08/24/2026
Re: Unrepentant Continuous Abuse
& “Forgiveness”
(From successverse_ )
“I once heard a story...
About a man who broke a window in a woman's house.
He apologised.
(Often they never apologize but people tell you to forgive anyway.)
So she forgave him. And he assumed that meant the window wasn't broken
But every night... Cold air came through the crack. Rain found its way inside.
She could still feel the
damage, even when nobody else could see it.
So eventually she said....
'We need to fix the window!’
And he looked confused. 'But I already said sorry.'
She tried to explain...
‘I know.' But saying sorry didn't replace the glass.'
And somehow, he became frustrated with her~
'Why are we still talking about this?'
'Why can't things just go back to normal?'
'I thought you forgave me.' And slowly, the broken window became less important than her reaction to being cold.
So she started pretending she wasn't. She stopped mentioning the draught.
Cleaned up the rain herself.
Put another blanket around her shoulders and called it forgiveness...
Until one day...
She realised something. He didn't actually want forgiveness.
He wanted ACCESS to the house without having to repair what he damaged inside it.
And sometimes this is what happens in relationships...
Someone hurts you, (uses you as supply) then becomes uncomfortable when the hurt changes you.
They want the old closeness.
The old trust.
The old version of you.
Without doing the work that would make those things feel safe But trust doesn't return because someone says...
'Can't we just move on?'
Forgiveness isn't repair. An apology isn't changed behaviour.
And accountability isn't saying sorry, it's caring enough about the damage to help rebuild what was broken.
Because you can forgive someone and still notice the window is broken.
You can love someone and still need them to repair what they damaged...
And sometimes...
The reason things can't 'go back to normal' is because normal was where you kept getting hurt.”
successverse_
Parenthesis mine.
