Forgiveness vs. Reconciliation

Okay, so I didn’t have many ideas for a blog post but this is a topic that I would really like to talk about. Don’t be fooled by the title, I’m not talking about anything religion-related, this is simply about forgiving someone else vs. reconciling with someone.  I’m gonna try to not get too deep with this, but I mainly wanted to talk about the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. I am aware this may be a tough topic for some, so read at your risk. I’m not giving any details about my life personally other than I have struggled with this with someone close to me. That’s all I’m gonna say about myself.

Now, let’s talk. What is the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation? And I mainly put this in here because I used to think these are almost the same things. And they are similar, but there’s more to reconciliation than some may think. Forgiveness, of course, is willing to let go of the weight that results after someone or something hurts you and not holding a grudge against that someone. Reconciliation, however, does include forgiving someone but it’s repairing the broken relationship between you and someone else. This applies to parents, other family members, your friends, boyfriend/girlfriend, etc.

But why forgive someone after they hurt you? I’m not saying you have to, it is completely a choice that only you can make and don’t let others pressure you into forgiving someone. But, anyways, for me a big reason to forgive someone is not for them, but for myself. It helps me to heal because I’ve let go of that weight and grudge and it doesn’t hurt nearly as much. That never means that I forget what they did by any means. And I hate to say it, but it’s better to forgive someone for your own benefit than theirs because a lot of people wouldn’t care unless they’re asking for said forgiveness. But, again, that is up to you and you alone.

To reconcile with someone is to repair that relationship that has been broken and becoming close with that someone once again. Now, there is a catch to that: the only person who should ever be responsible to fix that relationship is the person who broke it. That is their responsibility. If you broke it, then it’s your responsibility to fix it and make things right.

I had said that this was something that I struggled with someone. And for years I thought that it was my responsibility to repair that relationship between the two of us, but I had to learn that it wasn’t my responsibility to fix it. And trying to do so only made me hurt worse, especially when the other person didn’t want to fix it as much as I wanted to.

That came with another hard thing for me to learn: if the other person doesn’t want to have that relationship again with you, you can’t try to force it. Trust me, it is a lot better to not have one at all than to have one where one or neither people are happy. You’ve got to learn to let them go and I don’t wanna come off and say that’s easy because it’s not. It is hard to let go of certain people in your life, but I can promise you that if you do, things will eventually get better. And nine times out of ten, they were probably the wrong people to have in life anyway.

Anyways, that was my rant/lecture for the week. I hope no one is having to struggle with this, but if you are I hope this helps.

See you next week<3

Author: Sarah Lawrence

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you" -Maya Angelou

3 thoughts on “Forgiveness vs. Reconciliation”

  1. I love this post! Some people think that if you forgive someone you have to reconcile with them as well, they see it as part of forgiveness when in actuality they are sperate. Reconciliation doesn’t always have to be done with forgiveness especially if someone doesn’t deserve it.

Comments are closed.