Courage to Forgive, BUT.....

Forgiveness is a journey....

As a Christian, I was taught to forgive wrongdoings and wrongdoers...I believed the writings and agreed that forgiveness is not saying that "What you did to me is okay, but instead, it's saying "I'm not going to let what you did ruin my happiness forever"...I believed that this was applicable to everyone, including my XP/N, and was very quick to offer forgiveness throughout the five years we were together...

Once I got out of Narcville; however, and some of the fog had lifted, I realized that I never felt better after forgiving him and quite honestly, many times, I felt worse.  My self loathing would increase exponentially after each "forgiveness" and I didn't understand why...

Until, that is, I discovered exactly WHO and WHAT I was dealing with and that the normal rules of society did not apply...I was still torn between my faith and what I had taught was right vs forgiving someone who not only had NOT earned it, but who also had NEVER even asked or cared to be forgiven...I didnt want to forgive him, but I dis need to find a way to move beyond it...And then I found this article on the psychopathy awareness blog and had yes, a pivotal lightbulb moment in two major ways:

1) Acceptance is not forgiveness.  Acceptance is a healing alternative which hurt parties accomplish for themselves, by themselves. It asks nothing of the offender which is good because in this condition, offenders have nothing to offer.

2) It is not MY job to forgive the XP/N , But it is MY job to heal myself.  

As the name of the article suggest, I do have the Courage to Forgive, but I also have the FREEDOM not to...And in the case of my XP/N, I choose to have the Courage to exercise my Freedom to not do so...

 http://psychopathyawareness.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/how-can-i-forgive-y...

Love,
OneDay@aTime