do you feel guilty for not reconciling?

[mlssufan01]

do you feel guilty for being the person not willing to reconcile when the other party is sincere in wanting to make things work?  particularly in a friendship.

[missmuffet]

6 hours ago, mlssufan01 said:

do you feel guilty for being the person not willing to reconcile when the other party is sincere in wanting to make things work?  particularly in a friendship.

The Bible tells us that we need to forgive. It is easier if the other party apologizes. Even if the other party does say they are sorry you do not have to have a relationship with that person again. When trust is broken a friendship has been broken as well. 

[mlssufan01]

4 hours ago, missmuffet said:

The Bible tells us that we need to forgive. It is easier if the other party apologizes. Even if the other party does say they are sorry you do not have to have a relationship with that person again. When trust is broken a friendship has been broken as well. 

how many times have we abused God's trust?  Yet He forgives us and reconciles with us.  I really cannot fathom how forgiveness and reconciliation can be separated.  There is not one single instance I'm aware of where God forgives without reconciling or reconciles without forgiving.  To me if someone's sin causes you to walk away I would be more apt to consider whether you have truly forgiven them; for it is like you remembering this bad thing about them, resulting in a consequence of ended friendship, directly tied to the sin (if indeed sin was the cause of broken relationship)

[grahampaul]

11 hours ago, mlssufan01 said:

do you feel guilty for being the person not willing to reconcile when the other party is sincere in wanting to make things work?  particularly in a friendship.

as for me,no i wouldnt feel guilty.i would question what they wanted to work"and why.make an assesment based on the facts i knew and wether it was a blessing to me/them or not and go from there.

[leah777]

11 hours ago, mlssufan01 said:

do you feel guilty for being the person not willing to reconcile when the other party is sincere in wanting to make things work?  particularly in a friendship.

forgiveness and reconciliation are different things.

I forgive my abuser, but I would not reconcile with him and form any sort of relationship with him in future if he asked for my forgiveness and said he was sorry.

So all lot depends on the circumstances and possible risks of getting close to someone you have forgiven.

[mlssufan01]

2 minutes ago, leah777 said:

forgiveness and reconciliation are different things.

I forgive my abuser, but I would not reconcile with him and form any sort of relationship with him in future if he asked for my forgiveness and said he was sorry.

So all lot depends on the circumstances and possible risks of getting close to someone you have forgiven.

Cases like this one and similar (abuse, sexual misconduct) are the anomaly cases where I would tend to agree it isnt wise to reconcile.  But I would still venture to guess there is some unforgiveness; even if you say you've forgiven.  I do understand that they are not "exactly" the same; but I also cannot see how the two can truly be separated.  As mentioned; God never forgives without reconciling...this is how He love and therefore i cannot justify my unwllingness to reconcile when God will always take me back if I repent.

[leah777]

2 hours ago, mlssufan01 said:

But I would still venture to guess there is some unforgiveness; even if you say you've forgiven. 

Your guess is wrong.

I think you maybe use reconciliation a different way? To me, to reconcile is to then resume the relationship, as if the sin had not occurred, with no negative emotions or guarding.

However, by forgiving, I give that person to God. I give any bad feelings I have about the sin to God to deal with as He sees fit, but I continue to protect myself and others from the one who sinned against me.

We are commanded to forgive, we are not commanded to then lay ourselves and others vulnerable to further abuse.

I even pray every day for my abuser, that he will turn to God.

[LonerAndy]

14 hours ago, mlssufan01 said:

do you feel guilty for being the person not willing to reconcile when the other party is sincere in wanting to make things work?  particularly in a friendship.

Generally you should reconcile if you can.  However, I want to be open about the limitations.

Depends.  It depends on how you define "reconcile" and what exactly the other person did to damage the relationship.

I'll give you an example.  A man grew up with a sexually abusive father.  He became a Christian, and got married, and had a couple of daughters.

Well... shockingly... he absolutely would not allow his daughters to go to their grand parents home alone. 

When I was growing up, I would buy a ticket on the grey hound bus, and go to my grand mother's in southern ohio, alone.   I did that for about 10 years.  I think the first time, I was 6 or 7 years old.

But he would not have that kind of relationship with his parents, that he could trust them with his daughters.

I think that is perfectly reasonable and acceptable for a Christian to have wise and logical protective boundaries between themselves and people who have committed great evils.

Now on things of lessor degrees, again it depends on what you mean by reconcile.

To use myself as an example... I had a particular friend who treated me very badly, while I was very kind and helpful to them.  They would treat me terribly, and then we would be separate for some months, then they would want to reconcile, and I reconciled.   Then they would do the same terrible thing again.  And I would stay away from them, and then they wanted to reconcile again, and I did.

Then they did it all over again a 3rd time, and treated me horrifically, and I pretty much decided that was enough.  Haven't talked to them since, and I don't regret it.

Do I hate them?  Of course not.  I wish for them the very very best, and hope they prosper and are blessed by G-d in their lives.

