Dishonesty and mistrust plague so many relationships. I want to understand how people move past the deceit and trust again.
Humans lie. How do you find the grace to forgive your fellow humans?
r/AskWomen
Dishonesty and mistrust plague so many relationships. I want to understand how people move past the deceit and trust again.
Comments
I don’t. I hold the grudge forever.
I think a) cutting out the person who lies to you and b) doing some inner work so you don’t project others’ behaviour on future relationships is key.
Which sounds really simple in a list, but can actually take years.
I think that many people are not inherently deceitful, and that simple lying and stuff can be indicative of emotional problems, and can be overcome with therapy. But with things like cheating, while I don’t believe in “once a cheater always a cheater”, I do think that once someone has cheated in a relationship, that relationship is beyond salvaging or moving forward. And with the lying, it really depends on the intent and the frequency —but I believe I can move past that. However, that doesn’t apply imo in situations that involve abuse, pathological liars, or infidelity.
I forgive, but I don’t forget.
It all comes down to intent. I look at it this way: there’s a scale of how bad a lie is. There are necessary lies, white lies, neutral lies, damaging lies, hurtful lies, repeated lies, and lies that cost lives.
If someone is confronted about a lie and acknowledges it and apologizes, then they are often worthy of forgiveness. But if they deny it, if they don’t apologize, or if they do it again, and it’s damaging or hurtful, then they aren’t making any effort and can be said to have ill intent. They are not worthy of forgiveness or trust.
Trust is a gift. If you choose to give it to someone then you have the power to take it away when they break it. But keeping trust to yourself will make you tired and lonely. Eventually someone will take advantage of your loneliness and hurt you. Then distrust becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. So it is in your best interest to give trust and take the pain as a lesson to make you stronger when it comes.
I don’t lie and I expect not to be lied to.
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Depends what they lie about and how often they lie
Holding onto grudges is my cardio.
It’s a huge effort for both of them, and to have trust, we need to work hard on it
It depends on how severe the lie is and the implications.
I’m an empath… and can rationalize why they even did the thing or lied based on their psychological upbringing.
I can give grace and forgive but that doesn’t mean reconciliation either.
PS I suck at boundaries and still with my own betrayer and struggling mentally.
Honestly – everyone lies, everyone sucks for one reason or another. You can’t expect people to be perfect, just as you yourself are not perfect.
At the same time – people tell you who they are. If they lie to you, now you know that about them. You’re the fool is you trust them fully again.
The same way you find the grace to forgive yourself
Totally get this. For me, forgiveness starts with understanding why they lied. It doesn’t excuse it, but it helps. Trust takes time to rebuild – actions speak louder than “sorry”
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I really don’t forgive lies. A lie is a blatant choice. If I catch someone lying to me a few times and it’s serious enough, I hold them at a distance or cut them out completely!
What helps me the most is stopping idealise people and expect them to be all the time at their best. It doesn’t matter whom, I will always expect to get disappointed, I always expect people to fail and I always expect people to show the one side of them that I didn’t know before because the circumstances for it didn’t happen before.
Just as I know that I will eventually disappoint people, make mistakes, be stupid and hope to eventually learn from it and be forgiven, or not.
I dont. And its funny because the same people who chronically lie, hate when others do it to them.
I definitely distance myself from those people and move on.
I’m in the camp that says some things are unforgivable. That absolutely does not mean you have to become bitter and jaded or lonely. A lot depends on what the betrayal was and the persons actions afterward. I’ve had partners who acted badly, truly devastated me and never even attempted to apologize. I feel no urge at all to forgive that. My life is joyful and peaceful and I sleep just great at night.
I’m also a very forgiving person when it comes to more minor offenses, if someone is truly sincere. I just hate the rhetoric that you have to forgive to heal. It’s not true. Some things, whether done by accident or intent, irreparably change a relationship. You can be sad about it, but if you value yourself you will surround yourself with better people. I know it’s pretty easy for me to not lie or hurt those I care about.
I don’t. Someone I know started dating a guy. She figured out he was lying about “little” things. They were things he didn’t have to lie about, he just chose to.
She stuck around because in her mind “just because he’s lying about little things doesn’t mean he’ll like about big ones”.
At some point in time, you have to accept that not everyone deserves grace or forgiveness and that people do not change unless they personally see a reason to.
Relationships that have crumbled because of lies and deception did so for a reason. Don’t try to build them back up.
It helps me to remember that for every action there is an underlying need. I hate being lied to, but some people lie from fear. Sometimes people might be mistaken and not lying on purpose. Some people might be lying to protect themselves or others. Do I like it? No,but it ultimately isn’t about me. Their lying is about them.
I don’t need to forgive anyone who doesn’t deserve it. I don’t need to forgive anybody to feel peace. If a grown adult lied and lied and then asked for forgiveness, I would shut them out.
Depends on the lie. Lying about certain things is unforgivable to me, like lies that put someone at risk. And lying with the excuse “I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want you to be mad at me” is so cowardly I lose respect for people who do that forever so it’s over. Other circumstances are on a case by case basis. Lying to spare someones feelings isn’t ideal but are forgivable. Lying because they weren’t comfortable opening up or it was not anyone else’s business are also forgivable. So it depends on the scale and reason for the lie and if the other person is worth it or not based on my interactions with them and their other qualities.
Because people make mistakes. Sometimes they’re BIG mistakes. As humans, our judgement isn’t always accurate in every moment. Sometimes we convince ourselves for SOME reason, what we did was okay or justified. It was never okay. But most humans have good hearts, and they feel remorse for their actions when they mess up. That’s the important thing. Because some people don’t even feel sorry. So grace and mercy can always be extended to those whom we love and we know they love us too. Grace is a very big word, that the majority of people don’t truly understand. ♡
Because God forgives me each time I make a mistake, I believe it is important to forgive others too; no human is perfect, and if I hope for God’s mercy, I must extend that same grace to those who wrong me.
It depends on how big the lie was and how often they do it. I went NC with my dad and his family because it just became too much and they hurt people with their lies.
I don’t, I just move on and assume they’re gonna do it again.
I break contact. If I can’t trust you then why would I want to be around you? I can’t move past it as you never know what someone is capable of from that point on.
First, I have to forgive myself for believing the person I thought they were. I don’t have to forgive or apologize for thinking the lair is a better person than they turned out to be.
Second, I don’t really have a way to forgive the liar. Have you ever seen a tree that’s been injured in the trunk? The tree keeps growing around it until there is no injury, but a healed scar. I think the other person and their lies become a scar that I just don’t notice anymore
For me it depends on what the lie is and why they lied. If it’s serious, I’ll cut off contact with that person.
I call it out as soon as I know it happened.
I just don’t expect much from them.
I always try to forgive, but the trust is gone. Usually the relationship crumbles soon after. I forgive so I can move on.
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Realizing that I have lied in the past, for both good reasons and bad. And realizing that there are lots of reasons to lie. And realizing that no one is the sum of their actions. And by providing people the grace that I desire myself to