Sometimes the hardest part of forgiving is figuring out when it’s actually happened.
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I read something somewhere about something. But I don’t remember anything about it except that it included a sentence saying “I’ll forgive, but I won’t forget.”
I related this quote, which, let’s be honest, isn’t exactly unique in the world of quotables, to my wife and a discussion ensued.
It’s weird how words can mean different things to different people. Sometimes this doesn’t make a major difference. For example, I used to use the word nauseous like, “I’m feeling so nauseous right now!”, to mean that I felt like I might throw up. My lovely wife, who had only ever used nauseous to mean “inducing nausea”, as opposed to feeling sick, figured out that I meant nauseated and explained the difference to me. Now I don’t embarrass myself on long sea voyages by proclaiming myself disgusting enough to make others vomit.
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
― George Bernard Shaw |
On the other hand, some words, when used differently by different people, can make a big difference. My wife and I recently realized that we have always given slightly different meanings to the word “forgive”. First of all, please allow me to ask how you would define forgive. It’s harder than it seems when you consider how often we admonish one another to do it.
Merriam-Webster defines forgive thusly: “to stop feeling anger toward (someone who has done something wrong) : to stop blaming (someone).”
And here are a few of the makeshift definitions I had come up with before I gave in and looked that definition up:
- It means to tell someone you won’t hold against them a wrong they’ve committed.
- It means to tell yourself that you’re going to stop holding their wrongdoing against them.
- It means you’ve stopped feeling angry about the wrongdoing they so callously committed.
- It means you’ve decided that you’d be better off to pretend that the wrongdoing never happened. And maybe tell them.
Gentlemen, I humbly submit to you that forgiveness falls on a spectrum of becoming okay with something you didn’t used to be okay with. To one end of the spectrum, there’s deciding forgiveness is something to pursue. On the other end of the spectrum, there’s feeling forgiveness.
Deciding——————————————————————————–Feeling
Sometimes, forgiveness may move along the spectrum from decision to feeling as time passes and the forgiveness deepens. Sometimes it might move from feeling to decision as the resentment thaws and the offended decides to release the offender. Sometimes, it might stay exactly where it begins – a decision without a feeling or vice versa.
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The question at hand is “When does forgiveness actually take place?”
And the trouble is that different people answer that question differently.
Different people have different cut off points along the spectrum for where they believe “forgiveness” begins. That’s to say that some people, for example, won’t think of forgiveness as having taken place until the feeling has taken full hold, while others will say that forgiveness begins when the decision is made, regardless of the feelings that accompany it.
Here’s how the former might work:
First, the person realizes that they need to go ahead and get over whatever the offense is. [FYI, this is a pretty good thing to be able to recognize in a marriage. Every marriage is full of little slights, accidental and intentional, that have no business ending in the dissolution of the relationship unless you want to judge your relationship success by quantity rather than quality.] Anyway. After that realization, the person tells him/herself and their spouse that forgiveness has been meted out. Usually, people use a less formal expression — something more like, “Look, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”
Then they wait. And while they wait, they try to go about life as though they’re feeling better. And then, eventually, they are feeling better. Emotions catch up.
Here’s an example of how it may work for the latter group:
First, the person feels angry. Maybe they talk to their spouse about how they were impacted by the wrongdoing. Or, I don’t know, maybe they do something else. But the result is that they see the benefit of moving on, but don’t think they can forgive until they’re feeling less angry. See, for the first person (described above), forgiveness occurs in the presence of the hurt or anger. Not for this guy though. This person knows they want to forgive, but they don’t feel like they can until the anger is gone — or at least until it’s going. In the meantime, their partner knows they’re still feeling upset. Over time, they do stop feeling upset and they feel like they’ve been able to forgive their partner. That’s when they announce that all is forgiven.
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I honestly don’t think either of these methods is superior. Basically, they’re both a process of cooling off and letting go of the hurt their partner caused. The difference is in how they and their partner perceive the cooling off and communicate it to one another. If one partner thinks they’ve forgiven even though they still feel angry, and the other thinks they haven’t even though they’re starting to feel better, that’s fine.
As long as everyone understands what’s going on.
If a person doesn’t really understand what their partner, or even they themselves, mean by forgiveness then, when they and their partner fight and then decide it’s time to forgive, they might still not be on the same page about things. Especially if they don’t think of forgiveness in the same way. One person might forgive quickly, but actually mean that they’ve made the decision to forgive, even though they don’t actually feel it (at least not yet) when they tell their spouse. Another person might seem to be holding a grudge because they don’t think of themselves as having forgiven until they really feel it — even though they’re at the same point in the process as their partner.
This type of miscommunication can lead couples to second guess one another.
For example, “You said you forgave me, but you keep acting angry!” when the forgiveness precedes the feeling.
Or , “Why won’t you just forgive me!?! I’ve done all I can to apologize!” when the anger is melting, but not enough for the wronged to really feel like they’ve forgiven quite yet.
Or, “Why am I always the first to forgive and move on and you just hold a grudge for hours!?!”
And, of course, all of those examples sound exactly like an argument flaring back up.
Knowing what we each mean when we use the word “forgive” makes forgiveness and the process of letting go of offense easier to do.
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If you enjoyed reading about forgiveness, you may also like:
Forgiveness May Not Always Be the Best Option, or
Forgiveness: How to Move Forward
If you enjoyed reading about communication skills for couples, you might like:
The Best Way to Argue (A How-to Guide for Couples)
The Most Important Ingredient for Improving Communication
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This post has been republished on Medium.
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Image: Ross Griff/Flickr
It is hard to forgive when your partner feels no regret.