It was the first night of a Forgive Process training class. We were gathered in a church room, whiteboard to my back. Sitting around the tables, people told me they came for various reasons. A few told me they didn’t believe in forgiveness — but they would give me a chance to change their minds (always nice to start with a challenge).
Several others talked about their struggles with past events. Some dated back to childhood. Several were more recent, including marital betrayals. A few were horrific. One woman had a family member who had been murdered. Another was injured in an accident with a drunk driver.
After the introductions, I turned and wrote on the whiteboard, “What Are The ‘Unforgiveables’?” I heard papers shuffle, but told them I wasn’t quite ready to brainstorm yet. I just wanted to plant the seed.
Then, I went on to tell a story:
“One day, you are hiking a trail in the mountains. You are lost in the beauty of the climb, amazed by the vistas that stretch out. You are minding your own business, just enjoying life. The trail is steep, the mountain rising sharply to your side. The vista is off to your left, and your right side is close to the rocky mountainside. You hug the rocky area to stay on the narrow trail.
Somewhere above you, someone else is hiking. You can’t even see them. But they dislodge a sharp rock. It careens down the side, bounces up, over, and down onto your shoulder. Lost in thought, you are jolted by the hit and pain from the cut inflicted. The rock lands at your feet.
After you rub your shoulder, wiping away the blood, you shift from pain to anger. You reach over and grab that stone. The sharp edges glisten a bit in the sun. You tighten your grip on the rock, raise it toward the upper trail, grip it tighter, and proclaim, ‘I will not forget this. I will not let this go!’ Holding tight, the edges of the rock cut into your hand. You continue your hike, committed to the climb. But, the joy is gone. Your shoulder is hurting. And now, your hand is also hurting. You now only have one hand to use in the climb.
Your climb is much longer, more difficult, far more painful, and robbed of any enjoyment.
Above you, the other climber continues the trek up and over the mountain, heading down the other side. Whether the climber knew of the rock, you can’t be sure. Perhaps he kicked it over the edge. Perhaps he slipped and dislodged it. Perhaps he had picked it up to look at the glistening elements in the broken edges, then discarded it. And perhaps, he heard you below and decided to aim the rock toward the sound of you climbing.
In any account, he has continued his path over the top and has now begun the climb down the other side. He couldn’t see what happened. He may even be unaware that the rock hit you (and even if he knew it, he doesn’t know you have continued to grip the rock). He has gone on along his merry way.
You, on the other hand, fulfill your commitment to hold tight to the rock. By the time you finish your hike, your shoulder, while cut, is feeling better. Your hand, however, is throbbing, with cuts at multiple points along your palm. The muscles of your hand are cramped from the tight grip. You are in pain, possibly more from gripping that rock than from your shoulder.”
I paused.
Then I added, “That is pretty much what happens when we refuse to forgive. The offense re-injures us, holds us back, and becomes another weight in life. Meanwhile, many times, the person you want to hold accountable is long gone, either unaware or uncaring of the damage done.”
The room was quiet for a moment.
Then, one group member said, “So, what are you saying?
We should just let the rock go? We get hit by the rock, and we don’t do anything?”
“Ah,” I replied, “that brings me to this question: What would you put in the ‘unforgiveables’ list of actions someone could do? These are the actions for which a person should not be forgiven.”
The audience was rather creative and bold after a few minutes. Quickly, we had a list that included murder, rape, infidelity, harming a child, war crimes, and a myriad of other, rather horrible, actions.
As the offense list grew, I could feel the anger grow in the room. Interestingly, nothing had actually happened to the group — except that members were thinking about these horrible actions, and in some small way, feeling the need for justice.
Then I offered another thought: “What if forgiveness is for the offended, not the offender? What if the reason to forgive is so that you don’t have to carry that hurt and injury with you indefinitely? What if forgiving had, primarily, nothing to do with the offender?”
This, I believe, is the first major block to people forgiving. They think that they should forgive, perhaps because it would help the offender somehow. They make forgiving about the offender.
Forgiving is for the offended. Not the offender. It may or may not change the relationship between the offender and the offended. But primarily, it frees the offended from the offense, the hurt, and the pain from the event. It also can free the offended from the offender.
