I always heard that line about forgiveness too. While in the heat of battle and full of resentment, I could give a flip about how much I was going to gain from forgiveness or "letting it go." In fact, it didn't seem to me that it would make me feel good at all. What made me feel good was to even the score. That felt good.
The downside is that my wife did the same to me. She never let go of the past and used it as a wedge to even the score in her own way (which made me want to even the score, creating that self reinforcing negative cycle). What I did want was for her to stop dredging up the past and using that as an excuse to not move forward. I needed to disarm her weapon of past resentment. Her not forgiving kept her in a one up position and I did not like that.
Burgbud's quote that "Forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past" clinched it for me. If I could forgive, my wife could forgive. I forgave in order to get something for me. I forgave to hold over her head the need to forgive. Now I had the high ground and she had to rise to the occasion and forgive too.
The interesting thing is that even though this was all part of a continuing power struggle, once forgiveness was made, much of the power struggle relented and the original self motivated reason for forgiving vanished too (or at least diminished, LOL!) So the moral is that regardless of what twisted reason you need to justify forgiveness, even if you think it is a power play, do it anyway. Things will still work out.
