Tagged: “Barriers to Forgiveness”
I am trying my best to forgive a family member who has some sustained anger, not temper tantrums, but a kind of simmering anger that comes out frequently. I now am wondering if it is harder to forgive someone for this than other issues.
I do think it may be more difficult to forgive someone who has what you call sustained “simmering anger.” 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.
Doesn’t forgiveness flow from the moral virtue of justice? As a person strives for justice, then it may be safer to try forgiving.
Justice in its modern sense is to give people their due, to give them what is owed to them. For example, if you are a carpenter and build a table for me, justice requires that I pay you because I owe you the money. With forgiveness, the one who forgives does not exact a price of any kind from the one who acted badly. The one who forgives demands nothing from the other person. Instead, the one who forgives offers mercy, which actually is not deserved by the one who acted badly. If forgiving was equated with any kind of justice, then it follows that the forgiver cannot forgive at all until the other pays some kind of price such as an apology or some kind of recompense. Therefore, forgiving cannot be seen, in a philosophical sense, to flow from justice.
My partner says that he forgives me, but he seems kind of smug about it. His attitude seems to be “I am better than you.” Is this really an act of forgiving?
In 1978 the psychiatrist R.C.A. Hunter made the important point in a journal article that most of us can tell if an act of forgiving is legitimate or not based on the sincerity of the words and actions. If the other seems to be using forgiving as a way to dominate, to feel superior toward you, then this likely is not genuine forgiveness. You could try having a conversation with him about this and gently state that his actions do not seem to suggest a true sense of forgiving in which you meet person-to-person in a genuine spirit of respect and love.
How can we get parents interested in teaching their children about forgiveness?
Parents first need to understand that deep-seated resentment can build up in children’s hearts when they are treated unfairly. They need a way of curing that resentment and forgiveness is one vital way to do that. We need to get the word out to parents that forgiveness is a protection of the child’s heart that can be appropriated for the rest of that child’s life, even into adulthood when the storms of life can get more severe.
The person I am forgiving thinks that upon my forgiveness, our relationship can proceed as if the injustices never happened. How do I get him to realize this is not correct?
He has to see the difference between forgiving and reconciling. He might see your forgiving as giving in to his unacceptable behavior, which forgiving is not. This distinction between forgiving and reconciling may help him to see that he has work to do if the relationship will improve.
