Yes, I think I am a forgiving person. Especially when it comes to transgressions that happened in youth. I recently saw a girl that tried to bully me back in junior high and high school. Last weekend I ran into her at a restaurant. Her kids were absolutely beautiful and I couldn't help telling her so. We were kind to one another and had nice smalltalk.

Over the years I have become involved with a couple of jerks. I'm polite to them because they are now kind to me (when I run into them) and I let bygones be bygones. I'm sure there have been a few things that I have done that hurt them as well.

Fortunately I have nothing to get over. I'm not waiting for an apology from anyone and I don't have any hard feelings against anybody. Would I begin a new relationship or associate with the "jerks"? No.

Forgiving others has never been an issue for me. I have no choice but to accept that a person will be who s/he is and behave accordingly. But forgiving myself - usually for whatever reason I've allowed myself to be treated badly - is another ball of wax. And sometimes that ball of wax has dust and other bits of hair and old pieces of feted bacon in it.

I am too forgiving. I am the welcome mat on the front porch of forgiveness.

Forgiveness is something good you do for yourself.

No. Not unconditionally. People who behave decently towards me generally have a sort of well of goodwill from which I draw forgiveness. It's deeper the more I respect or admire them for how they behave towards others and myself. As long as their apologies or efforts to change seem genuine and the thing that was done isn't on the level of a major betrayal, the well renews itself without any effort and things are more or less as they were. I want to forgive, and am sorry when I can't. Sometimes it isn't possible, and sometimes it isn't right, at least when forgiveness means a return to the status quo. There are only a few people for whom I bear a lasting grudge, and it's mostly because they never wanted forgiveness and enjoyed inflicting the hurt.

Yes and no.

Yes: If a person has done me a grevious wrong, I hurt for a long time, but when I can let go and forgive, it is a wonderful feeling. These are intimate hurts, perhaps what drew me to the person in the first place is able to come back over time and distance.

No: Some people I just can't abide. This is less specific and personal, the person may not have wronged me in any articulate way, but I just can't stand them. It is a hurtful to me feeling, but I have it towards some people. I wish I didn't.

So I can't forgive people for being the way they are, but I can forgive people I love for actions they performed that hurt me.

What arse_hat said sounds good but I have no idea how you get there.

I have another yes and no answer.

There is one thing that happened in my past that I don't know that I can ever forgive. There are two things that may be forgiven in time. I just wish I could forget them all.

Yes. I have enough on my mind without having to catalogue the bad things that have been done to me.

usually. However I have a couple of irrational grudges that are nigh on 20 years old now, that I've accepted I'll never let go. Accepting that has allowed me to forget about them a bit though, so it's nearly as good as forgiveness, I guess.

I had to teach myself how to hold a grudge, or at least recognize that forgive doesn't mean "forget" or "let them do it all over again".

So I may forgive, but the form the forgiveness takes could be a total cut off. I have a super-long fuse though, so you really have to try to get to that point.

I don't have an ounce of forgetness in my heart; I forgive all the time, however. Most of the time I don't think people trespass against me. They may even intend to, but usually they're trespassing against some idea of me they've concocted in their head; the fact is, I don't care about people who don't have my best interests at heart. If they meant to hurt me, they failed. If it's unintentional, there's nothing to forgive.

Like when the girl I loved in college fucked the baseball team, after I ripped that tree out of the ground, it was pretty easy not to look back, though I wondered if she'd ever have cause to forgive herself for being such a slut. I felt bad about the tree, though.

I don't really think I deal in forgiveness as such. That is, I think it's sort of a flawed concept - it sets up a binary expectation of "forgave vs. held a grudge" that doesn't seem terribly real to me in relationships.

What I do do is re-evaluate people and their actions. When someone does something shitty to me, I don't go to one extreme or the other -- hold on intentionally to anger, nor turn to forgive them for the hurt that resulted from the actions. I just find that I rethink the relationship. Do we have an appropriate relationship? Is this a reasonable way to treat someone? Was it just a momentary slip? Is it me, am I in a bad mood, being unrealistic? Are they going through a tough time? Does this reflect an inner lousiness they won't be able to get rid of? Are they experiencing something they're unable to identify or communicate, so it comes out in bad behavior or clumsly insult?

Whatever the answer, it generally recalibrates my relationship with the person with the goal of increasing my own comfort with their place in my life. Sometimes (rare cases) that has meant no further access to me. More often it means me just investing less in the relationship and being much more thoughtful - wary - about how much I include them in my activities. Sometimes it means me working to understand the conditions that gave rise to the issue and trying to solve them, which might involve change on my part, theirs, or both, or even none, if we just come to a mutual understanding, which is another re-evaluation.

The idea of forgiving, after all, is about you, not about the other person. It makes no difference to someone in your distant past whether you've decided to forgive them or not. All forgiving means is putting down your own anger, resentment, hurt, or vengefulness so you don't have to carry it around any more. It certainly is poisonous to carry around and return to. But so is hanging around toxic people who require a lot of forgiving.

