When To Forgive, When To Be Indifferent, And How To Distinguish Between The Two

One of the hardest things to learn in life, is trying to decipher between when to forgive, and when to be indifferent. 

Although we are always taught to forgive and forget, sometimes forgiveness is simply not justified. You need to be careful on what you forgive, because in the end, people will take it as your acceptance of how they treated you.

One of the first things you want to look at is the difference between the two. 

Forgiveness is defined as the actual act of forgiving someone for their actions or behaviors against you. Indifference is the lack of interest, concern or sympathy for their actions or behaviors against you. AKA- ‘You’re not going to make me feel bad for your poor judgement.’ 

One thing people will confuse about your forgiveness, whether it’s true or not, is that you have a soft spot for them and can empathize or understand their view point to justify their actions. I learned that this can be a dangerous thing to give to those not deserving. I thought forgiving people made me the bigger person and set myself up to move on faster, but sometimes it did the exact opposite. 

In accepting the wrong person(s) apology, or even lack there-of, I felt hollow. Whatever I was supposed to feel when forgiving someone, was not happening. Especially, when the person genuinely did me wrong with little regards to the repercussions it would have on me. That is when I started learning to be indifferent. 

When someone intentionally hurts you, abandons you, or blatantly disrespects you in anyway, forgiveness will not take away the pain they caused, the pain it will continue to cause, or their ability to do it again. 

And when it comes to some people, they will do it again. 

This doesn’t even begin to cover the anxiety and strain that it will now place on your relationship with them, in which you will constantly be waiting for the next shoe to drop and question their genuine feelings and intentions for you. 

I don’t believe forgiving someone is a weakness, but I do think it can weaken your value on your own self-respect when forgiving the wrong things and the wrong people. 

The value you should have in yourself should be too expensive to discount by accepting cheap apologies. I do believe most people are good at the core, but that doesn’t always mean that they’re good for you. 

One way to know if you should forgive or be indifferent to them, is by the way it made you feel. I’m not talking about in the moment, because as humans, we are wired to react. In reaction, we take little time to see the bigger picture because it’s so instantaneous. You need to think about how you felt after the waters had calmed, and even how you are feeling now. If this is something that puts a pit in your stomach and hurts you all over again to even think about, you need to learn to be indifferent. You need to remove your emotions of caring for this individual and their own conscious and start caring more about the effect it had on you and your own. 

Another way, and maybe the most important, is taking time after to process. I am a fixer, so I would prefer to resolve something right away if it means peace comes quicker. What this did, was put a band-aid on a mountain sized hole of my emotional flood gates. Once one more crack to the foundation came, it would leave me drowning in unsaid words and locked up emotions I was trying to forget.

When you bring up past issues in a fight, they will tell you ‘It’s unfair of you to bring that up because you already forgave me for it.’ And they are right. When you choose to forgive someone, you choose to set what happened aside and not give it any more time or energy moving forward in your relationship with them. If you know that is not possible, it’s time to stop telling people you forgive them, and start telling them that you are indifferent to their actions. 

This let’s them know that you are not over it and will never forget what they chose to do, and how it made you feel. 

The last way to know, is identifying the intentions of the mistake. There are genuine mistakes that people make and some have the best intentions. This, although can still be just as painful, is more grounds to forgive. If something was done in love and in the hopes of well intent, this is a huge step towards your choice to forgive. On the other hand, if something was done with malicious intent, I am advising you to be indifferent to save yourself the heartache. The intent was to hurt you. It was done so they could feel better and their needs were met, with little-to-no regard of yours.

Forgiveness is not cheap, and I truly believe we only have so much in our life to give. Don’t be completely spent early in life. Save it for the ones that deserve it.

The rest? Well, realize their lack of concern and sympathy for you, and simply return the favor.