Forgiving the narc

I can't forgive or forget !! I will never forgive the devil! Hunter

But for now, the anger and rage is on! I need it. When I forget my anger, I forget what he's done and who he is. Not forgiving is helping me maintain MC. Someday, when I'm with my new husband, deeply and happily in love, I will have forgiven. And I may even thank the Narc because I will be in such a great place in my life. I will love again, I will enjoy life, I will be so happy and thankful it'll hurt :-). When that happens I won't even remember him. Yay!!

Hi... I'm undecided to tell you the truth. Wisdom that I have come to believe is that *if* I forgive that will mean that he no longer have any hold on me, as I have let go all of the hurts, disappointments and the lie that the last 15 years of my life has been. Yet, as much as I want to forgive, I'm not sure if I can - yet. There is so much "justice" yet that needs to be resolved. We are in a high conflict divorce - I know you are all so shocked :) He (a physician and a thus a very high income earner) has decided that he isn't interested in paying child/spousal support. He also is trying to underemploy himself, but the judge told him to go back to work FT, which he agreed - but guess what? He is above the law and has refused. He is wanting to keep all of his money for his new girlfriend I guess that he picked up at work 3 months after our separation. I am returning to school after being geographically isolated from any university for 10 years. He also said he was going to pay for my retraining (but of course, he changed his mind at the last minute and refused, stating he wants to watch me suffer as I try to pick up where I left off academically) I am trying now to get primary parenthood and a parenting assessment is coming soon. The kids are being bought off by stuff they want and going out to eat everynight. They have missed out on activities because he "forgets". Crazy making is his game and court is going to be exhausting and EXPENSIVE!!! I wish I could have NC, but I cannot because of the kids. So emails are it and I have learned to keep them short, sweet, to the point. I do not reply when he tries to engage me in a fight. As the Dixie Chicks say..."forgive? Sounds good. Forget? I'm not sure I could. They say that time heals everything. I'm still waiting."

Forgiveness is from ourselves, for ourselves. We can forgive him in our hearts just to help us get away from the "hate link" with the N. Just like how we do NC, just for us, nothing to do with the N. For me, I forgive the N, to help myself recover. Chant a buddhist prayer for him to ease my feelings as well. The N dont have to know if I have forgiven him or not. He doesnt understand will never do.

I don't think I will ever forgive. They are evil, they never say they are sorry, they never seek forgiveness. He used, abused and them threw me away like I was a piece of garbage. I will get to indifference again. But forgiveness, never. You don't forgive a snake when he bites you, you just stay away from snakes in the future. Indifference is my goal. Love to all Jen

Not sure what's the "accepted wisdom". I think it is a personal choice. Sometimes it is not even a choice. We just can or cannot. I never hold bad feelings toward people. It is not my conviction, not my choice, I just don’t. I’m not a religious person; it is not for a spiritual reason either. I am just wired this way. When I am hurt and offended, I can stand up for me, but then I just walk away. I don’t seek for revenge because I do not experience anger. I don’t wish any bad to the narc I have been with. I rather wish him happiness. I just don’t want him in my life and in my mind anymore. If this is what forgiveness is all about? Then, yes, I forgave him. I does not mean I forget and will be ever back to him. Love Winter

This is my stand on forgiving a narc/psychopath. First of all, nowhere in the Bible are we instructed to 'psychoanalyze' offensive/abusive people. We are not told in the Scriptures to try and 'understand' why our abuser behaves as he/she does. We are not told to excuse his/her abuse because he/she himself was an abused child, he/she has 'issues', low self-esteem, "personality disorders", etc., etc. Instead, we are taught how to respond to abuse, and how to deal directly with offenders and their behavior, regardless of their 'reasons'. We are told, very clearly, to rebuke, to forgive if there is repentance, and to have nothing to do with him/her if there is no repentance. (Luke 17:3, Ezekiel 33:8-9, Titus 3:10-11, 1 Timothy 5:20, Matthew 18:15-17 Luke 17:3 is the scripture often misquoted, we are often told that the Bible says 'Forgive and Forget', or that you must forgive him because you are a Christian. The forgetting part is very much misquoted; nowhere does it ever say you will forget because you forgave. However, Jesus is very specific when He tells us to rebuke the sinner, and if he repents, to forgive him. Have you rebuked your abuser, and has he or she repented? My abuser never even admitted his sin against me or our marriage, so I was being asked to forgive a lie. So there will be no forgiving, I haven't been asked to forgive the true sin. Joy2me "Listen! And understand! That terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with! It can't be reasoned with! It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead!"....Kyle Reese, The Terminator, 1984 "Listen! And understand! That terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with! It can't be reasoned with! It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead!"....Kyle Reese, The Terminator, 1984 Joy2me

I have forgave and pretty much forgotten the narc. I will never forget the lesson he taught me:) I was stuck thinking about this whole forgiveness stuff. I just obsessed over it until God sent me the solution.

