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Forgiving is removing something bad someone has done to you from your life, that caused you hurt or harm. in the sense that doesn’t hurt you anymore.

@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.

*****

You can read it again trying to believe that the intention was different from what you apparently perceived. Or not, you can stand firmly into the conviction of intentional malice.

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.

*****

To all:

Drafting a response when you're triggered can be a good way to handle the hormones. Posting because one has been triggered, however, is not always a good idea. At least, it hasn't always been a good idea in my experience.

sisoon

@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.

BFTS

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... A temporary forgiveness is not yet real... It is a bad memory with no power over you. That’s when forgiveness is real. Permanent.

You are treating forgiveness like a binary switch instead of a human process. This is intellectually neat but psychologically inaccurate. If forgiveness requires the permanent absence of emotional activation, then forgiveness is impossible for anyone with trauma.

​Your view that forgiveness is only 'real' if you never feel anger or resentment again is clinically flawed.

​Your desire for genuine integration is a good long term goal. But your conclusion that only the last attempt counts is harmful. Bouncing back and forth is exactly how the human brain processes deep pain. Those early attempts at forgiveness are milestones, not failures. Framing emotional fluctuation as failure is harmful for the BS and the WS alike. Healing is cyclical, not linear.

​There is a better model of forgiveness, one that treats emotional fluctuation as a natural part of the integration process. In a clinical sense, forgiveness is a decision to release the debt of the wrong, not a magical shield against future pain. It is a commitment to a direction, not a permanent state of emotional numbness.

Every time a wave of anger hits and you choose to work through it rather than retaliate, you are practicing forgiveness. The first attempt, the sixth, and the thirtieth are all real. They are the work that makes the final peace possible.

​If they come out too bold and confident I give them a 'cold shower' to slow down... I tend to provide an angle that is often opposite to where their strongest emotion or direction is headed.

Ah, the self appointed thermostat. Talk about ego. Sheesh. You assume  your assessment of what a stranger needs (a "cold shower" or a "poke to their pride") is so incredibly helpful. In reality, playing devil's advocate just for the sake of forced balance often comes across as invalidating and exhausting to people who are already emotionally dysregulated.

IMHO >< True support requires reading what people are actually asking for before giving unsolicited advice. When you deliver a "cold shower" just to push back against someone's emotional state, you are not balancing the room. You are just centering your own ego over their actual recovery.

I address the argument only, I don’t even check who is the person posting most of the time

Reducing agonizing human betrayals to debate topics might protect you from the messy, unpredictable emotions of this forum, but it completely misses the point of this space.

SI is a literal sanctuary for people processing the worst pain of their lives. Those raw, chaotic, and messy feelings are not obstacles to recovery. They are the recovery. People have to feel them to get through them.

By ignoring the human behind the screen and focusing only on the intellectual puzzle, you are refusing to get your hands dirty in the actual work of healing. If you are too detached to tolerate the mess, you (any of you) have no business advising people who are currently drowning in it (JMHO).

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?

I don't understand where this comes from. It looks like you took my comment and assumed this was the only alternative. Is that what's going on here?

Suffice it to say that this isn't my conception of forgiveness, either.

Foreverlabeled makes sense, although for me, foregiveness was something like an on/off switch. That is, I entered a period in which forgiveness was not a concern at all, and my approach was that R was possible without forgiveness. And then one day I woke up and realized I had forgiven my W.

If we don’t feel capable to forgive we simply don’t stay with our betrayer, unless we’re forced by circumstances.

I was taught by SI that forgiveness was not necessary for R, and I still believe that. IMO, forgiveness is about the past, not the future; R is about the future, not the past. Two different things - for some people, they're intimately connected; for others, they're not.

R will probably be easier for those who do not connect forgiveness and R, and D is probably easier for those who don't, but knowing which camp one is in will probably help make one's decision.

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 "

Person A, the sender, makes a statement. Person B, the receiver, has to interpret it, because one cannot be in anyone's mind but their own.

'If someone receives a message wrongly' - means Person A, the sender, thinks the Person B didn't understand the message and/or that Person A didn't communicate what they wanted to communicate. The responsibility is the Person A's.

'and responds defensively' - this is nothing but Person A's interpretation of Person B's response.

The receiver of a communication decides what the communication means.

This is not providing any good support or guidance to the recipient, this is people pleasing.

Invalid assumption. 'Change the message to be more pleasing to the recipient' should be 'change the message so as to more accurately express what the sender means.'

The responsibility for the communication lies with the person who wants to be understood and who has concluded they have been misunderstood.

*****

In complete objectivity, if you forgive something that someone did to you, does that incident keep coming up in your life and interactions?

An injury that keeps coming up is my problem. I can't change my past. I believe no human being can change their past. If I'm ruminating over a past injury, I'm making myself live in the past, and it's on me to stop.

