Can You Forgive Someone Who Isn’t Sorry?
What Scripture says about repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation, and peace when the person who hurt you remains unchanged.
Some apologies never come.
The person who hurt you may deny what happened, minimize it, blame you, or continue the same behavior as though nothing needs to change. You may have spent months—or years—waiting for the moment when they finally understand the damage they caused.
That waiting can become its own kind of captivity.
You replay what happened. You imagine the conversation in which they finally admit the truth. You wonder whether moving forward without an apology means letting them escape responsibility.
Then someone tells you that you need to forgive.
The word can feel almost insulting when the other person is not sorry. Does forgiveness require you to act as though the offense no longer matters? Are you expected to restore the relationship while the harmful behavior continues? Can forgiveness even happen when repentance does not?
Those questions deserve a more careful answer than, “Just let it go.”
Scripture does not treat forgiveness casually
The Bible speaks strongly about forgiveness because it takes both sin and grace seriously.
Paul writes:
“bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, if any man has a complaint against any; even as Christ forgave you, so you also do.”
—Colossians 3:13, WEB
Ephesians 4:31–32 says:
“Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, outcry, and slander be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving each other, just as God also in Christ forgave you.”
—Ephesians 4:31–32, WEB
Christians are not given permission to cultivate hatred, plan revenge, or allow another person’s sin to become an excuse for our own.
What happened to you may have been wrong. It may have caused lasting damage. But the wrong done to you does not make bitterness holy.
At the same time, Scripture does not describe forgiveness as pretending that harmful behavior is harmless. Sin can be named, confronted, and addressed.
Jesus said:
“Be careful. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in the day, and seven times returns, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.”
—Luke 17:3–4, WEB
This command includes both confrontation and forgiveness. The person who was harmed is not told to deny the offense. The person who caused the harm is called to repent.
Jesus also said:
“Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father, who is in heaven, may also forgive you your transgressions.”
—Mark 11:25, WEB
No apology or repentance is mentioned in that passage.
These verses are one reason sincere Christians do not always define forgiveness in precisely the same way.
Some understand forgiveness as the decision to release personal vengeance and surrender the offense to God. In that sense, a Christian can forgive before the offender repents.
Others distinguish between having a forgiving heart and completing the relational act of forgiveness. They believe Christians must remain willing to forgive and free from revenge, while forgiveness in its fullest relational sense follows repentance.
That disagreement is real and should not be hidden.
Both understandings, however, lead to the same important conclusions:
You are not free to be ruled by revenge. And an unrepentant person does not automatically receive reconciliation, restored trust, or continued access to your life.
Forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation
Forgiveness and reconciliation are connected, but they are not interchangeable.
Forgiveness concerns your response to the wrong and your refusal to make personal revenge your mission.
Reconciliation concerns the restoration of a relationship.
A relationship cannot be fully reconciled by one person alone. Reconciliation usually requires truth, repentance, responsibility, and a willingness to rebuild what was damaged.
You may be ready to release revenge while the other person remains committed to denial. You may refuse bitterness while recognizing that honest reconciliation is not currently possible.
Calling a relationship “reconciled” when the offense cannot even be discussed is not peace. It is avoidance.
Forgiveness does not automatically restore trust
Trust is not restored merely because someone says, “I’m sorry.” It is certainly not restored when the person refuses to acknowledge what happened.
Trust grows through demonstrated honesty, reliability, accountability, and changed behavior. When those things have been repeatedly violated, rebuilding trust takes time.
In some relationships, returning to the previous level of trust may never be wise.
Forgiveness does not require giving someone:
Access to your private information
Control over your money
Unsupervised access to your children
Another opportunity to repeat the same deception
Permission to speak to you abusively
Immediate restoration to a former role
Protection from reasonable consequences
Forgiveness is not amnesia.
Wisdom remembers what happened without using the memory to feed hatred.
Releasing revenge is not abandoning justice
Romans 12:19 says:
“Don’t seek revenge yourselves, beloved, but give place to God’s wrath.”
—Romans 12:19, WEB
Releasing personal revenge means refusing to make retaliation your purpose. It means trusting that you are not the final judge and that another person’s wrongdoing does not give you permission to become cruel, dishonest, or destructive in return.
That does not mean justice no longer matters.
Depending on the circumstances, a faithful response may include reporting a crime, seeking legal protection, documenting misconduct, protecting a child, requiring workplace accountability, pursuing restitution, or limiting contact.
Justice and revenge are not the same.
