Forgiveness in Theory and Practice - Al-Anon Family Group

drywit44 · Member

Forgiveness in Theory and Practice

grateful2be · ~*Service Worker*~

This is me only and not Al-Anon - there's no need for forgiveness if there is no judgment in the first place. I am a sensitive person which is a good thing and then not such a good thing - especially if I take everything someone says or does personally. This is Al-Anon: What another person thinks, says or does - unless I contributed to it in some way - is none of my business. This is what I've learned in life: If another person says something that is hurtful, is it because what they say true in some way? If so, I can make a change. If not, I can let it go. If they persist in saying mean things to me or about me that aren't true, I can decide if I want to stay in relationship to this person who obviously doesn't know me or like me and move on if I don't want to stay in it.

Jill · ~*Service Worker*~

Hello One of the useful slogans from here is "How important is it?" The answer is not always that it's unimportant. If it is important, more work is needed.
I imagine a venn diagram. Important? no? go do something enjoyable for me. yes? That tells me the direction I can progress. I am not doing well to stay stuck in retaliation behavior.
Also, can you be the person to select the recovery program you attend? Shop around for one whose members have the peace of mind and joy of life you want for yourself.

hotrod · ~*Service Worker*~

drywit -- If you are looking for a topic to speak about at a meeting Forgiveness is perfect. I would look in one of the daily readers, read that page to the group and then share my inner thougths on the issue.

Alanon tools do teach us to not judge,critize or condem anyone That by judging we are setting ourselves up as judge and jury and this is an error in thinking. and against the alanon principles

The steps helped me to let go of the residual anger and resentment that I carried about from practicing my negative behavior in the past. I first prayed to let go of the anger at this person ( and when God Lifted that), I prayed that I see my part in the problem, and when I was shown this ,it was clear I was just a guilty in the incident . I was then able to let go of the pain and, make amends for my part in the issue, learn the lesson and move on. I never did forget the incident but it was no longer important

neshema2 · ~*Service Worker*~

drywit44 wrote:

I completely agree with the teaching of withdrawal and detachment from an abuser or addict. Disconnecting one's actions and feelings from those of a crazy person makes perfect sense, but what about from a normal, well-meaning, reasonable functional, deeply flawed human being? And my calling someone flawed is not pejorative. I view that as the human condition. It seems to me that a fuller concept of forgiveness is called for by those of us in healthy relationships.
I felt seriously resentful both at what she said and the pain it caused, I proposed. And married her. The pain has receded, but I'm still upset with her for the lingering heartache. It certainly works both ways. I will offend her regularly to varying degrees of severity. If she were unable/unwilling to press through her pain just as regularly, there is no way that we could remain together as intimate partners. If her priority were not reconciliation, but resentment, I doubt that we could make it 5 years.
With respect to a person one has decided to remain vulnerable and intimate with, is there more to forgiveness than simply renouncing a claim to resentment?

FANTASTIC post!!! to me, forgiveness is a one person activity...the person, lets go the resentment, and moves on from it....now to me , the offender must make amends, own their wrong in order for me to forgive...just like me when i do something "humanly" stupid and hurt another....I will only find redemption within me and with them, ONLY if i own what i did....make amends for it....work hard to never repeat.....and yes, abusers and addicts, i cut them out of my life, keep a big distance....there is no reconciliation with that.....adn the other word....reconciliation takes two......to reconcile, the offender owns their mistake...makes amends.....shows sustained good action THEN the other person decides "do we reconcile or do i just forgive but walk away" that is up to the one who was hurt.......in my opinion, only, this is what i think......some crimes are not forgivable, nor are they reconcilable, and i don't bother with either...but its up to me to work out my pain, grief, anger, and come to acceptance that "yep, this is what happened and this is the facts mam" then i can go on to letting it go (resentment) and moving on......i try not to let them have free rent in my head......sounds like she hurt you badly and you are still carrying unfinished business , emotionally, with her.....has she owned her mistake??? made amends??? if so, then is it worth hanging onto the negative feelings??? if she has not taken responsibility, has not made amends, then its up to you to decide do you want to keep harboring bad feelings, OR maybe just , setting a boundary within yourself in that "ok, she did it that time, but i am not gonna allow it again " and if she says/does the hurtful thing again, THEN you say, I don't like being talked to like that/ being treated that way and heres what i am gonna do if it does not cease....then you state how you will take care of yourself......

I am a communication person....if this were me, i would sit her down and not use "you" statements, but keep the focus on yourself, how YOU felt, how YOU responded when she said xxxxxxxxx i would keep my focus on the action NOT her character or inventory as we call it and how it impacted you and you want to reconcile this so you can let it go and move on from it......

