How much active personal value do you put on forgiveness (and what are your limits?)
 

And by that I mean (as it says in the title, really, but I’ll explain a bit more), is it easy for you to forgive people even when they’ve wronged you in some of the most despicable ways - e.g., gaslighting the hell out of you and casting doubt over your capabilities and sanity to the point where you became an invalidated shell of yourself for months (or more); roping you into a smear campaign when you were really just minding your business; doing the dirty with your other half - or do you just F people off at the slightest sign of disrespect/interpersonal toxicity (which is absolutely fine if that’s where your boundaries are at)?

So long as no-one dies, I can forgive just shout anything

about*

I can forgive quite quickly when it is me that has been "wronged". I hold more of a grudge f people "wrong" my loved ones.

Holding a grudge takes too much effort. I don't forget easily though so will always be a little more wary

Lifes to short to hold grudges.

My ex wife new partner gave her its him or me speech when my late son was going of the rails a bit, she chose him, so my late son was living with his granny whilst I was living in London.

Sadly he passed away a short time later. At first I was so angry with him for the him or me thing, but realised that neither him nor my ex wife would have expected anything like what happened to happen. So after the initial hurt and anger you soon learn to see things from a different perspective, and time can be a good healer.

Day to day stuff, like people lying to you, or saying something you disagree etc, well I just dont have enough hate in me for it to matter.

How much active personal value do you put on forgiveness (and what are your limits?)
 

This is a vey interesting and rather complex talking point !!


I have maybe an extreme take on things as from my part I can forgive ( if not forget ) just about anything - if the ‘person’ is simply too young to know ( or simply incapable of knowing ) any better .

Sadly , if it’s an adult that wrongs me or my family / friends then sadly there’s really no coming back .

This may not seem to be a rational view to many of you but I attribute my ‘off kilter’ view to me being Aspergers/ADHD ( and dyslexic... sigh)


That said , thankfully there haven’t been many incidents anyway and I don’t dwell on them ... they are just filed away in my virtual filing cabinet

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I can forgive and have done so

It's a difficult one to answer,it really does depend on a lot of things for me

Exactly !


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I've always been pretty forgiving, almost every day is a new slate :joker:

Would you say you being on the autistic spectrum gives you a certain naive purity of outlook when it comes to being honest and straightforward (making it easier to just forgive and let live) or does it do the opposite thing and make you very black-and-white when it comes to morals and the way you approach people who cross them (a little like people with borderline personalities, but obviously much less chaotic)?

Easy to answer.
I am very tolerant in general, but if you really crossed the boundary then you really are dead to me, no grudges, just dead.

i don't hold grudges, i just shut people out of my life that have been a dick to me or my family and there is no coming back from that. Holding a grudge demands effort on my part which i'm not prepared to invest.

Yeah, it’s a tricky one. That’s why I made those poll options quite broad and detailed but that doesn’t even tell the half of it. It’s just something for people to think about across the course of the week, I suppose (the options are open indefinitely so people can tap in whenever).

Personally I try and see the world through a somewhat abstractly-accommodating lens if that makes any sense (in other words I might not be the first to jump into the fray of things when it comes to navigating relationships but at the same time I very much recognise that people are so different when it comes to boundaries and things that are and aren’t acceptable). I try and take people as they are but exaggerated, negative gossip involving my name, insulting some of my innermost values and violating my personal boundaries (whatever they might be in that any one instance) over and over again, especially when it’s along the lines of - I know he said that this is how he likes to pattern his ting but based just on what I think I don’t think he’s entitled to that boundary or mark of basic interpersonal respect - just doesn’t jibe well with me, because then it’s like people aren’t even trying to respect you (which kind of defeats the purpose of a friendship or anything like it) and people like that don’t tend to change (unless they go on some sort of long narcissistic healing/recovery programme) so I tend to just allow people like that. On the one hand I’m the kindest, most dutiful and accommodating sort of person with people who respect me (who I respect in turn) and value the concept of healthy interpersonal relationships (and I value my family like die, despite our occasional disagreements) but I can also be incredibly indifferent and cold-hearted when it comes to people who disrespect me and only really want me around once a week to do favours for them. I made the mistake of playing the game for a little while before just making them feel guilty and letting them go but at this point I’m hardened to the point where I wouldn’t even look someone like that in the eye once I’ve sussed what they’re about.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. (Lords prayer)

It is also not enough to forgive just once. Jesus says in the parable of the Unforgiving Servant that it is not enough simply to forgive someone seven times, but seventy time seven (Matthew 18:21-22) which implies as often as is needed.

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Jesus sounds like a bit of a Doormat tbh

no he is just chilled

All the way through the Bible the message (or gathered human wisdom to avoid wars and death) is "m8te you need to forgive people and people will forgive you when you f up" otherwise is a sh1tfest bro and you will spend way to much time with negative energy and like mental health issues - yo feel me?"

ie forgive

turn the other cheek is another classic

Look where that got him though, chillin' on a cross

^ none of that’s to say I don’t otherwise enjoy doing favours for people because there are people in my life who I have a mutual somewhat personable connection with but don’t actively interact with when I’m not helping them out or doing them the odd favour here and there when they need it. That’s fine because in those cases we know where we stand (and we may or may not become closer at some point in the future) and I really don’t mind casual favour-needing buddies so long as there’s a modicum of respect. That’s all I really ask for. Don’t take me for a dickhead or gossip about me unnecessarily (in a way that makes whatever my situation is ten times worse) and there’ll be nothing to forgive. That’s just the way it is and it’s not like it isn’t fair play.

ah yes but he forgave those who did it

“Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.”

and when he died it meant that eternal life was promised to all people who have faith in him.

