Second Chances. Do you give them?

Subject: RE: Second Chances. Do you give them?
From: GUEST,Al
Date: 24 Mar 01 - 07:38 PM

I'd rather be sorry for something I did than for something I didn't. If you don't then you'll never know and always wonder, if you do and it doesn't work, then at least you know, and I'd say it's better to know than to wonder - it'll eat away at you over the years, and you'll find yourself wondering in ten years what would have happened if... Also, it's always easier second time around - there's only a certain amount that one person can hurt you, and being left the second time by a person never hurts as much as the first time. Go get her!

Subject: RE: Second Chances. Do you give them?
From: Jande
Date: 24 Mar 01 - 07:55 PM

I can't help but think of the South African "Truth and Reconcilliation" process that happened not too many years ago. It moved me deeply then and it moves me deeply now, and whenever I think of it.

One never forgets being betrayed. The closer you feel to the betrayer, the more it hurts, the more one needs never to forget.

True forgiveness is something that is drawn out of us by true remorse. Remorse comes from a sharing of truth. You say what this person did to you and how it made you feel. You relive it with them from your side of it. If telling the story doesn't draw remorse then forget it. If telling the story draws only excuses disguised as remorse, forget it.

But if you share the pain their betrayal caused you and they are moved by your pain and ask forgiveness, then look in your own heart and see what you are moved to in return.

A lot of the time we teach people how to treat us by the boundaries we set on our relationships, and by the way we treat ourselves. (Hes has heard this ad nauseum) So it is possible that we are partly responsible for the way they treated us, as someone said above.

Truth and reconcilliation works both ways simultaneously. People can change. And the way to affect that is to keep talking with good will on both sides, and with professional counselling if the relationship is really important to you.

~ Jande

Subject: RE: Second Chances. Do you give them?
From: Big Mick
Date: 24 Mar 01 - 10:56 PM

I am right there with you, Peter T and Kendall, as far as the incidents you cited. But that is not the nature of what was asked. This thread was predicated on a personal relationship, such as a friend or lover, and that is why I responded the way I did. In the area of professional relationships the dynamic changes, but not as significantly as one might think. As Saul Alinsky noted, "No one is your friend forever, and no one is your enemy forever". Of course he was speaking from a tactical point of view with regard to community organizing. I can think of one supposed union person, who used his position to screw over some recently organized workers just to politically embarass another union official. I will see this person in a bar someplace, and ..........well, I will let your imagination do the rest. But it will not be intellectual discourse. No forgiveness for those who let their personal politic get in the way of our mission.

Mick

Subject: RE: Second Chances. Do you give them?
From: mousethief
Date: 24 Mar 01 - 11:30 PM

Well said, Jande.

Subject: RE: Second Chances. Do you give them?
From: John Routledge
Date: 25 Mar 01 - 04:14 PM

There have been many wonderful posts to this thread. Much relates to the experience of the individual in determining how a situation is dealt with.

I came across this today:

We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves,after a journey through the wilderness,which no one else can make for us,which no one can spare us,for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world.

Marcel Proust

Subject: RE: Second Chances. Do you give them?
From: Peter T.
Date: 25 Mar 01 - 04:40 PM

I think it was Simone Weil who said that one of the things that separates human beings from the physical laws of the universe is our capacity to forgive, because, when it works, it moves back up the machinery of cause and effect, which nothing else in the universe can do. I think this is a very important hope/belief/truth -- that human beings can break causality from time to time (you could similarly argue that that is what links us to God, who -- depending on your theology -- is always beyond causality). This is one central aspect of Zen practice -- love, like awakening, is the smashing of the predictable.
yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Second Chances. Do you give them?
From: kendall
Date: 25 Mar 01 - 05:40 PM

Forgiveness was invented for the one who was hurt. It does little for the one who did the hurting. If you hold a grudge for a long time, who does it hurt? you, or the other bloke? In many cases the other doesn't even know or care that he hurt you.

Subject: RE: Second Chances. Do you give them?
From: Naemanson
Date: 25 Mar 01 - 06:48 PM

But isn't there a wisdom in not exposing oneself to being hurt again? There may not be a grudge involved, just an excess of caution.

Subject: RE: Second Chances. Do you give them?
From: Noreen
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 01:13 PM

Yes, Brett, caution is understandable, but there still may be some perfect daisies waiting to be picked...

Subject: RE: Second Chances. Do you give them?
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 01:58 PM

Where? where? I love daisys. Seriously, we were born with a wide range of emotions, so, why deny any of them? The concept of yin and yang comes up here. Without black there is no white etc..