Just my take...please use what you can and discard the rest......and again...FANTASTIC share, thank you for putting this out here for us to work on

grateful2be · ~*Service Worker*~

I do find myself wondering if agreeing to doing this "speaker's thing" is right for you considering that it feels like someone is sitting on your chest? I am also a Christian and one thing I've learned is that my HP empowers me to do what is mine to do. If I don't have the energy to do something, it usually is not something that I'm going to be equipped to do. For me, there is a difference between pre-speaking jitters (I've done a lot of public speaking and always get nervous before I actually get up and do it) and feeling like my lungs and heart are being crushed. The reaction you are having to this invitation seems awfully heavy to me.

Debilyn · ~*Service Worker*~

Ok for me in my experience, forgiveness is one part of love. If HP is love then he shows us how to forgive.

He forgave a lot of people, then he never brought it up again. Once forgiven that is that.

I wanted to forgive some people who did very bad damage to my property. A beautiful place they ruined.

I asked HP about forgiveness, how do I do it? I got an answer.

I forgave the people, becuz they will probably never know the love and respect i feel inside me. they may never know an Hp who forgives. Then may meet judgement day and be sorely hurt.

Knowing they do not know love, makes me feel empathy for them. I forgive them.

As far as my ex AH, I completely forgive, he did not do anything against me, he has a horrible disease and is badly brain damaged. There is no way people can drink and use other drugs and not destroy their total body. How can one get mad or not forgive them.

We forgive for ourselves too. Not just for them. Plus if we want to be forgiven, we must forgive others.

I am very devout to our Father, I totally respect and follow the Bible and study every day, talk to hp almost constantly. HP is number one in my life. Being a Jehovah's Witness, forgiveness is also being humble, leaving the judging to who's job it is, HP. I may not love someones behavior, but i love them. When one really believes addiction is a disease, there is no one to resent but the disease. It is NOT personal.

that is my experience.

KennyFenderjazz · ~*Service Worker*~

Hi drywit, welcome to MIP, I'm so glad you are here, you just hit a biggie for all of us, forgiveness.

Let me state what I think I read from your post. Your wife has been in Al Anon for 29 years. And you have not ever been in Al Anon or any other recovery program as such, but have been through a fair amount of counseling and therapy. And you are not addicted to anything, so there are not really any addiction issues between you in your relationship? You are in a couples recovery program that, from what I can read, is about healing couples that are in recovery, but from your description I don't know what you are in recovery as a couple from?

And I'm not sure I understand why you are going to a couple's therapy when it sounds like you can't stand the therapy? When I've been in similar situation the therapy didn't work at all.

In my experience, forgiveness and detachment are different things. Detachment is a tool that may allow one to move on with one's life, when one has to deal with a situation that is untenable and past the normal boundaries, but the situation still has to be there. It is used quite often by partners of addicts, and even more often by parents of addicts.

Forgiveness may involve detachment, again especially with an addict. When my wife was an active alcoholic, I would forgive her of any transgressions against me, and I then wouldn't hold it over her head later. But since she essentially wasn't changing, I had to use my HP to be able to forgive her, and then detach from the behaviors. So, if she drank, I would realize that she had a disease and it wasn't just that she was doing it to piss me off. I also would realize that the behavior that resulted was unacceptable but inevitable. So I would forgive her and detach so I wouldn't be as affected by it, and could manage our household while she was wasted. Well, all of this was theoretical, I certainly didn't do it perfectly, I was often pissed at her, but it was an ideal for which I strove.

Now that my wife is in recovery, I struggle with the opposite. I am actually a naturally somewhat detached person, so the detachment required to forgive when she was an addict was not too hard for me. My natural detachment is part of what has caused our relationship problem, and improving it is part of my recovery. And now that she is in recovery, we need to reattach. Sometimes that is a struggle from her side, more often from my side. But when I offer forgiveness to her now, I expect to reattach, because the transgression likely detached us. The point of forgiveness at this place in our relationship is to reestablish attachment.

I would think that would be the same for you in your relationship, unless there is some other dysfunction going on. Perhaps there is, you have talked about heavy transgressions prior to engagement and since. I have had similar, and have had to examine my motives hard, and whether I was setting up another person to be my higher power (idolatry) and having her be more important then my HP. That is where I let all kinds of unacceptable behavior, both on mine and my wife's part, create havoc in our lives.

I look forward to hearing more from you!

The material presented here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method to exchange information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal level.