I have a whole theory about forgiveness. You don't always have to forgive the person who wronged you. Context matters.

Why You Don't Always Have to Forgive | Psychology Today

Why you don’t “need” or “have to” forgive anyone if you don’t want or feel ready to. - Evergreen Counseling

I think forgiveness is a manipulative tactic to force people to lower their healthy boundaries and let the toxic person who wronged them off the hook, after-the-fact. Um, no thank you. It's a platitude that promotes codependency behavior, in putting yourself second and giving energy to the person who abused you in whatever way they did. Um, no thank you.

"Forgive and forget" is a silencing tactic invented to stop the wronged person from holding their abuser accountable. That's my belief anyway. And so far, it's worked for me.

If I choose to let someone off the hook, it's not because I forgive them. It's because I judge their behavior on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being a minor infraction and 10 being so major that means they will never see or hear from me again. The same way a chat or forum moderator maintains community guidelines with all the members of a chatroom or forum, I use that number scale to maintain my boundaries with people online and offline.

There are a plethora of people who've wronged me over the years and once they do that, I cut them off. I have tried and failed in the past to let former friends back into my life because I thought we both could move on. Nope. People never change. Once they put you in a category of "option" or "priority" I believe you pretty much stay in that category, hence the labels of fair-weather friend.