Why You Should Forgive Those That Broke Your Heart
It is natural to want closure, apologies, or even revenge but you don’t need it.
I happen to be the queen of petty, passive-aggressive grudges that I have held on to, since forever; so it is somewhat ironic, that I of all people am here, talking about forgiveness.
For the longest time, I had a deep, dark secret — a hate list, comprising of the names of all those people who should not be allowed into my funeral (Can you even begin to imagine the amount of hate and rage that brought me here?)
These were people I said I’d “never” forgive because they hurt me in ways I didn’t deserve. I won’t take a deep dive into it but let me summarise the gravest of those for you — like my high school boyfriend who cheated on me with my then best friend (yeah, they totally make it to the top two).
And my narcissistic kind-of-boyfriend who I stood by when he was at his worst, only for him to later blame me for everything that went wrong with his life. He gaslighted me to the point where I started doubting my own sanity and my status as a good person. After him, there was the seemingly perfect boyfriend who said ‘I love you’ at night, broke up with me via text the next morning and started dating someone else within a few weeks.
My burning question was, why should I even have to forgive such people?
Forgive, because holding on to the grudge will only make you bitter. You need to see past the pain to move forward.
“It happened. Just move on” my ex had snapped at me when I reached out to him, a month after we separated. Back then, his words were a stab in the heart. Now, they make absolute sense. Yes, you’re hurt. Yes, you didn’t deserve it. But you can’t change what happened. You can’t fix what you didn’t break. So you have to move on, there is no other way.
Condemning others for how we feel after they did what they did; is not just futile, it is self-destructive. The blame game fills you with hatred, it makes you resentful and it gives your past control over your present.
I blamed my ex for all the awful things that happened to me after he left. My soul burned when I saw pictures of him with his new partner. It was incredibly painful to see him treat her like he treated me. In fact, he treated her better and I hated it. I despised him for leaving me in pain while he enjoyed his new happily ever after. But that wasn’t really his burden to bear, was it?
We can’t blame others for our inability to process pain and heal for the better. Healing has nothing to do with who caused our pain and how — we have to pick up the pieces, figure things out for ourselves and simply move ahead.
Forgive, because more often than not, you only know your side of the story. And that isn’t enough.
We do everything for the right reason — as far as we are concerned. So the actual story and our story can look very different. We tend to believe the version that validates our interpretation of what happened. That is how we as humans have been wired. Steven Pinker calls this the Moralisation Gap which Mark Manson has explained in Why You Can’t Trust Yourself.
“Whenever a conflict is present, we overestimate our own good intentions and underestimate the intentions of others. This is all unconscious, of course.
— Mark Manson
Sometimes, we hurt people and sometimes, we get hurt. That’s how the world works. When we hurt people, we immediately collate our justifications for it but when people hurt us, we assume that they’ve changed and have become horrible people. Sounds a tad bit unfair, doesn’t it?
We don’t get to tell people that their side of the story isn’t valid. People can be unkind, complex and messy but even the worst of us are allowed to do whatever makes them happy. Sometimes, it isn’t you. And that’s not because of anything you said or did. Take all the time you need but learn to be okay with that.
Forgive, so you can let go and then, forgive yourself too.
The only people we hate are the ones we once loved with every fiber of our being. The people we don’t forgive are those that once cared for us with all their heart. We refuse to forgive them because we didn’t see the betrayal coming. But when such people hurt you, you have to remember it has more to do with them than it can ever have to do with you.
Most times, we become collateral damage in people’s war against themselves. It’s not right but it is what it is. You may question or doubt yourself and think you had a part to play and to a certain extent, maybe you did but it doesn’t mean that it was your fault.
It is natural to want closure, apologies, or even revenge but you don’t need it. It won’t help — it will neither change what happened nor the way you feel. Remember that what is yours can’t be taken away and what isn’t can’t stay, no matter how much you want it to. So cherish the good times for the last time and let it all go.
Forgive them for leaving and forgive yourself for letting them get away. Forgive them for doing it so that you can forgive yourself for letting it happen.
We need to forgive not because people deserve forgiveness but because we deserve freedom from all our accumulated emotional baggage.
You may not have a say in what’s done to you but you can choose what you do with it. Forgiving can but does not necessarily mean fixing things with people or letting them back in or becoming friends and acquaintances. It’s accepting that they did what they did for reasons you will never know and making peace with their actions, with their absence — because holding on to what was will make it impossible to be happy with what is.
We need to forgive not because people deserve forgiveness but because we deserve freedom from our emotional baggage.
That said, it does not mean that forgiveness comes easy. I still have a hard time hearing the names of certain people who hurt me deeply because I believe that hurting someone is always a choice. Sometimes an easy one and sometimes hard, but always a choice that is made in full consciousness. It does not happen by accident. So its quite natural to harbour resentment, uncertainty, guilt and pain.
But you can either let that pain rip you apart or you can accept things for what they are and move forward. The fact that our growth is purely our responsibility is extremely terrifying, yet liberating because you can start whenever you want. I won’t say I know how to forgive but I try, nonetheless. For starters, I don’t have a hate list anymore.
Forgiveness is the final act of love (said Beyoncé). Without it, nothing is ever settled and there is no peace.
So, I try and I hope you can too, for no one but yourself.