But... yeah, you can't live your life, walking back into the same fire trap over and over, and sit around wondering why your life sucks.

However, let me say this... if I had known how things would turn out, would I have reconciled with them the first two times?  Yeah absolutely.  You have to give everyone chances, just like G-d gives us chances.

Look at the old testament.  G-d told the Israelites over and over and over for decade on decade, stop, turn away from your sins, and come back to me.   Over and over.  And the Israelites sometimes would turn back, but sometimes wouldn't.  And finally at some point, even G-d said... I'm done.  This is over.  And Babylon came in, and swept the Israelites away, destroyed the Temple, slaughtered most, and dragged the rest into captivity.

And by that time, the Isrealites were crying come save us again, and G-d just said no.  Too late.

Just a last comment...

Sometimes you have something like a partial reconciliation.   Maybe that doesn't make sense, but say you have a friend who stole $5,000 from you.    Like he said he just needed to borrow it, and then it's a year later, and he doesn't want to talk about it.

Or a better example perhaps, is a guy a knew that had a 'friend' steal his identity and rack up thousands in debt.

So what do you do then if the other person wants to reconcile?   Well, you might reconcile, and just let that go.   And that's fine, but you are never going to loan that person money ever again in your life.  Or maybe you never have them at your house, where they could find your information again.

If your idea of reconcile is that now you have to loan them money again, like you did when you trusted them.... then no, I don't buy that idea of reconcile.  Maybe you might meet them for lunch, or go to a baseball game or something, but you should not let them do to you again, what they did before.

Some people say that isn't reconciling, but those are usually people who have not had this happened to them.  Because if you do that, and you allow that person to victimize you over and over again, that's not being Christian.  That being irresponsible.

And I have to just add, it will destroy your relationship with G-d, because you are going to start feeling that G-d is to blame because you keep having these painful events happen to you.

So I don't know what this friend of yours did, but you need to try to give them a chance as much as possible, and reconcile with them, with the wise and smart boundaries on  your relationship.  Pray for wisdom.  If you need some reasonable walls around this relationship, that's fine.  But if at all possible, you should reconcile.

Anyway, that's my view.  Hope it helps.

 

[LonerAndy]

55 minutes ago, leah777 said:

Your guess is wrong.

I think you maybe use reconciliation a different way? To me, to reconcile is to then resume the relationship, as if the sin had not occurred, with no negative emotions or guarding.

However, by forgiving, I give that person to God. I give any bad feelings I have about the sin to God to deal with as He sees fit, but I continue to protect myself and others from the one who sinned against me.

We are commanded to forgive, we are not commanded to then lay ourselves and others vulnerable to further abuse.

I even pray every day for my abuser, that he will turn to God.

That helps clear up my answer.

For serious sins, like some form of physical or sexual abuse.... absolutely not.   You do not resume such a relationship, like nothing happened.   No.

Now if you want to say... meet them for lunch at a public location, during the day time.   That's fine.   But you don't just pretend that it never happened, and get in the car with them, to an unknown location at 11 PM.

This is my opinion, and you can roll with it how you want...   but my version of reconcile, doesn't mean jump back into the frying pan, and hope it's only a low simmer.

That relational ship, has sailed, and it's long gone.  Wise boundaries.  Where those boundaries are, is up to you.   We don't know what all happened.  You do.   So you have to pray for wisdom and make this choice yourself, on where you allow this 'relationship' with an abusive person to go.   Maybe you will sit with them in Church, and that's the only place you'll go with them.

I don't know.  But my version of reconciling, does not include pretending the other person is perfect again, like they don't have a history you should be aware of.

Hope that helps, on an honestly difficult topic.

[mlssufan01]

4 minutes ago, LonerAndy said:

That helps clear up my answer.

For serious sins, like some form of physical or sexual abuse.... absolutely not.   You do not resume such a relationship, like nothing happened.   No.

Now if you want to say... meet them for lunch at a public location, during the day time.   That's fine.   But you don't just pretend that it never happened, and get in the car with them, to an unknown location at 11 PM.

This is my opinion, and you can roll with it how you want...   but my version of reconcile, doesn't mean jump back into the frying pan, and hope it's only a low simmer.

That relational ship, has sailed, and it's long gone.  Wise boundaries.  Where those boundaries are, is up to you.   We don't know what all happened.  You do.   So you have to pray for wisdom and make this choice yourself, on where you allow this 'relationship' with an abusive person to go.   Maybe you will sit with them in Church, and that's the only place you'll go with them.

I don't know.  But my version of reconciling, does not include pretending the other person is perfect again, like they don't have a history you should be aware of.

Hope that helps, on an honestly difficult topic.

"like they don't have a history you should be aware of."
in other words; you are still holding them responsible for their past sins.  My original sentiment was for someone who is clearly repentant; who made a mistake and owned up to; I am not referring to the person who is still living in the sin.  Also they never were perfect, never will be, and none of us will be...it is unfair to hold such an expectation.

Edited June 20, 2020 by mlssufan01