Can You Repent When You Feel You've Been Wronged?

My sense of being wronged is real

Many wrongs have structural causes. Governments have limits. Because of a lack of ideas or budget, they don't properly teach people with warning signs, legal updates or ethics education. So there are many "sins of mistake or ignorance," and because the law doesn't recognize them as such, governments don't bother teaching more. A vicious cycle.

On top of that, the world itself makes conflict unavoidable. The great gears of the world generate fights.
Customs change, so a kind daughter-in-law and mother-in-law end up clashing; a pandemic sets families against each other; soldiers die in wars started by leaders; small countries pay for the conflicts of great powers. The powerful side that caused it all slips away, and only the people left behind sit down to divide up the blame.

So everyone feels wronged. One side thinks, "Why me?" The other thinks, "Is this all my fault?"

The one who caused it slips away, and another victim becomes the defendant

What creates the most conflict is not individuals but the huge structures above them. But those structures never take full responsibility. If a country paid for all its mistakes, it would go bankrupt. Still, having such a country is better than having none. The world has always rolled on like that, imperfectly.

What's left are wronged offenders and wronged victims. This is exactly where repentance shows what it is. Repentance isn't a question of a cold or warm personality. It's a question of whether you agree or disagree with the way this imperfect world keeps rolling.

If everyone only says, "I'm the victim," the world is left with nothing but war. But if everyone looks at their own faults first, the world keeps turning. That's why repentance made while feeling wronged is great. It's the act of lowering yourself so the world can roll forward a few more inches.

The raw material of freedom is unfairness

In the Bible, after Adam sinned, he said, "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate." Two blame-shifts in one sentence. Now look at it from God's side.

Without free will, a being isn't truly alive. But when free will was given, angels rebelled.
In case humans would betray too, God made a test, the tree of knowledge and the serpent, and then everyone complained, "Why did You make that?"
God gave Eve so lonely Adam wouldn't wither away, and Adam turned around and blamed God: "You gave me the woman," so I ate.

If everyone keeps clinging to blame, the system eventually crashes. The result is hard labor outside paradise.

So can you repent while feeling wronged?

Repenting while you feel wronged is the only way to keep the system alive. Because the system of creation itself was built from the raw material of unfairness.

Repentance isn't something you do just because you're nice. It's the choice of someone who knows that relationships and society keep working only when wronged people don't give up their own share of responsibility.

So saying, while still feeling wronged, "Even so, I'll carry the wounds I caused": that's much harder, and therefore much deeper. Repentance really isn't for just anyone.