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You Must Forgive to Truly Move On
Before you decide it’s time to move on, make sure you’ve forgiven the past
When I divorced my ex-husband, I had a lot of anger, bitterness, resentment, and hurt. He’d been unfaithful, abusive, dismissive, neglectful — in general, a lousy husband and father. I thought I was justified in my feelings. And I was.
But even when a feeling is justified, that doesn’t mean you should hold on to it forever. When I look back today, I can see how holding on to the things he’d done and the feelings I had as a result made my next relationships a disaster.
Forgiveness, the letting go and acceptance of what has happened, is key to truly being ready to move on from a previous relationship. But too many people are unwilling to forgive because they misunderstand what it really means.
Acceptance is not ignoring
When you forgive, you accept something. But this acceptance is often confused with ignorance. People mistakenly believe that acceptance means you ignore what someone did. That you pretend it never happened, or that it’s okay they did what they did, and just continue on as you always have.
But that’s not what acceptance is. Acceptance is exactly what the word says — accepting. You can’t change what happened…
