To Forgive Do You Also Have to Forget?

[Bottom Feeder]

I met an old friend in the market the other day, one that I knew more than forty years ago that stabbed me in the back over something. It's been a long time since that incident and our parting of the ways. I felt like I had forgiven them years later but that chance meeting brought back the memory in FULL detail.
And it made me think later; did I really forgive? Can you really forgive someone for deep damage that they've done? There was no rage or anger in my mind during the meeting, but my pleasantries were forced and I left our encounter without the happy feeling of meeting an old friend, but instead thinking; "boy, that was weird."

So I looked around a bit and discovered it seemed to be a pretty common question with AI overview weighing in with:

No, you do not have to forget to forgive. Forgiveness means letting go of anger, bitterness, and the demand for payback. Forgetting implies erasing an event from your memory, which a healthy human brain cannot do on command.

I don't know, sometime things peoples do stays with you forever.
I was never into paybacks or getting even, maybe that's where I slipped up.
bummer

 

[pmbug]

To err is human, to forgive is divine, to forget is

 

[CiscoKid]

Personally, I have lived my life with the motto of "Never give a person a second chance. If they disappointed you once, they won't hesitate to do it again". Some people may feel this attitude is harsh, but nobody has ever let me down twice.

 

[Voodoo]

You just fooled yourself, you didn't really forgive anything.

 

[nickndfl]

I want revenge.