stuff again?
If you keep bouncing back between emotions of resentment and anger etc, and forgiveness, what was the real forgiveness then?
The first one? The Sixth one? The 30 something one?
The only one that is true is the last one. It is settled, I don’t feel bad anymore no matter how much you hurt me then.
Because It’s integrated, is no longer performed.
This isn’t a competition for a prize.
This is challenging our wishful thinking to get clarity.
Clarity is a good thing, it protects us both, BS, WS alike.
We all have that wish, and it is very possible we can achieve it. As long as we are brutally honest with ourselves. For wishes and fantasies while sounding nice, didn’t do anything but putting us all in this situation.
It’s uncomfortable, unfortunate, I feels like an asshole slapping you in the face, an assault on the work we did (and I know the huge effort you all invested in this, BS / WS).
Becoming reactive and defensive is human.
From that emotion however you can choose:
- maybe isn’t ’an asshole slap’ but a friend shaking you with "hey, snap out of it! Did you make sure that you didn’t enter the highway in the wrong way?" - which may ‘offend’ your ego, but also save your ass (it only takes a moment for reflection and threading more carefully)
- or you decide that you’re right, no need to check. Wrong way highway? Like I would ever! No need to check, I know what I am doing. You are just an asshole. - and push on the pedal. You may still get lucky, maybe the highway is still empty and you won’t get any frontal collision.
Like always it is a matter of choices.
The receiver of a communication decides what the communication means. If the sender is unhappy with a receiver's understanding, the sender is better advised to change how he communicates than to double down with the same miscommunication that made the sender unhappy in the first place.
That’s resembling a call to validation. "If someone receives a message wrongly and responds defensively, do not explain or elaborate: change the message to be more pleasing to the recipient "
This is not providing any good support or guidance to the recipient, this is people pleasing.
And I do understand why you say so. The attempt to prevent people from feeling hurt by what they perceive as confrontational is having sense and application in support and therapy, especially when said people are already hurting.
It has merits.
However it’s not always the healthiest thing to do when you’re trying to help someone.
I tend towards the neutrality when interacting with posters. If I think they bash themselves too much I give them a different perspective where self flagellation is pointless, if they are too sad or surrendering or passive, I poke their pride and anger, if they’re enraged against the "wayward monster" I take up the WS defense against their exaggerated anger, or like this OP right here, if they come out too bold and confident I give them a "cold shower" to slow down.
Understand what is going on? I don’t have an issue with the people, not even those who shown disrespect more or less openly towards myself. I truly don’t care about that, I understand where they coming from and it doesn’t touch me. I address the argument only, I don’t even check who is the person posting most of the time, if not when I have to address them directly (that’s why few times I ended up confusing men with women and vice versa, it took me a while to realize you were a man, initially I thought you were a lady).
I care about the possibility that my input can help someone to find their center, so I tend to provide an angle that is often opposite to where their strongest emotion or direction is headed.
Because I think that if we lean too much towards any direction we are likely to lose our balance and fall again. And nobody who comes here is willing to fall back into that mess.
The important part (for my end) is keeping it respectful, the confrontation is on the arguments they get judged, not the poster, some people in the story get judged in respect to their behaviors and emotions, never the individual himself. Even strong language is addressing a horrible behavior of the person considered, not the human being itself.
The one most "judged" in that sense are FOO and Affair Partners, because they don’t come here writing and opening their pain up. Sure it gets tricky here as some WS were not just a wayward but also an Affair Partner in their infidelity. I get how this can be internalized as an attack to their person.
But that’s a projection if it happens, for the person (their behavior really) being criticized is the one in that specific story. Never "All BS" never "All WS" not even "All APs". That one right now. Period.
If you identify yourself with choices and behaviors that you might have entertained the problem isn’t in the criticism toward those choices and behaviors, the problem is in the ego encoding those in itself.
And our egos react, whenever they feel confronted they feel threatened.
Because being confronted is uncomfortable, it is difficult to detach yourself if you haven’t fully integrated it.
Still no confrontation will ever match the confrontation that the couples here will have to face internally, no matter the intensity or defensiveness, it’s nothing in comparison.
Learning to confront the uncomfortable isn’t a bad skill to learn for the challenge ahead.
It’s a useful tool to master to not collapse when it’s really important.
Validation and people pleasing might help you a bit when the morale is down. Directness might help when confidence is too high.
Trying to center yourself, recover your balance and achieve peace are the key points of this place as I understand it. Within the boundaries of respect which should be mutual.
That might help reconciliation as well, I don’t know for sure. What I know is that being condescending is not going to be very helpful when you’re risking to be blindsided.
