Forgiveness achieved through Accountability.
This idea of accountability takes admitting what one did even farther. Davis cites Elizabeth Menkin’s definition of accountability as involving the following steps:

• Recognition. The wrong-doer assumes responsibility for their action(s), including any negative consequences that resulted from it.
• Remorse. Whenever the wrong-doer thinks about what he did, he regrets it and wishes he had acted differently.
• Repentance. The wrong-doer has a firm resolve to not make the same mistake in the future.
• Reform. The wrong-doer becomes a new person, one who doesn’t repeat the same offense again.
  
  

  Forgiveness as achieved Unilaterally.
  This concept of forgiveness is quite different from the last two because it purports that people can forgive:
  

  • Regardless of whether or not the wrongdoer assumes respnisbility for what happened, and
  • Regardless of whether or not he even admits that the wrong-doing occurred

  The primary example that Davis gives is of a woman who, because she befriends a man who molested his step-daughter, is able to forgive her own father for molesting her.

  Likewise, she was also able to forgive her mother for not protecting her from the abuse. It is important to note that she believed the man was genuinely sorry for abusing his step-daughter. In this situation, you might say that this woman’s friend served as a kind of surrogate parent.

  The Choice to Forgive is Yours

  Regardless of what we believe about forgiveness or how it can be accomplished, Davis reminds us that the most important thing to remember is that, in the end, each person has to decide for themselves if they absolutely have to forgive the person who wronged them.

  In addition, we might also benefit from considering another question: Who is it going to be more important for us to forgive? The person who hurt us, or ourselves for the mistakes that we made in the relationship? I tend to think it’s more important for us to forgive ourselves.