If you cut off your nose to spite your face, can you ever get your nose back?

This seems completely senseless. If it was my mistake, I would swallow my pride and sincerely apologize. And if that makes me “the bitch,” then I put myself in that position.

There seems to be a lot of “playing games” in this scenario, I’m not even sure that I would want to repair such an unhealthy relationship.

@ANef_is_Enuf If you’re the bitch, is there any point in continuing the relationship?

@wundayatta sorry, I edited my response above before I saw your question.

Anyhow, I would not actually do what you described to put myself in this position. On the odd chance that it happened that way, I don’t think that dangling a mistake over someone’s head in order to establish some type of power is a particularly mature response, either. The whole scenario you’ve described is pretty much the epitome of the type of relationships I strive to avoid in my life.

@ANef_is_Enuf If no one truly forgives, how can you avoid such relationships? Do you just choose to believe they forgive if they say so? When you forgive, can you truly forget the harm that was done you? If you can’t, then what does forgiveness mean? You are always on the lookout for the person to do it again.

What do they say? “Once bitten, shame on you. Twice bitten, shame on me?” Don’t you always have to be wary or risk being twice bitten? If you are always wary to prevent being bitten twice, then what does forgiveness mean?

Forgiveness and trust do not necessarily go hand in hand. If the trust has been broken, it has to be rebuilt. That doesn’t mean that you have not been forgiven. It means that you have been given an opportunity to redeem yourself, and the person that you have hurt has chosen to let go of the anger or negativity toward you as a result of whatever it is that you did wrong. Trust still has to be reestablished, that is almost an entirely separate issue from the act of forgiveness.

Why would you want it? With transplants so readily available, no one would….. Oh, wait, I just went back and read the details.

I suggest finding new friends who don’t know about the past.

I agree with @ANef_is_Enuf

I let go of a ‘friend’ that could not own her games about 6 months ago.
Pride IS the backbone of all unhealthy relating, and it’s a choice.

Cutting off your “nose”, metaphorically speaking, could mean swallowing your pride, offering a sincere apology, hopefully with some insight into your bad behavior and then, you grow a NEW nose, one that is not stuck so far up in the air!

Pride is the deadliest of all the “sins”, it is willful and stubborn refusal to take responsibility for ones part in a conflict.

If someone is unable to humble themselves enough to admit a mistake, I don’t consider them a “friend.”

I am not into self-destructive behavior, so I may not be the best to answer.
If I have done something to hurt someone, I make certain I give a sincere apologize. If that person finds the offense so hideous to not move forward, I cannot and will not cut my nose off to spite my face.
I don’t think pride comes into play. Pride would only get in the way of a person not offering an apology. Being that, there is no cutting, only NOT FACING.

As an FYI the origin of the term is though to be derived from a tale of Saint Ebba gathereing her nuns together and urged them to disfigure themselves, so that they might be unappealing to the Vikings. In this way, they hoped to protect their chastity. She demonstrated this by cutting off her nose and upper lip, and the nuns proceeded to do the same. The Viking raiders were so disgusted that they burned the entire building to the ground.

If there’s more love and hope for change than there is hurt, wanting to right and not caring anymore if the relationship splits then yes, there a chance to grow back and even grow stronger. I’ve managed it but only once, there were three failures.

No.. And you’d have to breathe through your ears.

If you cut your nose off to spite your face, wouldn’t you need an umbrella always near to keep the rain out?

To me it’s over. No point in trying to salvage something that was good that you wrecked. The trust is not there anymore. It’s like lying to your friend. Once you lie and he knows you’re dishonest, how can he trust you anymore?