So it was a win win for humanity in the end

:hee:

But is that always practical when people are trespassing your values and boundaries in the most disgusting ways (as is often the case with so many people)?

And we all lived happily ever after :hee:

i think they knew exactly what they were doing when they nailed him up there, it couldn't exactly be described as an oops moment :laugh:

Well when he sang always look on the bright side of life the Centurians looked surprised so I dont think you are right

I’d say the latter .. I certainly see things as either right or wrong - no in between.

That said .. I give youngsters a bit of a pass as they are still learning and evolving and as such don’t really know any better .

I’ve never knowingly or intentionally broke any rule or hurt someone’s feelings .

I still pay for our TV license and I’m probably the only person who hasn’t had their FireStick Jailbroke

I’ve still got a clean licence after 44 years of driving - not even a parking offence .

That said I feel that I am kinda naive as I don’t always believe when someone does something wrong as it’s something I’d never do , personally


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I don’t even pay my BBC iPlayer tax fee. You’re a don.

But no, (on a more serious note) I think I have the opposite problem to you (I have my fair share of internal baggage/quirks but Asperger’s isn’t exactly one of them). I play the game for a whole (sometimes not even that intentionally) and see too many shades of grey in-between and wait for people to really cross lines with me (depending on how close they are to me, obviously) before I let them go and at that point there really is no turning back. I like to think of myself as a nice guy at the core but I definitely don’t forget even if I do forgive eventually.

Interesting


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So you haven’t broken a single law?

How much active personal value do you put on forgiveness (and what are your limits?)
 

Not intentionally

It’s just the way I am .. it’s also partly the way I was brought up ( to be honest and hard working - the old fashioned way )

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Going back to the thread topic, the most painful thing about the most recent experience of betrayal I had with people who actually meant something to me (last year) is that we actually mostly got on just fine in the beginning (after a dodgy first few weeks getting to know these two guys) and there was a point where I gave a lot (way more than I needed to) and was low-key planning a mutual holiday for the three of us between Amsterdam and Florence (Italy) but then they went and did what they did over the course of several months and a lot of drama came out of it so it all went very sour. Only one of them properly apologised for what he did but the funny thing is the other one still had the audacity to chime at me one of the last times I saw him (I probably wouldn’t have forgiven him or wanted anything to do with him generally even with an apology). There was this other mutual person known to two of us who got involved in my life last September/October (who ended up really pissing me off and very much violating my boundaries) but he was just a random face I never gave a monkey’s about in the first place so when he got the guilt-hint (I think he did try and genuinely patch things up prior but I didn’t care) and deleted me off one of my socials I really wasn’t bothered. I just wish I’d have had a chance to have told him what-for in person but being the flakey fly-by-night he was he wasn’t even worth that. I hope I never see the bastard again.

Last year was far from my easiest but it taught me a thing or two about self-validation, boundaries and realising that it’s okay to just walk away from people who haven’t proved themselves to be worth your time and attention if they lack the most basic respect. I’m not even a boundary-buss like that but so many people out there don’t even know the basics of it,

Fool me once, shame on shame on you, Fool me you can't get fooled again

What about when people pretend they did nothing wrong,and act normal with you again .

I always feel like it's a soap opera with a script change,when that happens.

It just depends what they did. I can overlook certain things (quite a lot, actually) but when the gaslighting’s about something serious or involved you going deep/pouring your heart out (in a way) only for them to be like, ‘I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about’ and then go on to gossip about you, I’m so done. I might play along for a bit but they’re sure to get the hint soon enough that I don’t want anything to do with them ever again (unless they acknowledge the seriousness of what they did and apologise properly).

The guy who roped me into his nonsense last autumn (I wasn’t interested in having anything to do with him in the first place) was like that. Not once did he acknowledge his foolishness and he wondered why I didn’t want to go within a 90-foot-bargepole radius of him (and on top of that he was just a shallow, freckle-faced so-and-so who did little to sustain my interpersonal interest after the first two times I met him anyway). As far as I’m concerned no apology, no friendship (if it’s that deep). You can’t just brush your nonsense under the carpet and expect me to carry on as normal with you (I’m socially-selective as it is so you really have to earn at least a bit of my trust and affection if you want to come anywhere near my bubble). I almost went out with him on New Year’s Eve (I was just about starting to warm to him around then but it still felt really, really awkward) but eventually I sacked it off and just let him observe me staying in my lane for the next few months. I heard a fair bit of guilt was involved in his part throughout the way but he never actually came back from his gaslighting and gossip and just got bored of me grey-rocking him in my authenticity after a while. Up until then he didn’t even come vaguely-close to seeing me for who I really was.