Does anyone forgive easily?

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I'm as guilty as you are!
It's very easy for me to forgive AND forget. I never have bad intentions toward people, so I can't imagine anyone having them toward me. So... when I forgive people I usually deduct what reason they had for doing whatever it was by assuming their intentions were harmless, or at the worst thoughtless.

I've had to learn to protect myself a bit lately, though. Even though I don't stay angry at people, I've had to stop seeing a couple of friends because the relationships were unhealthy for me. It's really HARD when I'm not angry! I have to keep reminding myself of why I don't want to be around them, or I'll pretend past things didn't happen again.

I always think it's best to forgive, but there has to be a line where even though you can forgive whatever it was maybe it's best to not give the person a chance to take advantage again. :[

True. I've forgiven people for punching me in the face - many times. (in fact i still often think favourable of abusive exes) but I can't forgive someone for calling me a name sometimes. When in the scheme of things, it should be the other way around.

I forgive very easily. If it lasts a little longer; it never lasts past a night's sleep. The next morning I either don't care anymore; or I forgot. Usually its cause I forgot.

Last edited by Infoseeker on 29 Mar 2011, 1:50 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Its really does pay to forgive, living with rage sometimes ends up in cancer from the stress

Last edited by Surfman on 29 Mar 2011, 3:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

YES! Here, tell me if this is an example of what you mean:

Somebody stole my car once, and they found it a month later about 30 miles away. I never got angry, and even if I knew who did it I wouldn't seek revenge. Another time, some kids shot at me with a b.b. gun, and I chased them and smashed a beer bottle at them, but never really dwelled on it. Somebody tried to get me fired at a former job for something THEY did, and while I did avoid them, I never really tried to get back.

However, rejections, gossip, and being bullied have caused me to hate people for decades at a time.

Perhaps you did not get angry on the guy who stole your car because you did not realize the mind behind that action. When you got the car back you thought "all is well that ends well". But you did not realize because of asperger's that the intention was not well and you might not have got your car, which is a very expensive property, back. In second case I think again you did not realize that they affected your life by making you lose the job.

Oh.....you have been punched so many times I think the reason you did not feel angry because you did not realize the mind behind that act, the disrespected had for you that made him punched you. When people called you names you understood the disdainful mind behind that act.

Maybe. I dunno.
I just think I deserve it generally.
So it's more like there's nothing to forgive.

The highlighted portion is a very important statement. Because we do not do something and even we do something we do not attach mind to that action therefore it is difficult to understand the mind of the person, which is required to understand the offence, that made him/her commit the offence against us.

This is a very important piece of information. Since we have immature amygdala, which is responsible for processing emotions, we tend to forgive people's behaviour, good or bad, towards us, it is my opinion. NTs forget but they do not forgive when the right time comes they strike. What we should do is to decide the punishment for what was done to us and then forget and get over and when the right time comes then strike. By that time we would have forgotten the state of mind that we had when we were wronged, I guess because of immature amygdala, but we need not recall that exact state of mind, just recall the punishment you decided at that time as the punishment was decided at that very time.

Moral:Stay away from these toxic people. I loved Chama's views .

I don't forgive. My experiences most NTs see forgiving as a weakness and like a licence to repeat the offending behaviour.

I forgive a lot of things, and forget them too. I have enough negative about my life that I really don't need to hold onto more. There are some things which cross the line, however, which I will never forgive or forget. If someone hit me, that would definitely be one of them. No one deserves to be hit, ever.

As a personal example, I have mentioned here before that my best friend dumped me without any explanation or anything. He was one of very, very few people I could actually communicate with, or so I thought. So it hurt me terribly when he did it, since I had no idea why at all. I still don't. If he came back and wanted to be my friend again, I don't know if I could. I don't think I could ever trust him again.

Unnn... no, in both cases I fully understood the implications of what they did and the negative impact it had on me. But I didn't really dwell on it and hold a grudge.

I learned about three different kinds of forgiveness. (Yes I spell badly. Can't help it really.)

1: The kind where you punish yourself by OKing what they did to you, or someone you care about, by useing excuse logic. "Oh they had a bad day."
"Maybe I did something wrong?" ect. If you started the whole problem, this is ok, but abusers and bad people don't diserve the additional distruction to your sanity, in my oppinion.

2: Accepting the person, not what they did (eh oops), and moveing on after letting it off your chest.

^this^

+1

I tend to forgive too easily, but then again I believe that holding a grudge or anger simply costs me wasted energy and emotion. I genuinely forgive most all trespasses which are accidental or unintentional, even if they caused grief, injury or damage. I do have a few exceptions though... I do not forgive anyone for any kind of cruelty toward, or neglect of, animals.

Charles