To forgive or not to forgive

I think I hate Sam. I didn’t want to admit it, but I think I do. I wish him ill. I can’t say that I’m apathetic (not yet). I can find very few redeemable characteristics in him.

Is it possible to move forward without forgiving?

I cannot talk to Sam without being mean. I just have too much anger inside me. I am most upset about the injustice of it all. Yes, I am in control of how I live my life, but I didn’t have a choice in how I was betrayed or abandoned — I only have a choice in how I respond. One can argue that I chose a loser like Sam, however unconscious. Bottom line is, I’m stuck in a shitty position because of a selfish, lazy, integrity-lacking, amoral bum.

I want so much to forgive, but why is that? Is it really because it makes me feel better? Do I feel sorry because I believe he is incapable of changing? Is it the Christian thing to do?

I read an interesting article the other day (http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2014/08/brain-matters-morality). It basically says that there is brain chemistry involved with moral decisions and that certain sociopaths lack the forethought to connect consequences and action.

Add to that the impact that porn has on the brain. I’m biting this from a post on how porn rewires the brain (http://theresurgence.com/2011/11/19/7-negative-effects-of-porn):

Struthers elaborates,

As men fall deeper into the mental habit of fixating on [pornographic images], the exposure to them creates neural pathways. Like a path is created in the woods with each successive hiker, so do the neural paths set the course for the next time an erotic image is viewed. Over time these neural paths become wider as they are repeatedly traveled with each exposure to pornography. They become the automatic pathway through which interactions with woman are routed….They have unknowingly created a neurological circuit that imprisons their ability to see women rightly as created in God’s image (Wired For Intimacy, 85).

In a similar vein regarding porn’s effect upon the brain, Naomi Wolf writes in her article, “The Porn Myth,”

After all, pornography works in the most basic of ways on the brain: It is Pavlovian. An orgasm is one of the biggest reinforcers imaginable. If you associate orgasm with your wife, a kiss, a scent, a body, that is what, over time, will turn you on; if you open your focus to an endless stream of ever-more-transgressive images of cybersex slaves, that is what it will take to turn you on. The ubiquity of sexual images does not free eros but dilutes it.

Top all of this off with whatever baggage you carry from your childhood to predispose oneself to addiction, intimacy anorexia, etc… Well, that’s the very fine fellow that I married.

I’m not ready to forgive, yet I choose to move on. Maybe it will come later.