Tagged: “Forgiving”

About a year ago, my wife did something that hurt me very deeply.  She has not apologized and does not feel responsible because her actions lacked the intention to cause pain.  I don’t wish her any ill will, nor do I want to hurt her back.  While I believe I can forgive her, even without an apology, is it inconsistent with the notion of forgiveness that I feel she cannot remain my wife if she will not take responsibility for her part in my suffering?

Yes, it is inconsistent to both forgive your wife and to consider leaving her for the hurt she caused you, especially when her action appears to be a one-time act that was not repeated. To put in perspective what I am saying, I think you may have a good case against your marriage if: a) she showed a pattern before marriage that made it impossible for her to be a wife to you; b) she continued this pattern that is so extreme that she was not a wife to you during the marriage, and c) it appears, from the counsel you receive from competently wise people, that she does not have the capacity for the future to truly be a wife to you.

Perhaps you both need to sit down and revisit the hurtful event from a year ago. She says that she never intended to hurt you. Sometimes, intentions that are not directed toward the unjust and cruel nonetheless are morally wrong. Here is an example: A person at a party knows that she will be driving. Yet, she drinks and then drinks to excess. She gets behind the wheel of the car, drives, crashes into another car, and breaks the leg of the other driver. She did not intend wrong. She tried to be careful even though she had too much alcohol in her. The act itself was negligent even though there was no intent to break another person’s leg. It was negligent precisely because the consequences of driving under the influence can be dire even with the best of intentions.

Does your wife see this: one can act unjustly even with intentions that are not leaning toward doing something unjust? Do you see this: Her actions, though hurtful to you, may not have been unjust? Try to have a civil dialogue about these issues. And continue to deepen your forgiveness and to see that your avowed commitment to your wife is far deeper than one even enormous hurt that she inflicted on you.

I have a 17-year-old son who is challenging me a lot.  I forgive.  He talks back.  I forgive again.  He is disrespectful again. I forgive again and again.  It is hard.  Help!

I say this to those who are in relationships in which one needs to maintain the relationship: Forgiveness under this circumstance becomes more difficult, but all the more necessary.  As you forgive, and your anger lessens, at that point try approaching your son and talk gently (as well as firmly) about his disrespectful behavior to you.  Also, and this is very important, try to uncover any anger your child may be carrying inside his heart that he needs to examine.  He may need to forgive people who have hurt him.  He may be displacing that anger onto you.  If you focus only on changing his behavior from disrespectful to respectful, you might miss his damaged heart in need of forgiving those who broke his heart.

When I do the forgiveness work, I try to take what you call the personal perspective of the one who hurt me.  Yet, how much of this work must be factual rather than speculative? 

As you say, we ask people who forgive to take what I call the personal, global, and cosmic perspectives.  The personal perspective deals with facts, to the best of your ability to gather those facts about how the other person was raised and the challenges faced in life.  If you have no knowledge of the other person’s past, then I recommend that you move to the global perspective in which you begin to see the common humanity that both of you share.  You do not need to know precise details of that person’s history to know that you both: 1) have unique DNA, making both of you special and unique; 2) must have adequate nutrition to be healthy; 3) will bleed if cut; and, as one more example, 4) will both die someday.  Seeing your common humanity may aid you in softening your heart toward the person, not because of what happened, but in spite of this.

How do we know when the anger inside is unhealthy?

Here are some questions you can ask yourself, the answers to which will help you see whether or not the anger is unhealthy or not:

1). How much anger do you have inside on a 1 to 10 scale, ranging from 1 (no anger) to 10 (an extreme amount of anger)?  A score in the 7 to 10 range is worth noting.

2). How often do you have this anger?  If you have it for much of the day for most days and this has lasted for weeks or months, then this is worth noting.

3). Do you have difficulty concentrating on tasks which you need to complete on any given day?  If so, how often is this happening? Again, if this occurs on most days, this is worth noting.

4). Does your anger interfere with your sleep?

5). Does the anger interfere with your energy level in that you are tired more often than you should be?

6). Is the anger interfering with your happiness in life?

If your answer is yes to questions 4 through 6, and if your anger is abiding in you, as seen in questions 1 through 3, then you should consider the probability that your anger is in need of correction.  If you have been treated unjustly by other people, then forgiveness may be a good way of regulating this unhealthy anger.

Which do you think is more effective as a treatment for anger: relaxation training or forgiveness and why?

Forgiveness is appropriate if the person is angry because of injustices suffered from those who have treated the person unjustly.  If this is the case, then I would choose forgiveness over relaxation, if I had to choose only one of these.  I would do so for this reason:  If we are deeply angry or frustrated or sad inside because of another person’s unfairness, these emotions are not easily eliminated by relaxation because relaxation treats the symptoms and not the underlying cause of the challenging emotions.  Once a person stops relaxing, the challenging emotions likely will re-emerge.  In contrast, forgiveness focuses on the cause of these emotions—the unjust treatment by a person—and the forgiveness process helps the emotionally wounded person to have a new response toward that person which tends to reduce these emotions to more manageable levels over time.  In other words, as the forgiver thinks about the one who offended, the challenging emotions will have been reduced toward the offending person and so healing occurs.  With relaxation training, there is no attempt to directly alter one’s emotions toward an offending other person.