Archive for May, 2022
I am back with my boyfriend after several months of being apart. I am apprehensive, not trusting much, because of his past hurts. Have I reconciled, I mean truly reconciled, if I cannot trust yet?
Being together does not necessarily mean that you are reconciled. Reconciliation includes trust, but trust is earned back inch-by-inch. Does your boyfriend show you signs that he has remorse (sadness for what he did)? Does he show repentance (saying he is sorry)? Does he engage in recompense (behaviorally trying to make up for what he did and behaviorally showing he is trustworthy)? Keep these three issues in mind (remorse, repentance, and recompense) as a way to build your trust so that you can achieve a true reconciliation.
My anger is not completely gone. Does this mean I have not forgiven the person?
Forgiveness does not proceed perfectly and often the outcome is not perfect. If you have done the work of forgiving and if your anger no longer controls you, then I would say that you have forgiven even if you have some anger left over.
Is it harder to forgive someone who is frequently angry versus someone else who is not this way?
I do think it may be more difficult to forgive someone who is “frequently angry” and expresses that anger consistently to you. You may have to forgive on a daily basis if you are in regular contact with a person who is continuously angry. After you have forgiven to a deep enough level so that you can approach, in a civil way, this person, then it may be time to gently ask for justice. Part of justice is to ask this person, if you feel safe with this, to begin working on the anger so that you are not hurt by it.
I am angry at my partner, but the anger is not deep. I am more annoyed than really bothered. If I had to put a number on my anger from 1 to 10, I would give it a 3. Do you think I need to forgive, given that my anger is not intense?
There are different reasons to forgive. You could forgive for your own emotional well-being. You could forgive, on a higher moral level, for the good of the other and the good of the relationship. It does not appear that you need to forgive for your own emotional well-being, given how low your anger is. Therefore, you still can forgive so that the other feels better, so that you communicate better together, and so that your relationship becomes stronger.
Apart from the idea that we are all made in the image and likeness of God, how can non-believers see the worth in other people?
Aristotle makes a distinction between potentiality and actuality. If it is the case that all people have free will, then even when people behave badly, then they each have the potential to change, to actualize that potential and become better people to others. According to the philosopher Kant, all people are ends in and of themselves and so should be treated as such. The philosopher, Margaret Holmgren, argued for the position that all people, based on Kant’s idea, are worthy of respect. So, there is room in different philosophies for the view that all people have worth.
