You likely know someone like this. Perhaps they’re a family member who brings up a decades-old slight at every holiday gathering. Maybe they’re a colleague who still cold-shoulders someone over a misunderstanding from years past. Or perhaps you recognize these toxic tendencies within yourself.
So why do some people refuse to forgive, despite the well-documented negativity it brings? The following 10 behaviors aren’t just traits of the perpetually unforgiving, but strategies they employ to justify their stance and keep themselves trapped in a cycle of resentment.
1. They keep the “crime” in their mind and ruminate on it often.
People who never forgive hold grudges. They can hold grudges for a long, long time because they care more about the grudge than about healing. In many cases, the target of the grudge isn’t going to remember or care about the circumstances that led to it. They may forget altogether or they may have felt justified in their actions at the time.
Yet the person holding on to the grudge thinks about it often, which, according to research, may foster feelings of moral superiority and make it even harder to let go of. Grudges are unfortunate because they are a constant source of anger and unhappiness to which the holder condemns themselves.
2. They blame others for their problems, long after the “crime” was committed.
Instead of accepting responsibility or shared responsibility, they blame others for their own emotions and difficulties. They externalize their problems by making it the fault of outside circumstances or other people. They tend to have a victim mentality. They believe themselves to be helpless victims of fate, environment, and other people’s machinations. That’s not always the case.
Sure, bad things happen because of outside circumstances, but people who always blame those circumstances are forfeiting their ability to take control. In many cases, we all have a role we play in many of the negative situations we are exposed to. At the very least, we have a role to play in the way we respond to situations, something that’s widely been accepted as having huge benefits for our psychological well-being and overall happiness. People who point the finger without any self-reflection tend to be uncompromising in their forgiveness. They fall into the mentality of helplessness in which they convince themselves that they can’t make a difference.
3. They are passive-aggressive.
People who are unwilling to forgive often express their resentment through subtle, indirect behavior or comments instead of addressing their issues directly. Why do they do this? It’s a way for the person to hold onto their anger and not forgive because the actual issue is not being addressed. Addressing it directly can lead to a resolution, which would mean the person wouldn’t have the justification to continue being angry about it. They need that justification to permit themselves to continue to be angry.
4. They refuse to reconcile because they don’t want to lose leverage.
They may refuse to mend the relationship even when the other party attempts to make amends. In that case, the person often just wants the leverage to hold over the other person.
Anger is a lifestyle for many. If they make amends and patch up the relationship, then they have no more reason or justification to be angry about a situation. They lose that moral superiority we talked about earlier. They may also avoid reconciliation because they feel it offers them leverage in the relationship. They use earning forgiveness as a way to try to get more out of the other person.
5. They overgeneralize people, which makes them hyper-critical.
People are complex, and so is their behavior. But overgeneralization allows the person slighted to label someone as entirely bad or untrustworthy after a mistake. They make absolute judgements about people. According to Psych Central, this type of black and white thinking is common in people who hold grudges. Instead of acknowledging the complex nature of people and relationships, people who never forgive hold onto that black and white perspective that justifies their anger.
Once they are slighted by someone, they automatically focus on all the negatives of that person and discount the positives. This further fuels their anger and feelings of moral superiority. As a result, they may end up criticizing someone more than they normally would because they are so focused on the negative.
That may cause yet more bad feelings and fights with the other person because no one wants to be scrutinized and micromanaged at that kind of level. As a result, this person may not have many deep relationships. Creating a deep relationship takes time, time in which one or both parties will make mistakes that must be fixed.
6. They seek revenge over resolution.
They may escalate conflicts instead of seeking resolution. A person who never forgives is more likely to seek revenge, looking for a way to “get even” with the person instead of working toward an amicable resolution.
The issue, of course, is that hostility is often met with other hostility. That creates an unhealthy loop of conflict that will only fuel more anger and animosity. If the person who doesn’t want to forgive is constantly taking offense, then they are going to continue to seek revenge. Furthermore, several studies have shown that revenge, over forgiveness, results in less favorable psychological outcomes for the person slighted.
7. They emotionally wall themselves off.
Emotional barriers are a way to protect oneself to an extreme. Yes, boundaries are healthy. But a person who closes off too much also significantly hampers their ability to forgive and build good relationships.
Walls are two-way. A person needs to have the ability to be vulnerable, to let others past their walls, to forgive, connect, and continue to build a relationship. They never really have that opportunity if the wall is stopping their emotions from both directions. It just means they’re left alone with their anger and resentment.
8. They have difficulty trusting others.
A refusal to forgive erodes trust. That makes it difficult to build and maintain healthy relationships. The decision to not trust people, to not allow themselves to be vulnerable, is a statement more about themselves than others. Many people make those decisions based on how they feel toward the rest of the world. They may feel that other people are like them, that they won’t forgive and want to hold onto problems, so they don’t extend that trust to others. That, in turn, becomes a self-fulfilling cycle.
Final thoughts…
Those who refuse to release grudges ultimately become captives of their past, their emotional energy perpetually drained by resentments they’ve chosen to hold on to. While forgiveness may feel like surrender to these people, it actually represents liberation. The weight of carrying every perceived slight through life exacts a devastating toll on mental health, relationships, and overall well-being.
Recognizing these behaviors in ourselves or others is the first step toward breaking free from this self-imposed sentence. After all, forgiveness isn’t about excusing the offense—it’s about reclaiming your own peace from bitterness that would otherwise consume it.
