How to Forgive Someone Who Isn’t Actually Sorry
They’re not going to apologize.
I know that’s a hard sentence to read. Maybe you’ve been waiting years, rehearsing the conversation where they finally see what they did, finally say the words, finally make it right. And every year the phone doesn’t ring.
Here’s the question that changes everything, and I want you to sit with it before we go on: How long are you willing to let their silence set the terms of your healing?
Because that’s what waiting for an apology does. It hands the person who hurt you a second power they never should have had. First they got to wound you, and now they get to decide when you’re allowed to recover. I’ve watched people put their whole lives in that waiting room. Some of them grew old in it.
There’s another way. It’s not easy, but it’s yours to take with or without them. Let me walk you through it the way I’ve walked it with hundreds of people, and, more than once, in my own heart.
First, what forgiveness is not
Half the battle is clearing away the counterfeits, because most people who “can’t forgive” are actually refusing something God never asked of them.
Forgiveness is not saying it didn’t matter. It mattered. Minimizing a real offense isn’t grace; it’s denial wearing grace’s name tag.
Forgiveness is not trusting them again. Forgiveness is given; trust is rebuilt, or not, based on evidence, over time. You can release someone completely and still keep wise boundaries. Forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same thing, and confusing them keeps sincere people stuck for decades.
Forgiveness is not a feeling you wait for. If you wait until you feel warmly toward them, you’ll wait forever. Feelings follow decisions far more often than they lead them.
And forgiveness is not pretending you’re fine. You can forgive with tears still on your face.
What it actually is
Forgiveness is canceling a debt you have every right to collect and transferring the case to a higher court.
Think of unforgiveness as holding someone’s IOU. You didn’t write it; they did, the day they hurt you. And it’s a strange piece of paper, because the longer you clutch it, the more it costs you. You carry it into new relationships. You check it before you fall asleep. You feel its corner in your pocket at family gatherings. They may not even remember writing it, and you can’t stop reading it. I’ve taught for years that bitterness is a cruel festering cancer of the soul; it ravages the emotion by constantly reminding the individual of the trespass against them. That’s the quiet violence of the IOU: it doesn’t just sit in your pocket, it eats.
Forgiveness says: I’m done being the collections department. “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord” (Romans 12:19). Read that carefully. God is not dismissing your case. He’s taking it over. Nothing about handing Him the file says the debt wasn’t real. It says the Judge is now someone with all the evidence, perfect justice, and no bitterness to carry afterward.
That’s why an unrepentant offender can’t actually block your forgiveness. Their apology was never the required paperwork. Release doesn’t run through them at all. It runs through you and God.
Jesus set the precedent before anyone was sorry
If you think forgiving the unrepentant is asking too much, look at where the standard was set. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). Nobody at the foot of the cross was apologizing. The soldiers were gambling for His clothes while He said it.
Jesus didn’t wait for remorse to release them. He entrusted the whole injustice to His Father, “he entrusted himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23), and that’s the move. Not approval. Not amnesia. Entrustment.
And notice this, because it matters for your situation: His forgiveness did not instantly transform the people who hurt Him. Forgiveness changed the forgiver’s side of the ledger. Some of those soldiers may never have thought about that day again. Heaven did.
How to do it when they never will
Practically, then, here’s the path I give people, one step at a time.
Name the debt honestly: Write down what they actually took: the marriage, the childhood, the reputation, the years. Vague forgiveness doesn’t hold; you can’t release what you won’t name. Jesus once pointed at a sycamine tree, and I’ve never lost the picture: those roots go down deep, and whacking on leaves ain’t going to help. You can’t trim an offense back at the surface and call it forgiven. Name it, then go for the root.
Say the release out loud, to God, not to them: Something as plain as: Lord, they owe me, and they’re never going to pay. I’m giving You the debt. I release them to You. No audience required. The person doesn’t have to be present, willing, or even alive.
Expect to repeat it: Forgiveness is usually a decision followed by a hundred re-decisions. When the memory ambushes you next Tuesday, that’s not proof you failed. It’s the next installment coming due. Release it again. Each round gets shorter. When Peter asked if seven times was enough, Jesus said seventy-seven (Matthew 18:21–22), and I suspect that’s as much about forgiving one person repeatedly as forgiving many people once.
Keep your boundaries intact: Releasing the debt doesn’t reopen the door. If they’re unsafe, stay wise. You can pray blessing over someone from a healthy distance.
Pray for them, eventually: This one comes last for a reason. “Pray for those who mistreat you” (Luke 6:28) is less about them and more about you: it’s very hard to keep a debt alive on someone you’re regularly holding before God. Start with one honest sentence. God grades on intent, not eloquence.
Lewis Smedes said that to forgive is to set a prisoner free, and then discover the prisoner was you. Thirty-two years of ministry says amen. If you don’t kill the sycamine tree, it will kill you; bitterness unresolved will destroy you; it will bury you. I have never met a bitter person whose bitterness was working for them. I have met many forgivers who walked out of a cell the offender didn’t even know existed.
They may never be sorry. Your freedom was never stored at their address. And by the grace of God, on the other side of that release, you will smile again, a smile that no longer waits for anyone’s permission.
This post is adapted from themes in You Will Smile Again: How God Restores Joy After Deep Pain and Heartbreak, releasing October 20, 2026. If unforgiveness has been the lock on your door, you don’t have to pick it alone. Start with my free five-morning devotional, When You Can’t See How: A 5-Day Strategy to Smile Again.
A gentle note: some wounds, abuse in particular, need more than a blog post. Forgiveness never requires returning to an unsafe person or place, and working through deep harm is best done with a trusted pastor and a qualified Christian counselor beside you. If you’re in danger, please seek help immediately.
