No matter who appears to be at fault when challenges come up or the relationship ends, both people are responsible.If you are taking more than your share of your responsibility for the relationship not working out the way you would like, you are being a martyr. If you take less than your share of responsibility for the relationship not working out, you are being a victim.
You can only heal when you have let go of “fault” and “blame” and focus on letting go of the past and how you can do it differently in the future.
This can be a very difficult process if you are hanging on to the need to be right, anger, judgments and unexpressed resentments, especially if you feel your partner hasn’t or won’t take any responsibility for the health of the relationship.
Forgiving and forgetting may seem to be beyond reality for you now. It’s like if someone says to you, “Don’t think of the color blue” “Don’t think of the color blue” “Don’t think of the color blue,” no matter how hard you try, you probably can’t stop visualizing or thinking about the color blue.
The same thing happens when you try to “forget” a negative situation that has an emotional charge to it. No matter how hard you try, you just can’t seem to do it.
We believe that instead of forgiving and forgetting, you have to forgive and let go. Many people write to us wanting to know how they can forgive when they have been wronged: a spouse cheated on them; they’ve been abused in one way or another; or they don’t feel loved or valued.
What we have found is that the process of healing oneself when a relationship has ended requires more than forgiveness. You must also let go. But let go of what?
In almost all cases when you are having a difficult time forgiving someone, you are holding on to an attachment of some kind or another. The attachments most commonly manifest themselves in the need to be justified, the need to be honored, the need to be right, the need to be vindicated, the desire for revenge, and the inability to move past fear.
So when you are holding onto an attachment, what you are actually doing is holding onto a position which is serving you in some way but it is not moving you forward in healing.
We suggest that you let go of negativity and attachments by deciding to drop them–by deciding that you no longer want to carry and live with the pain and suffering that you have been living.
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