To Err is Human. To Forgive Is A Whole Other Issue Altogether.
I’ve been thinking about something, as I tend to do since my brain never shuts off, even when it should do. It’s honestly not based on any one thing that is going on or has gone on in my life, it’s just what it is. My thoughts.
Forgiveness is trumpeted as being the pinnacle of what is good and pure. The long-suffering madonna who forgives those their tresspasses. The wronged child overcoming the sins of the parents. The lover who forgives their beloved for that time they tripped and fell and their dick fell into someone else. The husband who lets go of the nasty things his wife said when he burned the dinner and didn’t take the rubbish out and she was on a PMS high.
It’s supposed to be the ultimate sign of being a “good person”, whatever one of those is. And yet when we see people who forgive and forgive and forgive, we think “Doormat.” But forgiveness is a cornerstone in most religions – in Judaism if restitution has been made then you’re actually required to forgive. It’s the biggest reason why I’ll never be a real Buddhist, as forgiving isn’t something that comes easily by me. And atonement and forgiving is a huge part of Hinduism.
So why is it so hard?
Why is it so fucking difficult to perform? Because it’s not the actually acceptance of wrong that’s hard – Yeah, you fucked up. You acknowledge it and that’s fine and let’s move on. The hard part is that pesky other part of forgiveness- concluding resentment. Accepting that restorative justice has been paid. The pardon is granted and there are no terms and conditions on it.
It’s easy to say “I’m sorry.”
It’s also easy to say “I know. It’s ok.”
What’s not easy is to not think of it in the middle of the night, when the Kafka dreams come in and the small niggling doubts start to whisper in your ear. It’s not so simple when you have forgiven an infidelity of your lover but randomly – perhaps in the grocery store, perhaps in a meeting – you are hit in the stomach by the thought of him whispering into her ear the things you thought reserved only for you. It’s not just a simple act of exoneration when you have an argument and start to be afraid, remembering as you do the feel of his hand against your face, or the cold on your feet after he locked you outside the house when you were naked, in a bad neighborhood and with nothing to wear but fear. It’s not as straightforward saying “I forgive you for dying. And I forgive me for letting you die.”
Because maybe there’s another side to forgiveness. There’s something in us which can say “I get it – you are sorry. You wish you could take back what happened or what was said.” But there’s a side of exculpation which says: You’re sorry. But what’s going to stop you from doing/saying it again?”
And that’s the bad part.
You don’t just absolve, you have to have faith. Faith that what happened won’t happen again, belief and trust that a lesson has been learned. That whatever occurred was relevant enough to be held inside as something That Can’t Happen Again.
And if it does, do you keep forgiving? Do you keep saying “It’s cool, I know you’re sorry.” Do you lower your standards to include the act or statement, to acknowledge that what happened isn’t right, that you’re very unhappy with it, but it is perhaps part of the dynamic of where you are? Because literature, the Bible, all of these purist examples tell you that you should not face that again, that life is about purity and truth and people don’t make the same mistakes, not if you love them, not if you love them enough, not if you love them so much that each time a transgression is committed it hurts just that much more, that you love them so much that they couldn’t possibly repeat the same mistake.
Until they do.
And then you don’t know what to do. Life is about principles and boundaries, yes. Life is also about knowing that no one is perfect, that no love is perfect, that there are some things that will have a slight distasteful whiff of subjugation about them, even when you know it’s the last thing you want to do.
Forgiveness, then, should be about forgetting and letting go. It should be about the same act not happening again. It should be restorative and healing, it should be enlightening and bonding. Forgiveness should be many things, but the reality of pardoning people is that forgiveness is a messy business. You have to look hard inside of yourself and when the resentment and vengeance is boiling and bubbling you realize just what kind of snakes and snails and puppy dog tails you’re made of.
Even when you’ve forgiven someone, you still remember. You remember the words and the way they cut so deeply into you that they didn’t even leave a scar, they simply cleaved right through. You remember the way they put their needs about the needs of a child. You remember the look on their face when they told you they slept with someone else and promise it will never happen again. Because not only are some things hard to forget, but they can be laced with a liberal dose of shock – How could you? How could you?