Revenge seeks to make another person suffer because you suffered.
Justice seeks truth, protection, accountability, and appropriate consequences.
Forgiveness does not require interfering with those consequences.
Peace may not feel peaceful at first
People sometimes talk about forgiveness as though it creates immediate emotional relief.
Healing does not always work that way.
You may make a sincere decision before God to release revenge and still wake up angry the next morning. A memory may return. A new consequence of the offense may surface. You may grieve what the relationship could have been.
Recurring pain does not automatically mean you have failed to forgive.
Forgiveness can involve a clear moral decision while emotional healing unfolds gradually. You may need to reaffirm your decision not to retaliate each time the injury comes back to mind.
You are not saying:
It did not matter.
Nothing needs to change.
I was probably too sensitive.
I must restore the relationship.
They should face no consequences.
I have no right to feel hurt.
You are saying:
I will tell the truth about what happened, but I will not allow revenge to determine who I become.
Stop waiting for their apology to begin healing
A sincere apology matters.
A truthful apology names the offense, accepts responsibility, expresses remorse, and attempts to repair what can be repaired.
But you cannot force another person to give you one.
You may need to grieve the possibility that they will never understand, never admit the truth, or never become the person you hoped they would be.
That grief is painful. It is also more honest than building your future around an apology they have shown no willingness to offer.
Their repentance is their responsibility.
Your responsibility is to respond faithfully, tell the truth, reject revenge, protect what has been entrusted to you, and choose wise boundaries.
Your healing cannot remain dependent upon their willingness to change.
A practical way forward
Name the offense truthfully
Avoid minimizing what happened, but also avoid exaggeration. Describe the specific behavior and its consequences.
“I was hurt” may be true.
“He repeatedly lied about our finances and left me responsible for debts I did not authorize” is clearer.
Truth gives you a firmer foundation than either denial or emotional overstatement.
Decide what you are releasing
You can surrender the desire to punish the person personally.
You can release the belief that their apology must arrive before you are allowed to move forward.
That does not require releasing every boundary, consequence, or responsibility connected to what happened.
Identify what still requires action
Do you need to end a conversation when insults begin?
Limit contact?
Stop lending money?
Correct a false statement?
Speak with a pastor or counselor?
Consult an attorney?
Protect a child or vulnerable adult?
Prayer should help you act with greater truth and courage. It should not replace action that is clearly necessary.
Stop forcing reconciliation
You can leave the door open to genuine repentance without giving the relationship the same position it once held.
An unchanged person should not receive all the benefits of a restored relationship merely because you are trying to obey God.
Ask God for specific help
Instead of praying only, “God, help me forgive,” you might pray:
Help me tell the truth without hatred. Keep me from revenge. Show me which boundaries are wise. Give me courage to take necessary action. Help me recognize genuine repentance if it comes, and protect me from being persuaded by words that are never followed by change.
Bring in trustworthy support
Deep betrayal, abuse, coercion, violence, child endangerment, financial exploitation, or prolonged manipulation should not be handled in isolation.
Depending on the circumstances, you may need help from a mature pastor, licensed counselor, domestic-violence advocate, attorney, physician, or another qualified professional.
Seeking appropriate help is not evidence of weak faith.
Forgiveness never requires remaining in danger, concealing abuse, or preventing lawful accountability.
Their refusal does not have to define your future
Forgiveness is not a declaration that the offense was acceptable.
It is a refusal to let another person’s sin determine your own character.
You may never receive the apology you deserved. The relationship may never return to what it was. Trust may remain limited, and consequences may still be necessary.
The person who hurt you does not have to control your inner life forever.
You can reject revenge without denying justice.
You can remain willing to forgive without pretending repentance has occurred.
You can desire someone’s good while refusing to participate in a harmful pattern.
Most importantly, you can place the judgment you were never meant to carry into the hands of the God who sees the full truth.
When a situation is too personal or complicated for a general article, you can ask your own question in the AskBiblically app and receive a Scripture-grounded response. The app can support reflection, but it does not replace Scripture, prayer, wise Christian community, pastoral guidance, or professional help when serious harm is involved.
Which distinction has been hardest for you to understand: forgiveness, reconciliation, trust, or restored access?
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Important note: This article provides general biblical guidance and is not individualized legal, medical, mental-health, or safety advice. If your situation involves violence, threats, stalking, coercive control, abuse, or danger to a child or vulnerable person, contact emergency services or an appropriate qualified professional in your area.