I use 'forgiveness' in 2 ways that I can think of. First, I mean I will not use an event as a cause for blaming the other person for my pain. Second, I mean I've given up a desire for justice.

On d-day, I forgave my W, in the 1st sense. It kept me from going crazy over 'what my W did to me.' That 1st level of forgiveness helped keep me focused on the things I could control. After all, focusing on myself as my W's victim would not change the past, and the energy could I used blaming her could not be used directly in healing.

When I fell into rumination (and when I start ruminating now), I have a 2-step method of getting out of it. First, I reminded myself I had forgiven my W, so ruminating over what she did was not acknowledging my forgiveness. Second, since I couldn't blame my W, I has to ask myself what I was feeling, and that allowed me to get back to the here and now, where I do have some control. (That worked great for dealing with infidelity. Alas, I keep forgetting to use the method when thoughts of condo, state, national, and international politics get into my head. Oh, yeah ... I can obsess about history, too. Talk about things I can't change....)

*****

To get back to the topic of this thread, 'What next?' ... I guess my advice is

1) Be yourself, and

2) Focus on knowing the difference between the things you can influence and the things you can't, and

2) Focus on the things you can influence and put aside the things you can't.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 6:45 PM, Friday, July 17th]

Sisoon I like the discussion and I would love if you are open to follow it up privately because I see well were you are coming from but I also do spot some logical loopholes in my opinion, and you gave me the impression of being an open minded person, so I’m glad if we can discuss this about the meaning of forgiveness without taking this thread more off track or making an exchange that ends up looking like sophism.

Let me just say this about forgiveness: if you don’t feel resentment or anger towards your wife for her actions, then you have forgiven her. This It’s different from feeling anger and resentment for the action you forgave the person, not the behavior.

While you were fleeting between forgiveness and emotion you were predisposed to forgive her, but you still felt resentment towards her coming back. Forgiveness is a process, not an punctuation.

It is a commitment to a direction, not a permanent state of emotional numbness.

You know, numbness is dissociation, it’s not the only outcome and I hazard is the least desirable outcome. The one I think is the healthiest is integration. You feel even more than you are when not integrated, but it doesn’t leave clouds, is not hanging.

When you integrate something it’s permanent as it becomes part of you, not a disruptive factor or a fleeting influence.

Final note: yes I don’t know reconciliation first hand yet, but from what I learned here from you, I am currently convinced that Reconciliation is possible without and separated from, forgiveness.

—————-

I will only address this here, please consider the above because I think it is stimulating exchange:

Person A, the sender, makes a statement. Person B, the receiver, has to interpret it, because one cannot be in anyone's mind but their own.

'If someone receives a message wrongly' - means Person A, the sender, thinks the Person B didn't understand the message and/or that Person A didn't communicate what they wanted to communicate. The responsibility is the Person A's.

'and responds defensively' - this is nothing but Person A's interpretation of Person B's response.

The receiver of a communication decides what the communication means.

1- There’s a glaring hole in here, person A understands the message and attributes a meaning, responds to that attribution, negating it.

2- Person B clarifies: the attribution you answered was not what my message wanted to communicate to you. Here is the objective of the message. - you explain the goal -

3- Person A replies to the clarification ignoring the context provided and loops back to their initial attribution at point 1.

That happens when person A for whatever reason refuses to engage with the stated intent (once misunderstood then explained) and resorts to the understanding that feels more comfortable to them. That IS defensiveness, avoidance of something that you can’t or don’t feel comfortable to engage with, so you resort to a misinterpretation that shields you from what you perceive as unwelcome.

Let’s say I was person A in this exchange.

- you are person B and you warned me about something that to your sensibility was a pitfall and misleading, and you did very briefly (like my initial comment in this topic)

- I read and understood were you probably coming from - it’s my interpretation but I assumed a benign intent, not a malicious one because it is not "triggering " to me.

However let’s pretend I found it "triggering " and I then decided, this is an insult and an attack on my self, because "you don’t know me" or whatever reaction that feeling can cause. It’s just an example.

So I claim this is insulting and you are making a baseless assumption about my "education " that you cannot possibly know.

- you as person B add context and nuance (as you did, as I did), and explain in depth why you pointed that out. - that’s what I call ‘respectful’ by the way. you engage and invest your own time and energy for the potential benefit of the person talking to you -

- I respond as person A and don’t engage at all with your clarification, I go back to invalidate anything you said and explained by my initial reaction "you still made a baseless assumption about my ‘education’ because you assumed that my reality and my experience must be similar to your experience, but you know nothing about my truth and life, I do. Don’t make assumptions about what I know "

— at this point I am "defending" my position by simply ignoring any explanation you may present.

