Apologizing and Forgiveness

Apologizing and forgiveness. I'm sure everyone here has had to deal with these two issues their entire lives. I'm sure we all have our own thoughts on apologizing and forgiveness depending on things that have happened to us and the way we were raised.

Do you find it easy or difficult to apologize for when you've done something wrong and/or hurt someone? Have you ever apologized but not really meant it? If so, why would you do that? And if someone apologizes to you, do you believe the apology? If not, what kind of things could lead you to not believe in the apology to be genuine? Have you ever later found out you were wrong? If so, how did you handle that? Does the intensity of your feelings have a bearing on whether you accept that apology, does it matter what caused the anger/hurt feelings to begin with on whether you accept an apology? Does accepting an apology always mean you forgive the person? If not, why not?

How about forgiveness. How easy is it for you to forgive someone that has hurt/angered you? Or do you hold a grudge against people and if so, for how long? Are there things that you would consider unforgivable? If so, why? If you choose to not forgive someone for whatever they did that caused you to feel anger/hurt, how do you act in the future towards them and why? how long? Is it forever? Have you ever gone back at some later date and forgiven someone that you couldn't before? If so, what lead to that change of heart? Was it time, if so, how much time, if not, what was the reason(s)?

What does forgiveness actually mean to you? Can you forgive but not forget, is that still forgiveness? Do they have to go hand in hand? If you think you forgive somebody but yet can't forget what was done to you, is it true forgiveness? Does forgiving someone mean that you've condoned what was done to you?

What if the situation is from your past. Does that make a difference?

Please give your replies in terms of you being an adult and not when you were a child. However, the situation you are referring to in your replies could have happened when you were a child (your past) but I'm looking for how you feel about apologizing and forgiving from the adult perspective.

Thanks!

Angel, I feel you on this one. Ok, the apology thing... I used to have MAJOR problems apologizing when I was wrong. I've been able to work through that and I feel that now I absolutely should apologize when I'm wrong. I try not to hold grudges when someone has angered/wronged me. It isn't always easy. I may accept the apology even when I'm still mad at the person. How long I'm mad depends on the lever of anger/wrong that was done. There's no real time limit. Sometimes it's very hard to accept an apology, especially if the one who hurt you is someone that you care for because it hurts more coming from that person. As far as forgiveness goes... well, that's not an easy thing either. To me forgiveness is being able to look the person that hurt/wronged you in the eye and say to them "What you did to me is unacceptable, but I'm past it. I hold no ill will towards you and I hope that we can move on from it and remain friends/family/whatever." This is an issue that I'm having a hard time dealing with. There are two people who have hurt me so very badly and I just can't seem to forgive them. One has apologized and prays that I'll someday forgive him but I just can't seem to. In therapy, we're talking about this very issue. I'm trying to learn how to do this so that I can resume a "normal" (if there is such a word) life... one without anger or hatred or fear. I know that forgiveness is the right thing to do so I'm trying to learn how. I hope that this answers some of your questions and I wish you luck in this. Much love.

Ryan

IThis is such a good topic, just recently I was hurt/angery and vented. The persons hurting me apologised , I can't afford to hold grudges life is to short, I look at it this way if i hold a grudge and something happens to that person or myself, then I couldn't live with my feelings , never knowing if we could have patched things up and been best friends again, I'm very quick to forgive there are times I can't forget that makes me more careful
Is this making any sense to anyone, I've only had 2 hrs. sleep
Angie