LEARNING TO FORGIVE SOMEONE WHO ISN'T SORRY

The last couple of years have been quite a learning experience.  I was in a relationship for 2 years with a man that was a narcissist.  Not only was he a narcissist, but he cheated on me repeatedly for the past 2 years.

I'm not sure exactly how much or how often he cheated, but let's say at the very least it was with a good handful of women.  In the beginning, he was good at covering his tracks and convincing me that he wasn't doing anything wrong. I gave him the benefit of the doubt.


Then as time went on there were other things happening in the relationship that made things and the relationship difficult.  His way of dealing with it was getting online and finding a new woman to give him attention.  Looking back, there is one point where I think he was cheating on me with at least 3 women at once.

It became rather obvious what he was doing because he started getting really sloppy with his cheating.  He almost became rather brazen about it.  Bringing one of the girls around his friends and family.

Needless to say, that was the end of the charade.  I had to come to terms that the person I believed loved me and said they wanted to spend the rest of their life with me was lying.  I had to stomach the notion that everything I had been told, everything that he told MY friends, everything he told HIS friends was all a complete lie. Every last word of it was all false. I had to come to terms that after he came back asking for a second chance, that everything was STILL a lie. I was lied to not just once, but twice.

It was my birthday and my parents were in town.  We all went out to dinner and he sat across from my mother and looked her in the eye, maybe even touched her hand and told her how sorry he was for cheating on me and that he was never going to do it again.  Guess what,  I later found out that he did it just 2 weeks later, if not the entire time.

Am I still angry in some ways? Yes!  This is a person that has no remorse and deep down doesn't feel bad for what he's done to me and to other women he dragged down.  This person embarrassed me in front of his entire family claiming that I was being crazy and distrusting.  His parents sat there and defended him.  Only to find out once again that I was right and he was indeed cheating on me in the situation in question.

I've been working on forgiving him for what he's done to me.  It's been very hard and there are days I have my setbacks.  I'm even trying to forgive his family.  Part of me believes that they know what he's like and choose to ignore it, but then sometimes I think they're blind to it because he's their son.

Forgiving someone who isn't sorry for what they've done is tough.  Trying to forgive someone who doesn't feel they need forgiveness is equally as tough.

Forgiveness is going to be a process, it doesn't happen in one moment.  I think it will be a longer process for me because this person isn't truly sorry for what he did, because he's still doing it. Only now he's doing it to someone else.  I did get a half ass apology via text after I called him out, but he didn't do it out the kindness of his heart or because he felt genuine remorse.  I'm convinced he's incapable of that emotion.

I know that I have to forgive so that my heart can be lighter and be open.  I know that I have to forgive so that I can be happy.  I know I have to forgive because it's the right thing to do.  It's just hard to forgive the person that doesn't care or isn't truly sorry.

It may take me a long time to fully forgive this person, but I hope it doesn't take that long.  Having that weigh on my heart isn't good for me and my progress to live a happy life in the future.  I just pray that God will help me everyday to accept what has happened and be able to let it go and forgive a person.