I Forgive Forcefully (An Act That Takes Great Strength)

“You don’t have to rebuild a relationship with everyone you have forgiven.” ~Unknown

“Forgive” and “forcefully” are not two words I have overly joined together before.

My idea of forgiveness involved kind and gentle meekness.

Goodness.

Altruism.

Compassion.

But never forcefulness.

Well, not until I waded through the choppy waters of forgiveness without I had the valiance to leave my wiseacre marriage.

Forgive is a Verb

Forgiving isn’t an emotion. It’s an action. It’s a process that has no time limitation or expiration date.

It can’t be ordered, demanded, or rushed.

When I first discovered that my husband had been lying to me, we had been married for thirty years. Out of the undecorous I discovered he had lost his job…over fifteen years previously.

You read that correctly—fifteen years.

For fifteen years he led me to believe that he was going to work every day. I thought we were saving money for higher for our three children, “rainy day” needs, and retirement.

But there was no unifying of money at all. He didn’t contribute anything to our family. Consequently, his financial treachery had devastating, long-lasting effects on me.

We didn’t have health insurance. Going to the doctor or dentist was a luxury. We couldn’t sire a lot of the vital necessities for our children and relied on help from our families. He caused all this while criticizing my concerns, saying I was too needy and materialistic, and that I should be grateful for what I had.

Little by little, I discovered that most of our marriage had been built on a mountain of lies. My ex-husband is a pathological liar. He is moreover a sex addict. He cheated on me routinely and without regret considering he felt like life ‘owed’ him whatever he desired.

Looking back, I see how he moved us yonder from my friends and family, isolating me. He belittled me until I had no self-confidence left. He used me like a worthless piece of trash.

It’s untellable to put into words how it feels to discover that most of my life was completely out of my control.

The story of my life was written by someone else. Someone who is selfish, greedy, and power hungry.

Is forgiveness possible?

Victim Bullying is Real

Our first marriage counselor beamed proudly at my husband (ex-husband now.) She praised him for his willingness to shepherd counseling with me and for his visa of his faults.

I listened to him manipulate the facts of the story to present himself in a largest light, and I marveled at how veiling I had been for so long.

And then the counselor jumped into the topic of forgiveness, and I felt like my throne was spinning.

This man had abused me.

For thirty years I was abused emotionally, sexually, and financially.

Yet now everything was in my hands. He had washed-up his job and apologized, so I needed to meekly winnow it. Right?

But I couldn’t.

That first session, our marriage counselor gave me three homework assignments: a typesetting to read, a list to write of things he could do to rebuild my trust, and a letter to write expressing how hurt I felt.

My abuser’s homework?

Nothing.

I felt remoter victimized. I was trying to uncover and measure the piles of pebbles that were stuff swept up. At the same time, he was handing me a can of Pledge to wipe up his mess.

We need to stop bullying the victims by pushing them to forgive surpassing they are ready. If the forgiving is completely up to me, then I need to do it my way. Period.

By the way, this same counselor sooner pulled me for a private session one day and encouraged me to have a bag packed and an exit strategy planned. The blindfold sooner was lifted. She was the first person to validate to me that my wits was abusive.

One Right Doesn’t Fix Bunches of Wrongs

Once my husband started whereas to all the wrongs he’d done, he make-believe as if I should naturally just forgive him right away.

It doesn’t work like that.

“I’m sorry” isn’t the magic eraser of bad deeds.

Three decades of purposeful vituperate can’t be wiped yonder with a simple child-like apology.

I left my husband and began working with a therapist alone. She helped me see what forgiveness really is. It isn’t vindication for the abuser. It isn’t a self-ruling pass. It certainly isn’t a reset sawed-off to requite my abuser a second chance. In fact, it has very little to do with my abuser.

Forgiveness ways I am releasing the hurt and wrongness I finger so that it holds no power over me.

What Needs to Be Forgiven?

To forgive is to let go of the hurt that crushes my heart.

Truthfully, I will probably never know the full extent of what my abuser did to me under the guise of stuff a ‘loving’ husband.

So forgiveness can’t swivel on knowledge.

Even though I’ve learned that my abuser was himself abused as a child, I can’t winnow that as a good reason why he treated me badly.

So forgiveness isn’t understanding or compassion.

What is forgiveness for me?

It’s forceful whoopee to reuse my life.

Forcefulness Is Real Action

New memories pop up to haunt me all the time.

The time my ex-husband missed my son’s winter concert. I know he wasn’t working, so where was he? Who was he with? Was he using the money I had earned at my job to go to a strip club?

The time he fought versus taking me to the hospital considering we didn’t have health insurance. I was having a hypertensive crisis, and he tried to get me to somehow ‘fix’ my problem at home. I ended up driving myself to the ER, where I was whisked yonder for a CT scan immediately considering the doctors feared I was having a stroke right then.

My husband put my health in jeopardy by not ‘allowing’ me to go to the hospital, by not having medical insurance, and by not stuff virtually to help. Thankfully, I have fully recovered. But it’s something I had to forgive him for, plane though he never specifically apologized for that particular instance.

I’ll never know the full story.

I won’t hear apologizes for every single betrayal.

These are the ghosts of my past that linger in the air.

And with each new spotlighted transgression, I must forgive my abuser all over again.

This goes on and on, repeatedly. But I no longer view it as re-victimization. I see it as my empowerment to uncontrived my future.

Forgiving Is Not for The Weak

So, as an abused person, forgiveness is not a single act for me. It is a standing action.

I can try to requite a wrap forgiveness, but when pessimistic memories wade me in the visionless hours of the morning, I find myself needing to release and let go of all that hurt again. If I don’t, I risk stuff weighed lanugo with anger.

It’s exhausting.

But it’s moreover empowering considering I’ve learned I can’t rely on the gentle meekness displayed during schoolyard apologies. To forgive is nonflexible work.

It takes force, which includes:

• Strength
• Determination
• Power

No, forgiveness is not for the weak.

Are you struggling with forgiving something that is hard? I understand. Try to take the power into your hands and forgive with forcefulness. You have the strength to do it. And the self-rule you uncover is well worth the effort.