To be clear, it is possible that forgiving frees someone up to re-establish a broken relationship. But it doesn’t have to. It always frees up the forgiver to live more fully. The future of the relationship is a separate decision.
When “Mark” and “Jane” visited my office, the hurt from Jane was palpable, although it took on the appearance of venomous anger. Mark hugged his end of the couch while Jane spoke to me, while glaring at him.
Jane told me that after 18 years of marriage, she had discovered a three-year affair that only ended because Mark had been caught. That was six months ago, and nothing had shifted during that time. There was zero communication during the day, both hard at work in their careers. Their two children were busy in high school, with both Mark and Jane doing what they could to make sure the bases were covered in the family.
When Mark hit the door, it was usually after Jane was home. The verbal barbs started when he came in, sarcasm and accusations flying, kids present or not. Mark’s phone was confiscated and searched at the door. His social media accounts were checked later that evening. Not surprisingly, nothing was found on either, given the expected scrutiny.
You might be wondering why they were in my office.
As it turns out, Mark finally one day said, “I can’t keep doing this. I am sorry for what I did. I apologized. I have tried to make things better. But you clearly hate me and are constantly mean to me. I don’t want to live in fear of coming home. I’m moving out.”
Jane, not skipping a beat, said, “You stole three years from me. I’ve only had six months. Of course you are leaving. You’ve been gone for years.”
With all the calm he could muster, Mark said, “I love you. I screwed up. I am a bad person. I get that. I would love for us to work this out. Clearly, you don’t. That is why I am leaving.”
At that moment, something strange was happening in their relationship. Mark was the one who broke the boundaries of his marriage. But Jane had since stepped in to continue the destruction of the relationship.
Jane stopped and asked, “Could we talk to someone?” Mark agreed. Thus, they were in my office.
There was one major problem in our sessions: the anger from Jane was endless. Let me point out that anger is a secondary emotion to hurt. Anger is what we often express when we are feeling hurt. But the anger can often do a very good job of hiding the hurt.
And Jane was not very interested in letting the anger go. When I approached the hurt in a conversation, Jane would get tearful and then lash out again, reigniting the anger. Sometimes, anger is easier to feel than the hurt beneath it.
After a few rather ineffective sessions, I asked Jane if she would return alone. Jane turned her icy glare to me. “So,” she hissed, “Mark is the one who screws around, and you want to make this my fault?”
“Nope,” I responded. “Mark messed up. And Mark seems to be repentant about that. Jane, I am not asking you to come here to blame you, but for the possibility of making progress… if we can move past the hurt and anger. At this point, you are holding the hurt and anger. Not Mark.”
She exclaimed, “I have to ‘get over this’ so we can get over this?”
“Not entirely incorrect,” I said. Jane wasn’t sure whether to respond in anger or confusion. I continued, “Jane, before you could possibly make a decision about your marriage, you have to make a decision about forgiveness. You have to decide whether you can even begin to forgive. Then — and only then — can you make a decision about the marriage. I don’t know. You may decide not to forgive. That is your choice. I just don’t see a way to move forward until that is decided.”
Jane and I worked together for several sessions. During that time, Jane began to see how holding onto Mark’s infidelity was costing her. She thought she was holding Mark accountable, making him pay the price. While that was not entirely untrue, the real hostage was Jane. Every day, she spent hours re-living the painful moments of discovery. She poured over the evidence she had. She rethought all the details she had pried from Mark. Jane’s entire day was lost in an affair that had long ended.
When Mark was coming in the door, Jane was caught in an emotional state from a day of remembered trauma. The trauma was in the past, but it was yanked into the present on a daily basis. When Mark arrived home, Jane was loaded with emotions — mainly hurt and anger — and it gushed out onto Mark.
I knew that as long as Jane stoked that fire of hurt, anger, and resentment, she would continue to torch their relationship, along with Mark and herself.
In our first session, just the two of us, Jane asked, “So, you want me to just let this go? Let him off the hook? You think Mark deserves for me to forgive him?”
