Friday 17th March, 2023
In some versions this is translated as “love keeps no record of having been wronged”
In his excellent book “Why does he do that” Lundy Bancroft identifies a type of abuser who believes himself to be the perpetual victim. This is a man who keeps a record of every wrong done to him, both real and imagined:
The Victim is highly self-centered in relationships. Everything seems to revolve around his wounds, and he keeps himself at the center of attention. If you have children, he tries to get them to feel sorry for him as well. He seems forever to be telling you: You don’t understand me, you don’t appreciate me, you hold my mistakes over my head. Yet you sense that the dynamic is actually the other way around. ……..
Lundy Bancroft. Why does he do that?
……The central attitudes driving the Victim are:
• Everybody has done me wrong, especially the women I’ve been involved with. Poor me.
• When you accuse me of being abusive, you are joining the parade of people who have been cruel and unfair to me. It proves you’re just like the rest.
• It’s justifiable for me to do to you whatever I feel you are doing to me, and even to make it quite a bit worse to make sure you get the message.
• Women who complain of mistreatment by men, such as relationship abuse or sexual harassment, are anti-male and out for blood.
• I’ve had it so hard that I’m not responsible for my actions.
Arguments with these abusers go on forever. The thing you did wrong, or that he believes you did wrong, will be thrown in your face day in, day out for years to come. Just when you think he’s moved on from it, it will rear its ugly head again.
It’s good to know our God is not like that. God keeps no record of our wrongdoing, the bible tells us it is as though he has completely forgotten it. “He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west”
Bitterness and resentfulness have no place in love.