This doesn’t mean that your message changed its meaning because I person A reject the stated meaning in your clarification and rolls back to the initial "misunderstanding " because most likely it is no longer a misunderstanding but is an "intentional misinterpretation ".

you can engage as you may, and you will get nowhere, maybe you can give it an extra shot (I think I explained 2/3 times? Enough to make sure is a pattern), but you can’t explain something to someone that refuses to engage. Is not even an argument, is avoidance, aikido.

A constructive discussion can be only conducted if both parties are open to hear out each other.

The above or the initial exchange in this thread isn’t. Not only with me, but I speak for myself.

When I see this disengagement, I just disengage as well.

and yes I do attribute the meaning of a response,Just like everyone else does. But I try to avoid having it set in stone because being human you get things wrong. Presume, not assume. Is different.

When a pattern of disengagement starts to emerge, then and only then I assume that there’s no interest from the other person to engage. For whatever reason they have, they refuse to. I could waste time and seeing it disrespected (politely or not) or I can take the most sensible approach:

you don’t care? Why should I care? It’s your problem after all.

Wether you disregard or did not notice, I still try keeping in mind that the people here might be less emotionally stable than they come through their writing, because they are facing a painful event.

So I suggested first to use the stop sign, just in case hearing from the other side might be unwelcome as it comes up feeling more emotionally charged.

I wonder if a wayward wrote the warning I wrote in the same way, would have been received the same or less "offensive "?

That’s going to remain a unanswered speculation.

Forever labeled

Ah, the self appointed thermostat. Talk about ego. Sheesh. You assume your assessment of what a stranger needs (a "cold shower" or a "poke to their pride") is so incredibly helpful. In reality, playing devil's advocate just for the sake of forced balance often comes across as invalidating and exhausting to people who are already emotionally dysregulated.

I don’t think you understand here, and I wonder what ego is truly at play.

I do that to myself regularly because I found it very utilitarian. Challenge everything you initially think or feel with the opposite hypothesis. It’s very useful as an exercise to keep yourself grounded.

A thermostat as you pleasantly try to poke fun, claims to ground the others.

I don’t claim to ground anyone for I only have influence about myself. But I think if something works well for me it might work well for others. Mind you, might work is very different than will work.

It is what I know and you share what you know with others.

Simple as that.

Talking of ego, are you sure I "assume" anything about influence to others? About others needs?

You’re here was a statement. With a lot of superlatives.

It’s a curious choice.

SI is a literal sanctuary for people processing the worst pain of their lives. Those raw, chaotic, and messy feelings are not obstacles to recovery. They are the recovery. People have to feel them to get through them.

That what you said here is the same intention I come up with when I reply to someone.

You have to feel them to get through them

.

I use my sensitivity to try just that. If I feel a wayward or bs hurting or down, drowning in shame or shock, I try to mitigate it with my usual mirror method (sometimes works sometimes like here not). It helped someone, it was useless for someone else, and others time it got resentment (like right here).

Mind you it’s empathy, isn’t a method or a technique codified. I get a feel and I try to present an angle that can be food for thought, possibly helpful to center yourself.

It can feel validating or confronting, that’s too depending on the recipient disposition or understanding.

I am careful with validation for obvious reasons, when I see too much emotional distress and I think it’s not the time to bring something up to someone I don’t post or avoid mentioning.

Believe it or not if the goal was to be hurtful there are many things one could say to do so.

This is not a battleground for what I see it.
It’s actually a place where to learn to excercise empathy and learn from both sides as we only have half the coin each other that we know of (with exceptions).

I like to ask myself a question "am I approaching this to learn, try to help or out of emotional charge?" Every time.

I also try to check that I am not mixing a BS pain with my history or a Wayward one with mine, though sometimes overlaps are difficult to discriminate, it’s tricky.

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 10:48 PM, Friday, July 17th]

Curious choice? Noooo, what is curious is you writing out an exact description of how you try to manipulate the emotional state of someone, and then pretending it is a mystery why someone called you out on it.That is the real curiosity here.

Like, my bad? I must have read your words totally wrong when you wrote

If they come out too bold and confident I give them a cold shower to slow down"

And

I care about the possibility that my input can help someone to find their center.

You were clearly just quietly practicing a personal exercise. This absolutely wasn't a confession that you intentionally try to alter other people's emotional states because you think you know what they need. Because if it were, that would be the exact definition of a self appointed thermostat. Is that tracking?

A thermostat forces the temperature to change to whatever it decides is right. If the "room" is too hot, it forces a cold shower. If it is too cold, it turns up the heat.

That is exactly what you described doing when you bragged about giving people cold showers to slow them down or poking their pride when they are down. You are trying to dictate the climate of the "room" based entirely on your own internal settings.

​I'm sure I'm reading that wrong too?