It becomes our excuse for failure. Of course, when everyone is a victim, no one takes responsibility and nothing gets solved. And the genuine victims are lost in a sea of people feeling sorry for themselves. For as long as you refuse to forgive a person who hurt you, and remain engaged with them in anger, you are making yourself their victim still. Another obstacle to forgiveness is the way we confuse it with denial.
Many people think forgiveness means pretending nothing ever happened.
By this many abused people have continued to allow their abusers to inflict injury after injury. You can forgive someone without allowing abuse to continue. But you have to deal with it openly and honestly, even though it costs. This is the only path to healing. Sometimes we tell ourselves we have forgiven someone when they aren't even aware they hurt us.