forgiveness is not owed
what do i owe the person who wronged me
[it’s a busy week here at going it alone. here is an older one i am reviving because i need to see it again]
I’ve been thinking about forgiveness, and whether or not he deserves it. I can’t imagine a scenario where I confront him and say “I forgive you,” mostly because he doesn’t know how mad I am. I’ve never told him. I never came out and said with full force “you wronged me, you wrecked me” and I think I’d have to do that before I told him I forgive him. And before that comes a reckoning with myself, where I try to figure out if I am going to relieve him of a guilt that he may or may not feel.
We had a small email exchange earlier on where I told him I’m sad, and he told me he’s sorry I’m sad. But that’s such a small part of what needs to happen in the scenario that plays out in my head, usually at 3am, where I tell him everything, about all the hurt and anger and bewilderment, all the shock and despair and pain. In these scenarios we are face to face, seeing each other in person for the first time since he left, and I quietly relay every emotion I’ve felt since he walked out without warning. He acknowledges his wrongdoings, he owns up to the fact that he went about it all wrong, and I forgive him. We go on with our lives.
Alas, life isn’t a packaged perfectly like this, and I know that even if we did eventually get together I would lack the spine needed to stand up for myself like that. I would just ask him how he’s doing, how he’s holding up, how’s his mom. I’d let him lead the conversation like always and we’d never get around to how I feel, how I’m doing.
I am going to spend the rest of my life harboring resentment against him. I am going to chew on this resentment endlessly all because I don’t want to forgive him, really. I don’t think he deserves forgiveness until he admits to what he did, until he actually says he is guilty of all the things I want to accuse him of. Maybe a quiet, inner forgiveness will finally get me to swallow all the resentment and forget about it, but there’s a big part of me that doesn’t want to take the higher road, that doesn’t want to forgive him, because doing that would mean giving up and letting him win.
I could feel it immediately when he said he was leaving. I felt it building as he gathered his keys and his jacket. It gathered momentum as I became aware that he already moved his things out while I was out of the house, that this was pre-planned down to the new apartment without any discussion of it with me beforehand. It felt like water was starting to boil inside me and each realization of another thing he did behind my back turned the heat up. I was devastated and sad and after he left it all grew into a steaming anger that sat in my stomach, that lay in my heart. How do you forgive that? Why should I forgive that? Why let him off the hook when he’s shown no sign of wanting that forgiveness?
What do I owe you, I find myself thinking as I look at pictures of him, pictures from when we were stupidly happy. There he is in that silly cowboy hat and long hair looking hotter than he had any right to. There he is leaning against the wall in our old house, smirking at me, making light of something. There he is on the couch with the dog, looking for all the world like a content man. What do I owe you, god damn it? And why do I keep feeling like I owe him anything at all when I’ve yet to get a good explanation, an apology, a reason for any of it.
Forgiveness is a brick I want to throw through his window. Forgiveness is a gentle wind entering his door. Forgiveness is kind to the recipient, and should be a relieved burden for the giver. It might make me feel better to forgive him, but it also makes me feel somewhat victorious over him to hold onto it. Maybe that’s petty, but I’m a human being and not beyond some pettiness here or there.
To forgive would be to say “it’s ok what you did to me, it’s ok you hurt me, it’s ok you blindsided me.” It would be me telling him I was not worthy of him, that he had a right to leave, that I was also somehow in the wrong. I think of the time I spent catering to him, tending to him, nursing him back to health after his self-inflicted death scares, sitting in the background while he took care of his needs first, and I realize my anger is partly retroactive, not just from the way it ended. I don’t need his apology only for the way he left, but for the mess of my heart he left in his wake.
What do I owe you. I owe him nothing. Forgiveness without an apology beforehand is impotent in way; I’d just be throwing words at him to try and relieve myself of the anger I hold within. Without hearing all the reasons why, without hearing him say he’s sorry, without any explanation and him actually asking for forgiveness I have decided to not gift him with “I forgive you” but instead hold it to myself. He has no right to it.
What do I owe myself. That’s something I should be thinking about. If I do forgive, it will be because I need to find some inner peace. It will be for me, not for him. It will be a selfish forgiveness providing me with a way to let go of some of this anger. And honestly, him not knowing that I forgive him is what he deserves.