Maybe you used to believe it was as simple as saying “I’m sorry”, that the apology recognized the mistake and it was to be immediately erased. Time has taught you that the eraser, it’s beginning to be worn down. There’s a bitterness inside of you that turns to caution, the edges of parts of you are slightly wilted and rotten from things that you let go, but which impacted you before you did. You hate yourself for not being a better person about this. You hate being in this position at all. And it’s just as bad when someone doesn’t forgive and forget your transgressions, only you have to add how much you hate yourself on top of it.
Forgiveness.
So very, very hard and so very, very messy.
There is a quote I love:
maybe that’s why the older one gets, as one’s eraser gets more worn down, the less tolerant and more cranky one gets … i know i walk away from a lot of things now and won’t tolerate or hope as i have done in my younger days.
Great post. Thanx.
To me forgiveness is an event; a point in time when one says the words with sincerity. Then the hard part begins: forgetting is a process which is often requires a very long time to complete.
And a huge second to Mei’s insightful comment.
Forgiveness, for me, is all about me and actually not about the other person at all. I only know that the bitter and twist the comes when I don’t forgive affects me more than them. I can forgive, without forgetting what happened, but it doesn’t have to mean trying to make myself believe like it never happened. Forgiveness doesn’t re-create trust, it doesn’t undo, it doesn’t even mean forgetting but it does mean that I’m not going to let it ruin me.
I get what Deeleea wrote – to me, forgiving doesn’t require forgetting. And it is much more personal than “other” focused. Freeing.
People keep making the same mistakes over and over – love does not factor into that equation. Forgiveness does not fix the event or the person. It just means that you understand what happened and will no longer allow it to eat at you. It does not mean that the relationship returns to its previous incarnation. I don’t think that bitterness turns to caution; I think experience leads to caution. Bitterness can lead you to close yourself off from others, but I don’t think closing yourself off from someone who has hurt or betrayed you is bitterness. I think that’s just smart sometimes. And if you do not withdraw from the betrayer, it is because there is an amount of hurt or betrayal you are willing to tolerate. I think the bitterness comes when you push your tolerance boundaries beyond what you’re comfortable with and you become someone you don’t want to be.
Inspiring and thoughtful post…thanks
Wow, forgiveness. I’m glad you wrote a post about that. I still can’t figure out why living with resentment is easier for me than letting it go. One quote I read somewhere said something like “It’s not their fault, it’s not your fault, it’s not anyone’s fault, but it’s your responsibility”. That’s what I think about when I get angry about how my parents f–ked up. I think how it’s now my responsibility to stop blaming them and take care of myself like a normal person would.
I’m not big into forgiveness to be truthful. Accepting? Yes. Tolerating? Yes. Moving past? Yes. Forgiving… not so much and I don’t feel bad about it.
And even if I do forgive, I absolutely NEVER forget. Ever. So then I’m not really forgiving, am I?
Forgiveness is highly over rated in my opinion.
That was a great post….I don’t have so much of a problem with forgiveness as I do with healing afterwards…and trusting again. It might sound like the same thing but it’s really not. I can forgive, move on and even make peace with someone….but there’s still a small crack in my heart, or a voice in my head…that I have a hard time getting over…telling me to go slower next time, don’t share *quite as much*…or keep those thoughts to yourself. That is waht I have a hard time with…the voice….the fissure.
This is a subject I’ve often struggled with, too, much the same way you have. Probably the one thing more than anything else that makes forgiveness possible is the passage of time. Only time can heal, or even partially heal, deep wounds and allow us to witness the changes to the person that may have hurt us long ago. My biggest problem is that I have a hard time forgiving the unrepentant. If, after a sufficient passage of time, they honestly ask for my forgiveness then I usually have no problem. Otherwise I just have to wait a long, long time to forgive because soon will come a point that I won’t even care about the person, let alone the transgression or the energy to be bitter about it. Yet that to me doesn’t seem like forgiveness.
Forgiveness is definitely a messy business. I was wronged by my father 9 years ago. 9 years! Some people would say move on! But I can’t. I can’t fathom what he did or how he lives with himself. I’ve tried to forgive him, but I can’t. One of the reasons is he said he has righted his wrong but in my eyes he hasn’t. He hasn’t made atonement for his transgression and until he does, forgiveness is a long way off.
