Responsibility
I thought about what qualities I admire in an individual. I think it comes down to them having a sense of accountability and being a good person even behind closed doors. Everyone makes mistakes but when one is unable to admit it, they cannot grow or change. I found a newfound respect would form within me towards them people they take accountability for their own mistakes instead of blaming others.
I had a situation where someone deeply damaged me. Although the damage from the actual actions themselves also caused trauma, having the family of that person create false narratives in order to scapegoat me to protect their own kid, and justify their abuse was even more painful. The emotional damage from how they twisted the truth to cover up what they did was greater than the pain I felt from the abuses. If they sincerely apologized and changed I would have forgiven them but for them to deny the truth of what happened made me feel crazy or gaslighted.. They were the ones that caused the pain but they tried to illicit sympathy by playing the victim. I cried under my covers every night for a year over the damage this family did to me emotionally and mentally.
Accountability is super important because without that, genuine forgiveness is difficult. People say that closure and forgiveness is a personal thing - nothing to do with the aggressor, and in some ways that is correct.. but I do believe that while inner peace can be found regardless of the other person, true forgiveness can only be given when there is a sense of responsibility from the party that damaged the other.