Tagged: “Why Forgive?”

What is your opinion of children who observe their parents fighting all the time. Do you think this observing child might become a bully in school or a difficult partner when an adult?

This depends on what the child, who now is an adult, has learned from what was observed about the parents.  It is possible that the person might gain wisdom from the parents’ fighting and realize that such a pattern is not healthy.  Thus, the person may deliberately commit to not following the parents’ behavior.  In contrast, if the person does not reflect on the potentially destructive pattern, then, yes, the person may grow up to show bullying behaviors in school and to repeat the pattern of a conflictual relationship with a partner.  In other words, insight along with a commitment to not imitate the conflictual behavior might spare the person from repeating the parents’ behavioral pattern.

Learn more at Family Forgiveness Guidelines.

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You say that part of forgiveness is to offer compassion toward the one who offended you. The one who hurt me has passed away. How can I begin to have compassion on this person?

Compassion includes at least four elements:

1) Sympathy toward the one who hurt you.  Sympathy is an emotional reaction to another’s pain.  For example, if someone comes to you angry that he just lost his job and now is struggling financially, you have sympathy when you feel sorry for the person.  His anger and unfortunate situation leads to a different emotion in you: sadness.

2) Empathy toward the one who hurt you.  Empathy is stepping inside the other’s shoes (so to speak) and feeling the same feeling as the other.  Thus, when the other is angry, you empathize with that person when you also feel anger.

3) Behaving toward the other by supporting him or her in the time of distress.  This could include a kind word or talking about the strategy of solving the job problem, as examples.

4) Suffering along with the person.  This latter point is the deepest aspect of compassion.  It could involve helping the person financially before a new job is secured;  it could involve driving the person to a job interview.

In the case of having compassion for a deceased person, you can have sympathy and empathy (the first two elements of compassion), but you cannot engage in the other two elements because behavior with and toward the other is not possible.  Compassion need not have all four elements to count as compassion.  You can think of the hard times endured by the deceased person and react with sympathy and empathy.  Such compassion may aid your forgiveness.

Learn more by reading any of these books by Dr. Forgiveness -Dr. Robert Enright:

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I am feeling hopeless. I know people forgive to restore peace in a relationship, but that is not possible for me. What do you suggest?

Reasons for forgiveness go beyond only a restored relationship.  You can forgive because it is good in and of itself.  You can forgive to rid yourself of resentment. You can forgive to pass the insights on how to forgive to your children.  Thus, even if a restored relationship is not possible, you still may forgive if you choose to do this.  Our research shows that as people forgive, their sense of hope increases in a statistically-significant way.  You need not remain with a sense of hopelessness.

Learn more at 8 Reasons to Forgive.

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My son recently was divorced. He did the best that he could and now he is angry and refuses to forgive his ex-wife. Can I forgive her for what she did to my son? If I do this, am I being disloyal to my son, who refuses to forgive?

You are free to choose forgiveness in this case.  Even though your son’s ex-spouse did not hurt you directly, she did hurt you in a secondary sense in that she hurt your loved one.  Forgiving in this context is appropriate.  You are not being disloyal to your son if you choose to forgive to rid yourself of resentment.  You need not, then, go to your son and proclaim your forgiveness and then pressure him now to do the same.  You can forgive without discussing this with your son.  If and when he is ready to forgive, then you can share your insights about the forgiveness process with him.

Learn more at 8 Reasons to Forgive.

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I have been divorced for 10 years. I can honestly say that I no longer have what you call “toxic anger” toward my ex-spouse. I never actually engaged in the forgiveness process. I kind of just let it go and the anger went away, too. Do you think I still need to consider forgiveness?

A researcher, Judith Wallerstein, did a longitudinal study of divorced people and she found that, even 10 years after divorce, many people still were fuming with anger.  This does not seem to be the case for you. If you carefully examine your level of anger, including the possibility that you are not denying the depth of your anger, then it is possible that you have, as you say, moved on without excessive anger.  If, on the other hand, the anger should again surface for you, then you do have the possibility of beginning the forgiveness process.  It never is too late to forgive if you think you need to do this.

Learn more at Forgiveness for Couples.
Learn more about Wallerstein’s Research on Divorce.

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