My friend recently ended a very challenging marriage with her husband. The struggles lasted for years. She now tells me that, after the divorce, she has forgiven. She says it was easy for her to do. I am wondering: Do you think she really did forgive easily or maybe was she working on forgiveness, over and over, without necessarily realizing it?
I think there are three possible explanations here:
- Your friend has not yet forgiven and her proclamation of forgiveness is a psychological defense mechanism, possibly a reaction formation (responding in a way opposite of what one is truly feeling as a protection against anxiety). If this is true, then her anger likely will surface once she is in a psychologically safe place to feel that anger.
- She really has forgiven easily. This could be the case if your friend is someone who is well-practiced at the virtue of forgiveness. Do you know her well enough to know if she practices forgiveness toward others, in essence leading a life of forgiveness? If so, then getting to the end of forgiveness in this case could be easy for her because of all the accumulated practice in forgiving.
- As you say, she could have been doing some subtle work on forgiving as the marriage struggles were present and continuing. If this is the case, she probably will be able to recall instances in which she tried to see the inherent worth of her husband as the conflicts were occurring. This would be an indication of her doing the forgiveness work, perhaps over a long period of time, so that there was not a sudden and easy emergence of forgiving.
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