by Aja Dorsey Jackson
The other night I shared with my husband what I thought to be good news about a small freelance writing opportunity that I was given. The gig was nothing major, but given the fact that I have recently taken a pay cut at work and the fact that I am working toward eventually being able to do this for a living, I was still fairly excited.
As opposed to sharing in my excitement, his reaction showed that he had very little interest in this particular success. I was hurt by this, and let him know how much his unsupportive behavior had hurt my feelings.
He didn’t respond, and still hasn’t. I haven’t revisited the issue yet. Since then he has been going on as though everything is business as usual but I am still hurt, both by his reaction and his refusal to apologize for hurting my feelings.
I know that we have spoken many times through posts about forgiving, letting go and moving on. But how do you forgive if the other person is not sorry? Does the first step toward forgiveness begin with an apology, or should I forgive even if the issue hasn’t been acknowledged? What do you do in situations where despite the hurt, the apology never comes?
Aja Dorsey Jackson is a freelance writer and marketing consultant in Baltimore, Maryland. She can be reached at aja@ajadorseyjackson.com.