Forgiveness (Article 1)
Dispelling the myths around forgiveness
"Forgiveness is not a singular event"
Image credit: CraiyonAI under the prompt "The burden of forgiveness"
June: F Day, Pride Month and Forgiveness Week - Oh My!
As an estranged family member, navigating the continual onslaught of holidays and commemoration days throughout the year can sometimes be trying as they have the potential to surface memories, angst and grief over the respective state of our estrangements, how we got there and what we wish were different. Depending on where you are on your estrangement journey, it may seem like there is something at nearly every moment. No sooner does one parental commemoration day pass with all the weeks of marketing and cultural focus that lead up to and around it, than that focus then turns to another one in the following month. Not to mention how the interspersing of birthdays, anniversaries, holidays or other personally family-relevant dates might fall in between and beyond.
June adds the celebration of Pride month which can intensify the levels of significance for the LGBTQA+ community and allies given how strongly differences of identities, values and beliefs are tied into reasons for estranging from family. In fact, there is a commonly referenced study on the attributions provided by estranged adult children for the decision to go no contact with their parents. In that study, the number two cited category was “unsupported / unaccepted” which was defined as feeling judged, unloved or unaccepted — often as a result of divergent values (the number one reason categorized by estranged adult children was “toxicity” defined as continuous situations of hurtfulness, anger, cruelty or disrespect from the parent). (1)
There is another subject that has a specific observance this month, but which has a tendency to come up perennially whenever the topic of estrangement arises, and that is forgiveness. (National Forgiveness Week is observed the third week of the month every June). Often we are compelled by others whether it be siblings, extended family, friends or our estranged family members themselves to “just forgive and move on.” So in the spirit of addressing these intertwining elements, this month’s educational series will be anchored in dispelling some of the myths around forgiveness.
The messages and cultural narratives around forgiveness often include any number of blanket assertions such as “Life is too short to hold grudges;” “Forgive not for their benefit, but for your own; “To err is human, to forgive, divine;” “Forgiveness allows healing to begin,” and one of the most harmful and patently false, “Forgiveness is a gift of high value. Yet its cost is nothing.”
"Social and Cultural Pressures to Forgive," Image Credit: Pixabay
Self-help articles devoted to the topic will assert that forgiveness has both physical and mental benefits for the one who grants it and thus withholding it is detrimental to one’s health. In all of these scenarios, the burden of emotional labor and expense is placed upon the person who was wronged to release their hurt, resentment and anger over both the transgression and transgressor. Usually, the pressures to do so come without any expectation of there being merit for forgiveness to be granted. It is portrayed as a point in time bestowal of grace over cumulative injuries where somehow that singular, intentional act of granting it miraculously dissolves the harm from those injuries. In this same spirit, it is often characterized as a selfish, dysfunctional trait if withheld.
There is research, however, that calls much of that perspective into question.
Rather than being a one-sided, one-time decision by the person who was wronged, true and lasting forgiveness is an ongoing practice of intentions between both parties and that is especially true — and especially misunderstood — within family relationships.
As one study found, “forgiveness is an ongoing process of communication negotiations between family members. The degree to which participants judged their forgiveness as successful depended on whether the hurtful situation or forgiveness itself was centered in the family relationship. Forgiveness is rarely a singular event; rather, it requires an active and ongoing decision to incorporate these sentiments into the relationship.”
The study goes on further to say, “Communication plays a central role in negotiating forgiveness. These negotiations take place within the context of a relationship but are also influenced by relational history and the anticipated relational future.”(2) In other words, whether forgiveness is effective and has a positive impact on the dynamic depends upon the history within the relationship around the harm(s) committed and what the expectations are that it will stop, change or continue. However, when people are estranged, there is no longer a relationship within which to negotiate or anticipate a relational future. There is no functional role for forgiveness in that context.
Often we are estranged because of the realization that the relational future does not have the potential to be any different than what has been the long term harm experienced within it to that point.
Another study found that, contrary to offering a panacea of health benefits, lopsided forgiveness can adversely impact the person extending it. Referred to as the “doormat effect,” the study found that when one party in a relationship consistently extends forgiveness to another who has not accepted responsibility or made amends, the forgiving party suffers a steady slide of decreased self-respect and self-concept. (3) It can certainly be the case within the experience of estrangement between parents and family, that the decision to estrange comes precisely because the dynamics are unchangingly harmful (as was cited by the aforementioned study). The entreaties by others to forgive can be accompanied with the presumption of simply letting that go and that behavior be tolerated in effort to maintain familial connection. Instead, we get to the point where we need to estrange in order to extricate ourselves from the emotional and psychological harm of that ongoing dynamic that has caused us to be perpetually wounded and where by staying, we lose our sense of ourselves, who we are, and what we deserve in relationship with other people and especially our families.
Then there is the concept of toxic forgiveness which is where one extends forgiveness to another person without receiving closure and/or despite still feeling hurt. It is generally done as a response to social pressures to forgive, to appease others or to avoid shame, guilt or further conflict. However, nothing is resolved. Paying lip service to forgiving serves no productive purpose and can exacerbate the emotional damage to the person compelled to falsely supply it. It requires living under an imposed condition of restored relational equilibrium that does not reflect the inner reality of the wronged person who, in fact, is still hurting. It compounds the harm rather than releasing it because now that situation is considered resolved and can no longer be addressed within the relationship, but yet is still very much active — and possibly now intensified — for the person who felt coerced into prematurely or undeservedly granting absolution.
Contrary to popular belief, the truth is that healing does not require forgiveness beyond what we extend to ourselves.
Throughout June, the educational series will further delve into the research on forgiveness and offer alternate avenues of healing. There are already many burdens the estranger carries as part of their long healing journey — a one-sided and unmerited extension of forgiveness to those family members who generated the need to leave cherished relationships need not to be among them. This month will explore how to lay that burden down.
[Please note: The educational columnist is not a licensed mental health professional. The articles under this series are written from a peer to peer perspective.]
Sources:
Carr, Kristen, et al. "Giving Voice to the Silence of Family Estrangement: Comparing Reasons of Estranged Parents and Adult Children in a Non-matched Sample" (2015). Journal of Family Communication 15(2):130-140, April 2015. 15(2):130-140, DOI:10.1080/15267431.2015.1013106
Carr, Kristen & Wong, Tiffany. “Forgiveness isn’t a simple process: It’s a vast undertaking. Negotiating and communicating forgiveness is nonvoluntary family relationships.” Journal of Family Communication. DOI: 10.1080/15267431.629970
Luchies, Laura B. “The doormat effect on the dangers of resolving conflict via unilateral forgiveness.” The Psychology of Social Conflict and Aggression (pp.217-230). Psychology Press. DOI:10.4324/9780203803813