A recent New York Times article on forgiveness reminds me of the importance of forgiveness to one’s wellbeing. In my work as a couples therapist, I have seen how unprocessed injuries do chronic damage to relationships. Left unaddressed, resentments fester, creating a toxic atmosphere that seeps into all aspects of one’s life. It’s not just the original injury that causes the issue, but the complexity and longevity of the hurt. The offender may struggle to apologize due to feelings of shame or unaddressed relationship issues. The injured party may struggle to forgive, despite the long-term negative consequences of holding onto bitterness and resentment. The result can be a breakdown in communication and disconnection, with family members cutting themselves off from each other, even avoiding contact altogether.
The article quotes Tyler VanderWeele of the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard: “What forgiveness does is sort of free the victim from the offender.” By having a forgiving disposition, the victim can set themselves free of the offender.
Sometimes it seems forgiveness has gone out of style, a clunky, outdated religious practice that has fallen by the wayside. Nowadays, when someone commits an offensive act, the thinking goes, they must feel remorse and take responsibility by committing to never do it again. But what if they don’t want to? The injured party feels perpetually wronged when the offender is unable or unwilling to take responsibility. And in this way they stay bound up by the offender’s incapacities. Hence the power of forgiveness, which the victim can deploy to shift themselves into a more empowered stance, especially when the offender won’t or can’t step up.
1: Recall the hurt
Acknowledge and accept that you were hurt. Allow yourself to feel the pain of the injury. This is not easy because like most life forms, we strive to avoid pain, distracting ourselves with other things, minimizing it (“it’s not big deal”), or not important right now (“too busy to deal with it”). In truth, recalling the hurt is both uncomfortable and a necessary step in the process of forgiveness.
In a long-term relationship with past injuries, there can often be an entanglement of hurts, in which the injured party reacted to being hurt by injuring their partner back. Talking about an entangled hurt can lead to recriminations and comparisons about who was injured the most. It is important to stay focused on one complaint at a time with the understanding that both injuries ultimately need to be addressed. Allowing space to take turns in speaking and listening is crucial to disentangle the injuries and for each partner to understand the other’s point of view. Therapy can help with this, but if you want to try to hash things out at home, a communication framework like Nonviolent Communication can help.
2. Build Compassionate Understanding
Try to see things from the offender’s perspective. Seek to understand why they acted the way they did. Then, try to view the situation from a compassionate observer’s perspective and play back the pattern of interactions that led up to the injury. Try to make sense of the cycle of reactivity, the feelings, thoughts and reactions that led to the injury. Some people find it helpful to journal about this, to fill out the picture.
Being injured by someone close to you can carry with it old feelings. There were times in the past where you were hurt, when your feelings or wants were ignored. A fresh injury can stir up righteous indignation. This can be a healthy reaction to being mistreated. A less healthy adaptation is be to feel that you are dependent on this person and so must endure ongoing mistreatment.
3. Step into Forgiveness
When you start to see what made the offender do what they did, you start to grasp the situational and relational dynamics that culminated in your being hurt. As the compassionate understanding builds, do you feel ready to make a conscious decision to forgive the offender for their reactivity? For their limitations? Maybe you feel some shame about the ways in which your own words and actions fed into the situation, and then offer yourself some compassionate understanding even if they have not apologized or asked for your forgiveness.
Remember how it has felt when you have been forgiven in the past. It’s important to note that forgiveness is not the same as condoning or excusing the offender’s behavior. For the victim, letting go of a painful burden can be an emotional release.
You may need to intentionally decide to work on forgiving the offender, even if it takes time and effort. This step involves staying steady in your resolve to let go of the desire for revenge or punishment, and focuses instead on your intentions for healing, reconnection and perhaps further developing your relationship.
4. Holding onto Forgiveness
Forgiveness can become a part of your identity. You may need to actively choose to let go of resentments or the bitter residue you feel towards the offender. Express it to them, or to a friend, or to your journal. Get it out. Do not suppress the resentment. Seek to create a new story about it that is a broader truth. Holding onto forgiveness is about maintaining healthy relationships. In practice it can take some effort to put resentment aside.
Remember the Cost of not Forgiving
The emotional tension of not forgiving someone for a wrong can be overwhelming and exhausting. It can create persistent feelings of anger, resentment, and bitterness towards the offender, which can lead to a breakdown in the relationship. Holding onto grudges and past hurts also takes a toll on one’s mental health, causing feelings of anxiety and depression. When you choose to work towards forgiveness, you can release the emotional tension and move towards a healthier, happier life.
Forgiveness can be complicated, and not usually something that is achieved overnight. Take courage, though, it is often attainable, that it is good for your health, and that it can lead to healing and growth in relationships, or to individual growth when a relationship has ended.
If you and your partner are struggling to forgive each other after a hurtful experience, even one that happened long ago, I encourage you to seek support from a therapist. Couples therapy focused around forgiveness can heal old wounds and create a brighter future for your relationship in which you learn to be more open and transparent, and show the care you feel for each other more explicitly. If your partner is not willing to take part in a therapeutic process, you can still work on your relationship in individual therapy. You can be get to know yourself better and gain some new insight into your relationships, let go of old hurts, and prepare you for the path ahead.
Bruce Hearn is a psychotherapist in private practice in San Francisco. He specializes in working with couples and with men.