Before I explain why this quote “Forgive but don’t Forget” does not apply in real life. Let me tell you in short what it actaully means…

Explanation:

In our lives we grow up around a lot of people, we meet a lot of people throughout our life. On different occassions they make mistakes that hurt us intentionally or unintentionally. Now when someone hurts us it naturally gives birth to one or more negative emotions inside of us. For example anger, hatred, sorrrow are some of the few intense emotions. We tend to hold grudges because of these emotions and behave differently with that person by mostly treating them badly or say rude words to them. Sometimes these grudges can lead to physical violence.

I should mention while this is the most common way how most people show that they are hurt, there are few of those who rather than showing these grudges, holds them inside that sometimes come out as passive aggressiveness. Which in return can break the bond that you two share or destroy a relationship completely between you and that person. But in the end it does come out. And as long as it stays inside of you it will get worse for you as you will get bitter with each passing day. Also you will have mood swings, irritation, nothing will make you happy anymore, insomnia are some of the other signs.

How the phrase was born?

We humans are social creatures and we need people so from that need, the concept came “Forgive but don’t Forget”. According to this concept forgive so that you can be with that person and also for your mental and emotional wellbeing but do not forget so that you can remember how much they hurt you. So you won’t make the same mistake again that made them hurt you in the first place. Also there are some other reasons like the person who hurts you is a family member and you cannot abandon them, or your partner whom you love very much. That is why after causing so much pain you let them stay in you life.

Confrontation is hard:

Now in order to apply this technique, you need to confront them first. Some of us who had a rough childhood, who saw a lot of fights (not necessarily physical but verbal), a lot of broken relations, never had a sense of belonging or don’t know what a family truly means, they are afraid of these confrontations. Because they fear if they confront the person who hurt them, that might lead the person to leave them. I can say this from my personal experience as I have these abandonment issues and I struggle with it even now. I think it is called Unhealthy Attachments in Psychology. Where we hold onto relationships that are hurting us just because we don’t want to feel lonely.

My Opinion:

Now why I think this quote is not practical, in my previous posts I had mentioned our mind is a data processing system.

I believe as long as you don’t forget completely, you can’t completely forgive either. And complete forgiveness is impossible, in order to do that you have to erase that painful memory from you mind which is not possible so it stays with you. And as you keep that pain and hurt inside of you it will come out, maybe not as an outburst but in some other subtle ways.

Now for some reason if you suppress that painful memory and forget about it ever happened then you will get hurt again maybe not by that same person but by someone else.

So what is the solution?

1. You can detach yourself from that person. It is the easiest solution because if you don’t see that person in front of your eyes every second then with time this hurt and pain will go down.

2. You can put walls (create boundaries) between you and that person. This means limiting emtional interaction with that person. Because one emotional moment can lead to another. I am sure it happened to you too, one happy moment made you relive a painful memory associateed with that same moment. But in the past this particular moment, which made you happy this time, made you sad before.

3. You can confront them. If that person hurt you unintentionally then they will not leave you. They will try to understand how they hurt you and rectify their mistake. Also this can sometimes lead to ugly fights if they indeed hurt you intentionally. So I would recommend take this step by carefully judging the situation and that person. This is not a good choice if they are ill tempered. If they are calm minded then only this can work.

Personally I think this is the best option. In this way they will now they have hurt you and the whole idea of forgive and forget won’t come. Because now they will try to make up for that mistake. And in the off chance they don’t try to understand and blame you for being too critical and judgemental and end up leaving you. Then you will be alone again that is true. But it would also mean you just avoid being with a person who is bad for your health.

Conclusion:

In the end all I want to say is forgivess isn’t easy. And it is our personal choice if we want to forgive someone or not. But sometiems we are put in a situation where we are forced to work or be with somone who hurt us. In that situation we feel like forgiveness is the only way that can make things work but I think not. I think we are capable to handling extreme things if pushed into a corner. And I don’t think in order to be with somone who hurt you, you need to forgive them. If you treat that situation like a duty or responsibility or both that can also work. Because in the end it is impossible to completely erase a memory, and as the memory stays the pain stays. So the choice is always yours!