How do you forgive someone without minimizing what they did to you?
Forgiveness wasn’t a single moment for me. It came in pieces, and sometimes it faded again when things got hard.
I eventually learned that forgiveness doesn’t automatically mean access or closeness. That shift changed everything for me.
I’ve thought about this one a lot. I think forgiveness gets confused with “letting it go” or “saying it wasn’t that bad,” and those aren’t actually the same. You can fully name what someone did, hold the truth of it, and still choose not to let it own you anymore. One is about them, the other is about you.
This Marriage.com piece helped me see the difference: https://www.marriage.com/advice/forgiveness/its-ok-not-to-forgive-someone/
Is this something fresh, or older stuff coming back up?