For those of you who’ve been following my blog, you may recall this post about the man I thought I was going to marry, who lied to me that he had cancer (and lied about everything else).
It’s been three years now, but I haven’t really been able to move past it.I have been through breakups before, and had gone through family troubles when I was young, but those incidents weren’t a match for the pain I felt when this happened. It was as if someone ripped my heart up into pieces. More than that, I was ashamed of how stupid I had been. That’s when I gave up.
Screw relationships, screw love, screw it all. Everything was a lie. There’s no happy ending waiting for me.
And with that thought, I locked the door to my heart and threw away the keys so that even I couldn’t get in. I figured there was no place for my heart in this loveless life.
I started dating men I saw no future with. Men who explored the curves of my body but never the corners of my mind.
I went through a series of unsatisfying relationships and made a hobby out of accumulating pain. I told myself I would never forgive this man for ruining my life. I was determined to hate him forever, and clung tightly onto the anger and resentment for the past three years.
A few months ago though, I came to the realisation that ‘hate’ was too big a burden to carry. It drained the life out of me, and something needed to change for me to live a fulfilled and happy life. I knew what the answer was, but I had been resisting all along: the only way I could free myself was to forgive him. But how could I, after everything he’s done?
I then learned that the definition of ‘forgive’ is ‘to give up the right to resent someone or the need to punish them’. Forgiving someone doesn’t mean you condone their behaviour, it simply means you stop resenting them and in doing so, set yourself free.
And that’s exactly what I did. I wrote this man a note to say I forgave him, and meant every word of it.
What happened afterwards was a sense of liberation like I’ve never experienced before. All this time I’ve been carrying around a heavy bag filled with anger and hatred, and now that I’ve thrown the bag away, it’s as if a huge weight has been lifted.
It’s not easy to forgive someone who’s hurt you, and definitely not easy to restore your faith in humanity. But that’s really the only way to heal your wounds and experience love and happiness. For the first time in my life, I can say I am genuinely happy. I wake up each day feeling grateful for being alive. I see love all around me, and I have faith that love is waiting for me 🙂
Reminds me of a song:
And if you’re in love, then you are the lucky one,
‘Cause most of us are bitter over someone.
I’d like to leave you with this last thought: let’s not fill our hearts with bitterness, no matter the circumstances. Life is too short and precious to give up on love.
Of Fries And Men 
I am glad you can finally forgive. See how light you feel right now. There are many things around that hurt us everyday. But I just remember one thing, if I am not perfect and asked God to forgive me every day, I must do the same to others. Experience it and you know everyday is full of fun and it is always good to learn that no one, literally no one, can hurt you any more, unless you let them. Most importantly pray for the person who hurt or tries to hurt you. You will see great miracles happen!
That’s such a great reminder, thank you for sharing. I know it’s easy to say someone hurt us, but like you said, we are in control of how we choose to feel. I found it hard to pray for him at first, but now I am starting to. Thank you again for reading and sharing your thoughts 🙂
That’s so awesome! I’m so struggling with how to let go of very old hurts as we speak. I was just thinking to myself today that I have GOT to learn to let go of this crap but I don’t know how. What does it really mean to let go anyway? I haven’t seemed to figure out what works for me yet but I’m so happy to hear you have! Life is truly so much better when you forgive and move on. Carrying around old baggage simply doesn’t make sense. It’s crazy to think I understand this and am logical about it lol and yet, I can’t master it…hmm. Some day. 🙂 Great post!
Someone pointed out to me that by dragging this “baggage” around, I was taking my past with me into my present and future, which is true. I resented men, didn’t have healthy relationships or self esteem. All because of that one incident. And in the end who suffered but me? If this was my way of resenting him or punishing him, I wasn’t doing a very good job because the only person being punished was me. So I realized I didn’t want to live that way anymore. I wanted a clean future without all this baggage I had been carrying for three years. Trust me if I can do it, anyone can too! 🙂
Hey hey! I really wanted you to know that I have a success story to share! I’ve posted Part 1 of it as a teaser, and Part 2 coming soon!! yay!!
Hanging on to resentment and hate just lets him live rent free in your head and it does you no good. *hugs*
I have always hated the expression, “Forgive and Forget”. It’s stupid and unrealistic. The correct expression should be, “Forgive and Move On”.
It’s impossible to forget things that happen to us. Those things are stored in the brain and we never know what we will see, hear, taste, smell, or feel that will bring those memories flooding back into our minds. The idea is that those memories will have no power over us ever again.
That is true freedom.
One more thought. Have you ever been really angry with someone for doing something hurtful to you. You carried resentment for a time until the moment presented itself to confront the person. When you confronted that person, they were shocked. They had no idea they had hurt you.
Apologizing is a gift we give others. Forgiving is a gift we give ourselves.
That’s really profound and insightful. You’re right, any negative emotion such as anger persists in our mind and it impacts us in our day to day lives all the time because we let it. All it takes is to free ourselves of these emotions. It wasn’t easy to come to this realisation but I learned so much along the way. Thank you for reading and sharing your wise words.
Forgiveness is something I suck at, and have decided that I’m going to work on. I’ve even set up an appointment to see a counselor to at least talk it out. The forgiveness part I gotta do, but sometimes at least releasing it to someone is a way to start the healing and forgiveness process. I want to start and be free from being unforgiving.
I really get it, and yes even just talking about it helps. Thumbs up to you for taking the first step in being free of resentment and anger! Let me know how it goes!
I’ll keep you posted.