What is forgiveness and what is not?

[EgoDeath]

If you don't feel mad at someone anymore, but still think that they suck, at least regarding their mistake(s), did you forgive them? Is it forgiveness if you don't want to see that person anymore, but don't feel mad at them either?

To me, forgiveness can be when someone makes a mistake and I give them the benefit of the doubt that it was just a mistake and that it won't happen again, e.g. you spilled some food in my car and it left a small stain. Yes, I was a little upset that you weren't more careful, but you said it was a mistake so I let it go, cleaned it up and called it a wash. I'm not mad anymore and you don't have to feel bad anymore. It happened, you fucked up, it's over with, let's move on.

However, I think the idea of forgiveness gets a little more complicated when the behavior in question is repeated time and time again. If every other time you get in my car, you're spilling drinks or food, burning holes in my seat, etc. etc... after two or three times of this I'm going to have to ask myself, does this person simply not respect me and/or my property? Let's say I just chalk it up to you being clumsy and say either way, whether you're clumsy or being a dick, I forgive you, but you can no longer bring drinks or food in my car and I won't let you smoke in here anymore. You're forgiven, even though what you were doing may have been disrespectful to me, but I still now have to set up another boundary to show you how exactly I expect to be treated. So, no more hard feelings, I'm not mad, you don't need to feel bad, you're forgiven, but no more food and drink or smoking in the car.

Now, if you then continue, every other time I pick you up, to go and get in my car with a drink or a cigarette in your hand, I'm now going to flat out call you out for not respecting me or my car. Now, we have an issue. At this point, I'll probably stop giving you rides and chances are I won't see you nearly as often because you clearly don't respect me or my boundaries. Are you forgiven this time? No. You have repeatedly disrespected me, gone against my wishes and deliberately smacked me in the face, so to speak, by not respecting said boundaries. Now, in my opinion, this doesn't mean I need to stay mad at you forever, but it doesn't mean you'll ever be forgiven either. Personally, I don't see a lack of forgiveness as proof of anger still being present. I can give up being mad at you but still decide that what you did was purposeful and decide that you're not forgiven in the sense that, there's nothing to forgive, you are simply treating me in a way I don't want to be treated, so I'm not going to treat you the same as before, I'm going to treat you differently.

Granted this is a trivial example and I wouldn't hold a grudge for a lifetime over something like this, but I'd probably drift away from this person, to be honest. It doesn't mean I need to deliberately be angry with you or hold some kind of resentment, but I also don't have to consider you forgiven. You were a dick to me and I called you out on it, you didn't change so I, instead, changed how our relationship works/worked. No big deal. Doesn't need to be a big thing, just me standing up for myself and what I feel is right.

I think everyone has different definitions of forgiveness though; often people don't even understand their own boundaries well enough to even know what forgiveness means to them.