I take a quite opposite route actually and simply trust those who haven’t showed me that I can’t or that I shouldn’t.
But what’s perhaps more important than whether or not someone lies to you or betrays your trust is how they treat you after the matter.
1) Reflect on the situation.
The first step to forgiving someone is reflecting on the situation: figure out exactly what happened, why or even if you’re upset, where the betrayal stemmed from, if the whole thing was avoidable, and so on
2) Put yourself in the other person’s shoes.
In addition, maybe they found themselves between a rock and a hard place, as the saying goes: whichever course of action they took, they would hurt you or someone else.
3) Choose to learn from the experience.
I did say that I inherently trust most people, so maybe it’s my own fault, but one time in middle school, I placed my trust in the wrong hands and my so-called friend told my crush that I liked him (I know, so the end of the world).
4) Let it go.
So now that you’ve assessed the entirety of the situation, tried to understand the other person’s perspective and course of action, and seen the growth the experience offered you… let it go! Like I said before, you don’t have to do it for them but you should do it for yourself.
5) Decide where you want to go from here.
You may decide you want to repair your relationship with this person who betrayed you, and that’s great. Lauren Conrad said it best to her old friend Heidi Montag, on The Hills: “I want to forgive you. But you also might decide to forgive and then remove them from your life, and that’s okay too. Is this someone you want to keep in your life? Is it worth placing your trust in them again? I don’t have the answer.
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