How Do I Forgive Someone Who Will Not Apologise

Official answer 2026-08-22

Your instinct is right: forgiveness is not pretending it never happened. Confusing the two is why many people never get past this. Separate three things that usually get treated as one. Forgiveness is releasing your right to collect the debt yourself. It is something one person can do; it does not require the other party. Reconciliation is the relationship being rebuilt. That takes two, and it requires the other person to acknowledge what happened. If they will not, it cannot be done, and that is not your failure. Trust is earned back. Forgiveness is given freely; trust is not. Restoring someone who has never admitted harming you to a position where they can harm you again is not spirituality — it is leaving the door open. Once those are separated, your situation is clear: you can forgive while neither reconciling nor restoring trust, and there is no contradiction in Scripture about that. Practically. Forgiveness is usually not finished in one act; you may release the same thing many times, and that does not mean the earlier times were fake. Say it to God, including the anger. The Psalms are full of prayers like that, and some of them do not read gently at all — Scripture does not require you to compose yourself before you may speak. And if this is still affecting your sleep, work, or body, that is a trauma response, and it needs professional help rather than trying harder to forgive. One last thing, addressed to the people urging you: pressing someone still in pain to forgive is often less about their good than about restoring normality quickly. Real forgiveness cannot be hurried out of a person.