And I can be a forgiving person, but depending on the degree of transgression will ultimately determine whether or not a person will have my true forgiveness.
Great food for thought this morning. It’s always a treat to read your blog.
Oh yes. Forgiveness is very, very messy indeed. It tests everyone and everything involved – you find out what you’re made of in the aftermath, what truly matters to you. Forgiveness and faith are inextricably intertwined, I think.
Great, thought-provoking post. Thanks for this…
Great post, Helen. I have issues with letting go and not forgiving, too. There are times when I can feel myself still angry with my husband for something he did 5 years ago (and not something small like not replacing the toilet paper when he finished a roll).
Deeleea is right, though. Forgiveness has more to do with yourself than it does with the person who did you wrong. They moved on once they said “I’m sorry” while you still feel the sting of the hurt. Sometimes they can do things to make the hurt go away but you also have to give up a lot of expectations and find a way to let it go. I don’t think you can ever let it go completely, but just make it a little less harsh.
None of that probably made any sense.
“I forgive you for dying. And I forgive me for letting you die.”
I about started crying when I read that. I guess it hit home.
As the saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” It took me a long time to learn the difference between being forgiving and being willing to become, in the words of the post from “a,” someone I don’t want to be…someone who repeatedly invoked the frailty of human nature to excuse thoughtless, cruel, or deliberately destructive behavior…someone who indeed became bitter because, after all, wasn’t I doing the right thing by “getting over it” and giving the person a second…and third…and millionth chance? Then it finally hit me that even Christ tossed the money changers’ asses out of the Temple when they crossed a line that was simply unacceptable. Why that day and not before? Why pick on the money changers out of all those whose transgressions must have frustrated him? Just BECAUSE. Because, for him, on that, day, ENOUGH was ENOUGH. I have since decided that being honest with myself about what I can and cannot tolerate, with no apologies to those with different “breaking points,” is the healthier way to go. And in the end, holding on to someone who you have to constantly “forgive” probably isn’t a favor to them, either…
It’s even harder when the other person never asks for forgiveness, but you’re “supposed” to forgive them anyway. That’s a tough one.
There’s a weird sentiment out there that to be the bigger person you owe forgiveness to people who wrong you. Nonsense. Forgiveness is not owed, it’s earned. It’s not earned by apologies or anything they say to you, but by actions and by genuine efforts to change what went wrong. It’s not a matter of how strong or weak you are, it’s on them altogether. Realistically, no matter what they say, how likely is it that this will happen again? And again? And again? When you love somebody you might extend forgiveness unearned in the hopes that it will inspire the other person to change, because you still have hope for them. If you are patient and lucky, it might work. But it might just be manipulation, and that never works well.
That’s what I think when it comes to other people, anyway. For myself too I like to say I’m not into forgiveness. I do hold my grudges. But looking back I’ve been willing to overlook a lot of things, not all of them small ones. I’ve stayed mad and I haven’t offered up forgiveness in so many words, but I guess in an unspoken way I’ve forgiven a lot from my family/friends/lovers. I tend to think if we still love each other and really try to be good to each other, that’s good enough for me. Maybe that’s a measure of how I feel about myself – other people should hold out for more, but I should take what I can get. I don’t know.
I wonder how many of us women are crippled by the fear of looking like a doormat? It makes it hard to talk about our problems with other people, because I can just imagine what they’d say if I let out the details on a few relationships I’ve had, and I don’t need that kind of judgement. So I keep it to myself. Makes it very lonely sometimes.
Woo, that was long. Sorry about that.
You can sneak up on yourself too. Although I wouldn’t say I went as far as forgiveness, I thought I lost the hate I had for the person (?) who raped me as a child. Then one day I saw a mass of flashing red lights in front of his house and my first thought was that something horrible had happened to him. The joy and relief that flooded through me was eye-opening. Like I met a part of myself I never even realized was still there. Weirdest experience of my life.
I wish it was easy. Even a little. Great post and awesome thoughts. Thank you for sharing.
Some days I cannot forgive myself.
I am probably the odd one who always worries about the cause of these introspective posts. They are so beautiful and thoughtful, but I do hope that I am being hyper sensitive, and you were really just reflecting on past pain and not something new. Much love to you…
and damn I wish I could write half as well as you. :-)