Once you realized you’ve committed some wrongs, watch your step. There are many things that could stop you from doing what is right and getting down the Road to Reconciliation in one piece.
When your partner offers cheap pardon
You might have a partner who’s not taking your misdeeds as seriously as you. You feel bad about them, but he says, it’s nothing, forget about it. Well, it’s not nothing if you’re concerned about them. Don’t let a person in denial, or a Discount Pardoner prevent you from being the best person you can be.
Your partner has his own reasons to offer you cheap grace. It might pass for forgiveness, but it’s really a cut-rate imitation, an easy, breezy amnesty extended, not because it’s earned, but because he doesn’t want to deal with it.
He might feel good about himself, offering grace at discount prices. The problem is, by rushing the process, neither one of you will have the opportunity to fully assess the situation. No one will define the problem, acknowledge the injury, or confront their own complicity. The slate will be wiped clean before anyone has a chance to read what was written.
It’s important to call cheap pardon for what it is: an offer to collude. It may seem to preserve the relationship, but it prevents you both from achieving a more intimate bond. Magic happens when partners see each other naked, in all their ugliness, and decide to love anyway. That’s very different from turning away from the ugliness or pretending it’s not there.
Accepting easy forgiveness is a trap. You may think you got off Scott-free but, believe me, if you abandon Guilt and continue your nefarious ways, Guilt will come back. Your loved one will not forget that she easily forgave you before. She’ll hold it against you that you failed to change when she didn’t even ask you to.
When your partner’s behavior is worse
Your partner’s behavior may be worse than yours. She may be so evil and vindictive in reprisal for what you did to her at it overshadows your own wrongdoing. Being a victim doesn’t bring out the best in people, it brings out the worse. She’s been wrecked on the Road to Reconciliation. Don’t be rubbernecking past this accident so much that you crack up yourself. Don’t get so distracted by the malfeasance of others that you fail to improve yourself.
When others say you have nothing to feel guilty about
Well-meaning people might try to talk you out of feeling guilty because they want you to feel better. Saying you have nothing to feel guilty about is no different than saying you have nothing to cry over, to someone who is crying; or you have nothing to be sad about, to a person who has just lost a loved one who had been sick for a long time. It’s insensitive. It denies the validity of your feelings. True friends respect your feelings. You should, too.
When you get caught in someone else’s agenda
You’re drinking late at a bar, look at your watch, and realize you promised your wife you’d be home an hour ago. Your buddy says, “Screw her, you deserve some fun. You shouldn’t let her control her.”
You made a promise. Why is he telling you not to feel guilty? Probably because he’s doing the same things you are, and he doesn’t want to feel guilty.
When you have survivor’s guilt
People will try to talk you out of feeling guilty if you have survivor’s guilt. That’s when you feel guilty that you survived. Accident survivors get it, witnesses of violence get it, combat veterans get it in spades, people who have been victimized get it when they think about how much worse it could have been. Folks have a hard time understanding survivors’ guilt. They’ll say it wasn’t your fault that you survived, you had no choice, anyone would have done the same thing. They’ll counsel you to not get caught up in the what-ifs. They’ll warn you against 20–20 hindsight. They’ll call you a Monday morning quarterback.
If you have survivor’s guilt, you may be over-estimating the amount of power you have; but you still have some. Whenever you feel guilt, look at what guilt is trying to show you. It’s trying to show that life is precious and the actions you take, even the little things, have impact.
When you’re being scrupulous
People will try to talk you out of feeling guilty if they believe you are just being overly scrupulous. For instance, if you are beating yourself up for possibly breaking your mother’s back when you stepped on a crack. This is a crazy thought that doesn’t make any sense, but don’t blame guilt for it. The thought got manufactured elsewhere and loaded on Guilt’s truck for delivery to you. Guilt is just showing you you’re having those thoughts. Besides revealing that some of your thoughts are irrational, it’s trying to tell you that you love your mother and, because she loves you, you can hurt her. Were you supposed to call her?
When you pay attention to the guide, not what the guide is showing you
Guilt is your guide towards self-improvement. You can’t travel in a new country, and expect not to get lost, without a guide of some sort; be it a live human, or a guidebook, or signs by the side of the road.
Nevertheless, you don’t travel just so you can meet a guide, stay with a guide, and look at nothing but the guide. No, you’re interested in what the guide shows you. So, when I say that Guilt is a guide, I don’t mean you have to stay with Guilt. I mean, look at what Guilt is showing you. It’s showing you what your values are. It should get you to thinking whether things could be different.
Identifying what you could have done differently helps you get your power back. If you were a victim and feeling powerless, it shows you where you have power. If you did something wrong and felt you were powerless to stop yourself, it shows you had power after all. Guilt says you matter and the things you do make a difference.
Keith R Wilson is a mental health counselor in private practice and the author of The Road to Reconciliation: A Comprehensive Guide to Peace When Relationships Go Bad, from which this article is adapted.
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Previously Published on medium
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