Earlier this week I went out to breakfast with my dad. You don’t know my dad, of course. But if you did, you would know that he has done quite a few things worth saying sorry for. You would also know that I’ve spent a good portion of my life being upset about it (rightfully so, to some extent). We could’ve easily never spoken again, and probably would have if the situation called for it. But somehow we ended up here, having an awkward but not unpleasant conversation over waffles.
Forgiveness is such a difficult topic. Not only is it hard to deal with but also to talk about. People try to sugarcoat it and beat it into a box with phrases like “forgive and forget!”. I hate this phrase by the way. It grossly oversimplifies the way we experience interpersonal conflicts. Not only are there an infinite number of ways in which somebody can be wronged in any kind of relationship, but there are also an infinite number of ways to respond to that pain depending on the situation. Deciding how to respond to being hurt by someone is hard, especially when you love them. It becomes far more complicated than simply letting someone go, or just forgetting about it. Can I forgive this person? Are there actions that are unforgivable? Can I continue this relationship without disrespecting myself? What if I can’t just ‘forget’ about this thing that someone did to me? And even after you figure all that out: Where do we stand now?
This is hard because there isn’t really a clear cut answer for anything, but I do have some thoughts.
There are a lot of ways to define the word ‘forgiveness’. When I was younger, I always heard people say that “forgiveness is for yourself”, and I still like to think about it that way today. It’s a personal thing, an act that will benefit you as opposed to anybody else. When I was a little kid, we even had this index card taped to our fridge that had a Nelson Mandela Quote on it: “Resentment is like drinking poison and hoping it will kill your enemies”. My mom put it up there to remind my brother and I not to waste too much time hating other people. It isn’t always easy to not resent people, that’s for sure, and I definitely don’t think anyone’s resentment should go unvalidated. Sob into that pillow. Blast that rage-filled breakup song. Vent to that friend. Spew your anger and pain through poems or journals. Feel your feelings and all, of course, but then make a decision about just how much of your life you’d like to spend being angry about it. For some people, that ends up being their whole life. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be like that.
So you’ve made it through that step of the process. What next?
The process of reconciliation usually starts with an apology and a question—that awkward (and sometimes unspoken) ‘is everything okay again?’ or ‘are we good?’.
Sometimes the answer is just no. That stings for everybody.
I guess there are rare situations where ‘forgive and forget’ does somehow work; both parties put the bad behind them and things are exactly the way they were before. There are also times when people most definitely should not continue to be in contact with someone who hurt them and is going to continue to hurt them. In between both of those, however, is this weird gray area of trying to fix a relationship that has been cracked.
I’ve been in this situation an unfortunate number of times (As everyone probably will be throughout their lives, on both sides of the apology), and while I don’t know everything, I do know two things for sure:
First — Apologies are important! Being able to acknowledge that something you’ve done has truly hurt someone else goes a long way. Being able to not only acknowledge your mistakes, but sincerely do better can also significantly impact whether or not an apology is accepted (and the relationship continues).
Second — The Merriam-Webster definition of ‘reconcile’ is “to restore to harmony; to resolve”. But resolving a conflict doesn’t necessarily mean returning to the way things were before, or could have been. This is probably how it should be. (See above about apologies. I mean if you’re trying to rewind time and act like something never happened, are you actually acknowledging the pain that was caused?) Maybe your version of reconciling with someone is deciding that you’re both better off going your separate ways, and that’s okay. Maybe you do end up making amends and continuing to build a stronger relationship from there. That’s okay too.
Earlier this week I had breakfast with my dad because, after undergoing the awful process of deciding not to torture myself anymore by resenting him, I decided that I did still want him in my life. We ate together and took some time to catch up in between periods of hesitant silence. This isn’t quite the same relationship we had before, or could have otherwise had. It’s something new, and that’s okay.
Featured Image by mark tulin on Unsplash
