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breakeven_not t1_jdi6i8l wrote

Reply to comment by Fthat_ManaBar in Individuals with secure emotional attachment are more likely to forgive and to be forgiven, study finds by chrisdh79

You are right, but sometimes people do understand their mistake, and are torturing themselves over it. This is especially true about people with self-esteem issues that tend to be their own most unforgiving critic.

How do I know? Personal experience. I've taken myself out of some people lives because even if they seem to have forgiven me, I could not forgive myself and truly believed their life was better without me and that I did not deserve them. Looking back, it was not bad and I was only human and thus fallible.

There are some things in this life that are unforgivable, but for smaller things, that were not intentional, or were caused by misunderstandings, I think we should try to forgive, especially when the person proves they understood their mistake and are willing to work towards never repeating it. Otherwise.. we'll just be a society of lonely bitter people.

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Fthat_ManaBar t1_jdil4yt wrote

I believe that some people do change and I did acknowledge that. I just don't think most people do. It takes a lot of introspection when you mess up to establish why something happened, address the root of the issue, and correct it so it doesn't happen again. People who can do that are capable of changing and often care enough to change. I've had people in my life who royally messed up, acknowledged it, and did the work to make sure it doesn't happen again. I know they beat themselves up about it, I know the are legitimately sorry for it, and I don't doubt that it probably eats at them when they think about it. Those people are capable of change and they do learn from their mistake and grow from it. I've also had people in my life that make a mistake and might apologize for it in the moment but when the circumstances align again for the mistake to repeat itself it happens again. Those people didn't change and likely wont. I've encountered more people who don't change than I have people that do. All I can speak to is my own personal experiences.

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