Forgiveness is not forgetting, excusing or reuniting. It may be something else entirely.
3 min read
Everyone has an opinion about what I should do. My mother says he has apologised, let it go. My friend says forgive him for your own peace. He has done everything right for eight months. But if I forgive him, am I not saying it was acceptable? That his comfort matters more than what he did to me?
Meenal, you are not stuck because you are hard-hearted. You are stuck because you have been handed the wrong definition.
Forgiveness is not what you were told
The psychologist Shirley Glass clears the ground first.1 In her account, forgiveness is none of these things.
Glass clears the ground first. Forgiveness is none of the four things above.1
It is not forgetting. You keep the memory and the lesson. You stop being ruled by them.
It is not excusing. Something easily excused does not need forgiving. The need to forgive shows the injury was serious.
It is not reconciling. You can forgive a person and still decide not to stay with them.
It is not permission. It cannot happen while you are unsafe or the behaviour continues.
Read the third one again if you are healing alone. Forgiveness and reunion are two separate decisions.
Forgiveness and reunion are two separate decisions. Researchers who treat affair couples say the same: forgiveness does not require reconciliation.2
It is something you do for yourself
Glass describes forgiveness as a slow process, not a single event. Compassion slowly rises. Resentment slowly drains. It comes near the end of a long road, after the truth is known and safety has returned.
She calls it a gift you give yourself. You decide that the past will stop holding your present hostage. You put down the wish to punish.
Researchers break forgiveness into parts like these. In a study of married couples, two parts mattered. Goodwill toward a partner, and a fading wish to hurt them back, went with resolving conflicts better.3
Fincham, Beach and Davila measured forgiveness in these parts. Goodwill and the fading of the wish to retaliate went with resolving conflict better.3
Who benefits most? Glass points to the Stanford Forgiveness Project, where people who learned to forgive showed less stress, anger and depression. A later review of randomised trials found the same pattern: people helped to forgive had less stress, anger and depression than those who were not.4
What happened when people were helped to forgive, across randomised trials.4 The numbers are standardised effect sizes. Around 0.5 is a moderate effect.
Not too soon, and not never
A quick “it’s fine, let’s move on” after a few weeks is what Glass calls pseudo-forgiveness, meaning forgiveness in name only. It buries the injury alive. It can also teach the other person that betrayal is cheap.
The opposite trap is quieter. Some of us fear that if we heal, the wound will look small and the offender will get off lightly. So we keep it open as evidence. Glass understands this. She is also clear that it traps the injured person most of all.
Not too soon, and not never. Glass calls the quick version pseudo-forgiveness.1
Forgiveness is earned on one side and chosen on the other. It needs real remorse, backed by action. Eight months of doing everything right is the kind of action she means. Whether you are ready is yours to decide.
When this is not enough. Forgiveness work should never ask you to stay somewhere unsafe. If you are afraid, call the Women Helpline on 181 or emergency services on 112. If resentment has turned into low mood most days, please see a clinical psychologist. Need to talk to someone now? Tele MANAS is free, day and night, on 14416.
Inat Therapy · Anahita Tanwar, Clinical Psychologist · online sessions across India
These pages are for reflection and self-help. They are not therapy and do not replace a doctor, counsellor or lawyer. If you are struggling, Tele MANAS offers free support day and night on 14416. In an emergency, call 112.