“Jane,” I asserted, “this is where you have it twisted. I do hope to see you forgive Mark. And it is possible that the two of you will heal your relationship. But that is the wrong direction. This is for you. Forgiveness allows you to move forward in your life, no longer held hostage by someone else’s actions and choices. You forgive so that you can move forward. It is for you — not Mark.”
But Jane struggled back. “You think I must forgive Mark, right?”
“Nope.”
“So you think it is okay for me to not forgive him, then, right?”
“Nope.”
Jane was quiet. Then she admitted, “I have been thinking that I am required to forgive him, that it is my responsibility. My faith talks about this every week.”
I wanted to make sure Jane got this one: “Jane, I am not sure what your faith tells you each week. I just know that forgiving allows you to move forward. Forgiving is for your benefit. It might help the relationship. It might help the offender, in this case, your husband. But primarily, it starts the healing process for you.”
Over the next few weeks, Jane and I began working through the Forgive Process.
Closely related to the belief that forgiving is for the offender is the belief that it removes responsibility.
“Jack” spent his childhood at the mercy of an angry step-father who abused both Jack and Jack’s mother. Jack’s biological father left the family when Jack was a toddler. When Jack started school, his mother started a new relationship. At first, “Ralph” seemed great. He played ball with Jack, took the family to the movies, and seemed to make Jack’s mother happy.
That lasted just a few months. A couple of beers in the evening began to expand to a six-pack. Within six months of Ralph moving in, nightly television had the added spectacle of Ralph mixing drinks on the coffee table. A few drinks in and Ralph was happy to tell Jack what a pain he was, that he always needed something else, that he was just taking Ralph’s money. Soon, Ralph made it clear that Jack and his mother were just out to take advantage of Ralph.
Soon after that, Ralph was grabbing Jack to make his point. Then, Ralph began to smack and hit Jack to punctuate his point. At school, Jack tried to hide the bruises. Having seen his mother lonely and sad before Ralph, Jack tried hard not to offend Ralph. He feared his anger, but he also feared Ralph leaving.
Between them, Jack and his mom did all they could to stay away from the house on weekends. And they tried not to upset Ralph during the week. Neither strategy worked well.
When Jack was 17, Ralph grabbed Jack’s mother and threatened her. All of Jack’s anger from over a decade of abuse poured out. He took Ralph to the ground and made it clear that there was never to be a hand placed on his mother, ever again.
Ralph moved out the next day but caused legal upheaval for years after. In fact, Ralph committed himself to breaking Jack’s mother, emotionally and financially. Ralph stayed out of reach. Jack seethed with anger for years.
When Jack came to see me, he was bitter and angry. Jack was struggling with his career and had begun to numb his frustrations with alcohol. After a bar fight over nothing, Jack realized his anger was misguided. Worse yet, he was becoming Ralph. So he sought help.
“Jack,” I started, after hearing his story, “it might be time to forgive.”
That was like pouring gas on the fire. Jack erupted, “I will NEVER forgive that man! He robbed me of my childhood. He left my mother miserable. And you want me to just let him off the hook?”
“Nope.”
“But, you said I needed to forgive him,” Ralph tried to clarify.
“Yep.” I continued, “Jack, forgiving him doesn’t let him off the hook. In fact, you might forgive him and let him know, but you might just forgive him. On your own.”
Jack quietly responded after a thoughtful pause, “I’m listening.”
I told Jack about Pope John Paul II’s assassination attempt. Mehmet Ali Ağca shot the Pope four times as the Pope entered St. Peter’s Square. It almost ended the Pope’s life. After he had recovered, Pope John Paul went to visit Ağca in his prison cell, to forgive him.
Jack quickly jumped in, “So, he let him off the hook?”
“No, Jack,” I answered, “he did visit to let him know he was forgiven. But he also left Ağca in his jail cell to face the consequences of his behavior.” I continued, “Jack, you don’t even need to visit Ralph. Forgiving him does not let him off the hook; it releases you from the hook.”
Over the next few months, Jack and I worked through the Forgive Process.
This myth tends to roll off people’s tongues. “Just forgive and forget.” I have heard many people say it, and I was also convinced they never considered how that might happen.