Subject: RE: Second Chances. Do you give them?
From: mousethief
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 02:00 PM

Why deny what, Kendall? That they exist? Or do you mean why deny the fullest, most violent expression of any of them? There's a huge area in-between those two, as well.

Subject: RE: Second Chances. Do you give them?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 02:13 PM

I'm working on NOT giving too many second (and umpteenth) chances - to my kids. Rising 6 they are, and would get away with everything if I let them get away with anything, is how I'm beginning to feel. Timothy asked for popsicles for breakfast and then sulked when I said No... basically, there are places where No should mean No, and other places where No should mean (well, it's been a while, is it still No?) - romance should probably get more second chances than many other things. My X2B used to refuse second chances to anything - didn't like the garnish = We are never coming to this restaurant again! kind of thing. Not my style. As my kids have figured out...(ha ha!)

Subject: RE: Second Chances. Do you give them?
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 02:16 PM

OK, you are forcing me to be specific. What I had in mind as I wrote that, is, my ex wife hated sad songs. She referred to them as "emotional rape". God forbid anyone see her weep! Sure I have a violent side. My reptilian brain is still very much alive. However, My ability to reason and forsee consequences tend to keep that in line. At the other end of the spectrum is feeling nothing at all. I dont like that either, so, I try to "keep her in the channel".

Subject: RE: Second Chances. Do you give them?
From: Peter T.
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 03:41 PM

Where did you find such a bizarre woman, kendall? (Oh, forget I asked, but it does rise somewhat spontaneously to the mind). You must have needed the eggs real bad.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Second Chances. Do you give them?
From: WyoWoman
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 12:51 PM

I am emotionally constituted for multiple chances. I can't really help myself. I've been given lots of latitude in my life, I give lots of latitude. "For all have screwed up and fallen short of the glory of Gawd ..." My most emphatic example of this is the fact that I was date-raped in high school and 20 years later I found the guy and gave him the opportunity to apologize and clean up the emotional mess he had created. Which he did -- and I was released from the steel trap that had been dragging on me for so many years.

However, being the forgiving sort, I've often been mistaken for a push-over, or a doormat, and I can assure you that ain't the case. I may forgive, but I don't revert to the same level of innocence. I even trust again, but once I know what someone is capable of, I'm definitely forewarned. And, I do have a line and once that line is crossed, I simply cannot let that person back into my heart again. I might be able to do business with him or her, or to be cordial when our paths cross, but if the deed has been bloody and mean, I figure there's cruelty at the core and I don't have any truck with cruelty. The trick is to be wise as the serpent and innocent as the lamb, doncha' know.

Some people are not capable of real intimacy -- and the essence of friendship is intimacy. If your friend is such a person, then it's fairly predictable that as soon as you start really getting close again, he'll pull the rug out from under you to sabotage the friendship and protect himself. It's not that they do this intentionally, but for whatever complicated reasons arising from whatever childhood decisions, some people just have to turn and run -- and create emotional waste -- when they feel themselves being "gotten to." These people I might have in my life, but I try not to be surprised when they do what they do. Serenity comes from not expecting pears from the apple tree.

ww

Subject: RE: Second Chances. Do you give them?
From: WyoWoman
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 12:55 PM

Oh, and try not to take it personally. People generally just wander around doing what they do and it's rarely directed at us personally. It might feel that way, but it's more that they're doing their John play, or their Leslie play and we just happen to wander onstage, where we're immediately assigned a role. Sound and fury, signifying not a lot in the scheme of things.

ww

Subject: RE: Second Chances. Do you give them?
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 02:25 PM

Peter T I think a better question would be WHY did I find her.She was a lovely lady, but, with flaws I couldnt adjust to. OK Matt, with flaws to which I was unable to adjust.

Subject: RE: Second Chances. Do you give them?
From: GUEST,marty D
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 11:06 PM

Thank you a lot catters. I think I'll check out of this thread now, rather than bring it up from the bottom anymore, but you've been really helpful. Some of your personal stories really help me to put my situation with my former friend in perspective.

Martin

Subject: RE: Second Chances. Do you give them?
From: Firecat
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 06:19 AM

It depends on what the person has done as to whether I give them a second chance or not. One of my friends at school said nasty things about ny family and my boyfriend. I didn't give her a second chance.

On the other hand, my boyfriend siad something I misinterpreted to mean he was finishing it with me. It was all sorted out the next day and I gave him a second chance.

Subject: RE: Second Chances. Do you give them?
From: Naemanson
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 06:27 AM

Thanks, KC, I needed to hear that.