What Jesus actually asks
When Peter asks how many times he has to forgive, he offers seven as a generous ceiling. Jesus removes the ceiling. That exchange is usually where the conversation stops, and it is why so many people conclude they are obliged to absorb harm indefinitely.
But look at what the instruction is about. It removes a limit on how often you release a debt. It does not say the debt was never real, that the person did not do it, or that you must hand them the keys again.
Elsewhere Jesus tells his followers to love their enemies and pray for those who mistreat them - language that only makes sense if the other person is still, at that moment, an enemy who is still mistreating them. Forgiveness in that frame is something you can do about someone who has not changed. It does not require their cooperation.
Repentance is the other person's part
There is a real strand in the New Testament that ties restoration to repentance. Jesus says that if your brother sins and repents, forgive him. Confrontation comes first, then a turn, then restoration.
So the tradition holds two things at once, and pretending it holds only one is what does the damage. You are asked to let go of the claim. You are not asked to certify that nothing happened, to keep the relationship at its previous depth, or to trust someone who has given you no reason to.
Trust is rebuilt by changed behaviour over time. That is not bitterness; it is the ordinary way trust has always worked. Someone who demands immediate trust as proof of your forgiveness is asking for something Scripture does not require you to give.
When no apology is ever coming
Sometimes the person has died. Sometimes they will never agree that anything happened. Sometimes contact itself is unsafe. In those cases forgiveness cannot be a transaction between two people, because only one of them is participating.
What is left is the part that is yours: setting down the pursuit of a debt that will not be paid. That is slow, it is rarely a single decision, and it usually has to be done more than once. Feeling the anger return next month does not mean you failed at it in June.
It is also worth saying plainly that forgiveness is not a substitute for justice, for reporting a crime, or for consequences. Releasing your own claim to retribution is a different act from arranging for someone to face nothing.
One honest next step
Write the specific thing down - what was done, and what it cost you. Not the summarised version you tell people. Forgiveness tends to stall when the thing being forgiven has never been named accurately, because you cannot set down a weight you have refused to look at.
Then decide separately, and on its own merits, what contact is safe. Those are two decisions, and taking them as one is how people end up back in reach of someone who has not changed.
If the harm was abuse, or if deciding about contact means deciding about your safety, work that through with a counsellor or someone who knows the situation. That is not a failure of faith. It is the right use of the people around you.