If an event is traumatic, it is unlikely to be forgotten. To take it a step further, if you forget something, it probably was slight enough that you didn’t need to work on forgiving. Forgiving is what you do when you are caught by the actions of another person and find yourself anchored to that event. (There is another layer of forgiving, “Everyday Forgiveness,” that we will discuss later.)
We struggle to forgive the big things, the events and actions you are unlikely to forget.
Interestingly, I rarely hear the offended person speaking the words, “forgive and forget.” Often, it is either the offender or some related person wishing the situation would simply evaporate. To “forget” means to somehow arrive at a space where the event never happened, at least in your mind.
“Sherry” came to visit me shortly after the holidays. Her older brother had constantly tormented Sherry as a child. He called her names, belittled her, and often physically threatened or mistreated her. Sherry still had several scars from being shoved down. But most of the wounds were emotional and largely invisible.
When Sherry left for college, she cut off most ties with her brother but did maintain a connection with her parents. Only at holidays did the siblings’ paths cross.
This particular holiday season, Sherry and her family gathered with her brother and his family at their parents’ home. While Norman Rockwell may have been able to capture a great portrait of the family, just below the surface was a decades-old conflict simmering.
At one point during dinner, Sherry’s brother told a story about a childhood incident, but when it got to the point that he shoved Sherry off of a retaining wall, leading to a broken ankle, he chalked it up to an uncoordinated sister who stumbled.
Sherry erupted. She stood up, pointed her finger at her brother, and told him he had stolen her childhood. She continued, voice filled with fury, that she spent every waking day in fear of him, feeling bad about herself, and wanting to run away. Sherry’s parents tried to intervene. But Sherry was ready for that, too. She turned on them and questioned, through tears, why they never protected her, why they always sided with the brother, and why they always wanted a family get-together.
The table was silent. Then her brother started, “I — I — it wasn’t like that! I didn’t hurt you. It was you. When I did do something, you started it….”
Sherry screamed, “Stop it! You are a liar. You always have been. You always wanted it to be my fault. But it just wasn’t. You were a bully, and you still are!”
At that point, Sherry’s mother tried to calm the situation, saying “Sherry, that was years ago. It is over and done. You need to forgive and forget.”
Sherry was silent. That night, Sherry and her husband packed up with their kids and returned home. But Sherry felt all the childhood wounds reopened.
Which is why she came to see me.
Sherry was feeling a bit confused. Could her mother be right?
But she was also angry. Why should her brother be freed from his actions? How could Sherry forget?
After telling me the story, I said, “Sherry, your mother is half right.” She glared at me. I was teetering on becoming the enemy.
“Sherry,” I continued, “it is clear how deep the hurt is and how strongly it is gripping you. I think you do need to forgive so that you are free from that hurt and pain. But forgetting — that seems pretty impossible.”
“Well,” Sherry assured me, “if I can’t forget it, I probably can’t forgive it.”
I sat with her through several moments of silence. Then, she looked up at me and asked, “Right?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
Sherry’s mother had repeated that phrase so many times that Sherry thought maybe she was right, and that was why there would be no forgiveness. “So, if I can’t forget it, how can I forgive it?”
I suggested, “What if you thought about it differently? Not like you pretend the events happened differently than they did, but the circumstances might have a different understanding. Perhaps you could think about your brother differently.”
“No!” asserted Sherry. “I refuse to downplay what he did.”
“Sherry,” I assured her, “this is not about downplaying. That would be more in the realm of pretending or forgetting. But what if, at the end of forgiving, you have a slightly different view of him? Right now, he is pure evil in your mind. There might just be something else there. Someone else there.”
Forgiving is not about forgetting. But it is often about remembering (and understanding) things differently, seeing the actors and events from a different perspective. And often, forgiving leads to empathy and acceptance. That can change the viewpoint (note that I said “can,” not “will”).
To summarize, forgiving is not FOR the other person. It does not let that person off the hook. And you are not required to somehow forget what happened. Forgiving, however, is FOR you, the forgiver. It allows you to get off of the painful hook. It allows you to redefine who YOU are, and it may just redefine the events — not forgetting them but understanding them from a different perspective.
All of that might sound like a good idea. So why is it we struggle so much with forgiving?