Forgive and Forget

While reading Facebook statuses one day, one of my friends advised others to “forgive and forget.”

That saying just irks me. Those who truly believe this have never had to put it to practice or never had to do it more than once. It becomes useless and laughable otherwise.

Back when I was married before, we often sought marital counseling.  Every professional advised me to not only forgive my husband for his transgression, but I also needed to erase what he had done from my memory in order to truly move forward in our reconciliation.

I argued he shouldn’t have transgressed in the first place, and he was lucky I was trying to move past what he had done, but it would be virtually and clinically impossible to forget.

The men (yes, they were all men) admonished me that one couldn’t happen without the other.  In true forgiveness, you erase the hurt, you don’t keep referring to it, and you don’t dwell on it – ever. That makes sense if you are dealing with someone who is truly repentant.

In my case, it didn’t matter how many times I forgave my husband, he never gave me enough time between transgressions to forget any of them. 

I finally decided I had had enough professional advice and thought it out for myself.

Forgive and forget? Okay.

I forgave the counselors for not knowing diddley about real life and then charging me for it.  I forgave my husband for using this as an opportunity to excuse his lack of morals. And I forgave myself for falling for all this mumbo jumbo.

Then I said “forget this” to the marriage and went on with my life.  I had better things to do than to waste it on someone who didn’t deserve to be in it.