I don't think you have to go through a cathartic "forgiving" episode with everything in your past. You really can just re-orient the way you think about it, get some perspective. And you can try to get better at avoiding situations in which you're going to have to ask for forgiveness, or do any forgiving. We probably all know someone who fucks up over and over and continually seems to need to get back in our good graces, thriving on a cycle of drama and testing. It's not forgiving there that's important so much, as understanding what this relationship dynamic is made of, and defusing it to the extent possible.

I suppose if true forgiving means anything, it means "I'm going to understand that you did something lousy, whether or not that was in your control, yet I'm not going to let it affect my evaluation of our relationship." There are some cases where this might be warranted - with a child or a mentally ill person, for instance -- but on the other hand, I'm not sure it is actually possibleat all. Whatever has caused a need for forgiveness has already caused the relationship to change its nature. The importance of that event may certainly pale over time, to the point where they're just funny stories, but even events that are forgiven haven't disappeared. All you can do is see what the cumulative effect over time is. I like notquitemaryann's "well of goodwill." Some people put much more in the well than they'll ever take out, so the bad incidents become unimportant in that relationship.Others drain the well dry, defining the relationship by the bad incidents.

That doesn't mean you have to carry the anger around, though. It's too tiring. Also, usually whatever people do that's mean to you is sooo not about you.

I guess my attitude is summable as one of those "I forgive, but I don't forget" ones, though I don't like the harshness and black-and-white nature of that. What I mean by "not forgetting" is that though I don't stay angry purely for the enjoyment of outrage or because I can't find any other choices, but I do make changes in my relationships with people who aren't of goodwill toward me.

I was going through my journal archives, and I found an entry that sums up my feelings on forgiveness.

I'm glad Miko's here, because she pretty much said what I was going to say, but better.

I can quickly and easily forgive when it's truly warranted, especially if the situation involves no active malice. But I refuse to forgive people who don't deserve my forgiveness.

I'm always baffled by people who claim that forgiveness is essential for good mental health. There are some things in this world that are unforgiveable, and pretending otherwise serves no purpose other than to make the victim of unforgiveable trespasses feel like there's something wrong with them.

So, my mode of operation is: Forgive those who deserve it. Don't forgive those who don't deserve it. Keep moving forward either way.

What seanyboy said.

I forgive easily; but I don't retrust too very well. Three grievances and I do not do well with future trusting. Lie, blow-off, steal, easy to forgive. Do it three times? Game over. Harsh; but it is ME and my real world kindness that is being wronged.

I've never had anybody apologize too well. I have heard lots of promises and stuff; but whether of ones own control/volition or not; a lot of the "I'm sorry I'll never do it again I promise you trust me I won't ever etc..." folk just don't have the where-with-all or selflessness to carry out their words. And if words and a handshake can't make it happen; I am not going to extend myself to them.

Some things in the past; kids that bullied my short skinny self when I was so small for so long? I see some of these guys that were a head taller than me all through school and I am looking at the tops of some of their heads now. And I have -zero- reason to ever be around them again. Things like that I let go. And it makes me stronger and better everyday.

lysdexic summed it up well.

Forgive quickly, but forget slowly pretty much sums me up.

I'm always baffled by people who claim that forgiveness is essential for good mental health. There are some things in this world that are unforgiveable, and pretending otherwise serves no purpose other than to make the victim of unforgiveable trespasses feel like there's something wrong with them.

amyms speaks for me on this. Forgiveness is a nice idea in principle but over the last ten years it's been kind of bastardized into this pop-psychology one-size-fits-all dogma, that You Have To Let Go, that hating people who've mistreated you is a sign that something is wrong with you.

I think that hating people who trespass against you is a sign of psychological health and vigor. You shouldn't let that hatred consume you or get out of hand. But hate is an important part of human nature; it allows us to separate friend from foe and act accordingly.

Yes. And no. I think I've been pretty good at working through some pretty big stuff in my life so far. But then, sometimes, something I think I've gotten over will creep back up on me and the emotions will be stronger than I would've figured. I do have a hard time forgiving myself sometimes.

I don't know about the hate theory, JP. In my experience, hating only gives your power away, not to mention your peace of mind, as good as the hate might feel sometimes. For me, hate has generally come from feeling helpless, though I never wanted to admit it at the time.

I don't know about hating or forgiveness, but I do know that I won't just forget someone's bad behavior in the past, especially if they've never really apologized or made amends. It's a really long story, but there are a few people in my circle of acquaintances who has proven to be self-centered and manipulative in the past, and I don't think I have to just ignore that to "keep the peace" like some people have asked me to do. It's one of those "fool me once, shame on you..." situations.

Sometimes I am too forgiving to others; hardly ever forgiving for myself. I do tend to hold grudges for some trangressions; other, more severe trangressions I can forgive. I guess it depends on the person and the situation.

Most people are capable of making mistakes. Most people are not 100% aware or even 100% sane. This is the way the world works, society is the interaction imperfect beings . I think of anger/forgiveness as the degree of friction you're going to face in that interaction.

I agree with Miko. Mostly I try to make sure that what I expect from people is realistic, given everything I know about them.