I think for the most part I have forgiven him for being under the control of his disorder, but I have definitely not forgotten and there are many suspicions for me now of just how aware he really was/is regarding all the manipulation of me which played a part in throwing my life off track for a damaging amount of time - that is the hardest part for me to forgive - if he actually purposefully did it. I have chosen to forgive in my heart though, even if I still feel angry at times because I don't think he wanted to hurt me, he was just sickly acting out what he thinks is what he has to do because he is disordered. I don't wish him to hurt or seek revenge because that just keeps me stuck caring too much about what HE is experiencing. What I forgive most is myself for believing in a fantasy that HE HELPED me create, but which I willingly kept wanting to believe in, even after I began seeing there were many facets to it that were not being supported in reality.

I will never forgive intentional abuse. It doesn't mean I haven't moved on or am stuck, it means I know what he is and it doesn't deserve forgiveness. I have had to work on forgiving myself instead. I've had to ask myself why I allowed it for so long, why I wasn't able to get him to stop, why I didn't walk after the first date when he was 45 minutes late and didn't apologize. Why was I so goddamned dumb?! Still working on forgiving myself as you can see. But I'm the only one in this scenario who deserves to be forgiven. Not him. Uhm, he's not even remorseful! To hear him tell it, I was treated poorly because it was my own fault. It was my fault he cheated, he was left alone by me. They have no empathy. Therefore they can feel no remorse. If there's no remorse, then how is forgiveness warranted? I'm not letting the hate eat me up. I've moved on with my life, I've forgotten about him and don't miss him. But I'm not going to let him off the hook by forgiving him. To me, that's saying everything he has done is okay.

There's a good blog here on this, if I recall bc I read it so long ago. I can say that I just read a book on "Toxic Parents" by Susan Forward, Ph.D. and her view was, and I'm paraphrasing, that you don't ever have to forgive. Now, this is for parents who abused, but same principal. She said that she thinks to forgive early on, bc that is the spiritually suggested thing to do, can actually slow and block healing. There are some things that cannot be forgiven. If you chose to forgive for spirital reasons etc, then that's fine, but you don't have to tell your abuser either. Today, I feel like I'm not ever going to "forgive" my exN. This man tried to take me down. He tried to break me, wound my mind and soul (kill me so to speak). I know I can't forget, so I doubt I could forgive, but if knowing he is disordered, which helps me understand why, is kind of like forgiving and somewhat absolves him, than that I can do. However even though disordered, he KNEW EXACTLY what he was doing. He CHOSE that! That is why friendship is not an option - EVER. I could forgive a friend.

for me its not about forgiving them,its about forgiving my self for putting up with it all..4 main narcs...mother, exnh,exn, exnwoman friend....i will never forgive exnwf..cos at no point was she a friend,i just believed she was, she told me what to do, eat ,wear, all kinds of shit advice, all beginning with, i am only telling you this b/c i care about you....followed by to can tell me anything, i did so, and she then began playing mindgames..she hated exn and he hated her...2 of akind...exnh,i can just about handle that cos, in the end i rekon it was even steven....my mum, i am indiffrent to ,so i think that means i have forgiven her...i just dont care about her at all...now the exn, its still fresh in my mind,so there are still things that make me angry that i didnt get IT/at the time...but do now...as i am nc with him...i won't be telling him at all...the thing that does get to me...is the narcs[notexh] all knew that, they couldnt keep friends...or g/f.b/fs, but never attempted to see them selves in the wrong,it was always the other persons fault....so they didnt care they hurt people, aslong as they could get someone else.... are you thinking of forgiving your narc? b/c to me,forgiveness is not something you think about...forgiveness is something, that you wake up one morning and you don't CARE ANYMORE....WHAT THEY DONE,WHAT THEY DIDNT DO...YOU HAVE WITHOUT KNOWING...MOVED ON...SO I GUESS FOR ME FORGIVENESS IS WHEN I DON'T CARE ANYMORE...

Oh my, I posted an article about forgiveness, and got negative feedback. Personally I want to forgive, because I think it is toxic not to. I will never forget and I am unable to forgive at this point in time, but forgiveness is my intention. The bottom line is that he is mentally disordered. Oddly, I am a stronger person by having associated with him.