How Can I Forgive You? Part 13

Henry, a successful, fifty-year-old architect, decided that for religious and family reasons, he would give up his lover and work on his marriage. He consulted a therapist who told him, "If you're going back to your wife, you must be scrupulously honest and tell her everything."

Henry went home and told Mich.e.l.le that he had been involved 192 with a business a.s.sociate for two years but had decided to end the relations.h.i.+p because this was the right thing to do. "I'm very angry that I have to give up this woman-she's my best friend-and I'm not s.e.xually attracted to you anymore," he told his wife. "But I'm willing to see what we can work out together."

Mich.e.l.le looked at him as if to say, "Are you out of your mind?"

But because she wanted to hold the family together, had spent thirty-two years sharing critical life experiences with him, and understood that she had helped to create the void between them, she made a conscious decision to join him in couple therapy and try to rebuild the marriage.

For two years, with Mich.e.l.le's encouragement, Henry worked hard to reconnect with her. But during all those months his terrible words-"This woman is my best friend; I'm not s.e.xually attracted to you"-rang in her ears.

One day he told her, "Let me start again. I want to apologize for what I said when I recommitted to you. I was vicious. Frankly, I wanted to hurt you. I blamed you for my unhappiness and couldn't face my own guilt for destroying our family. But I know something today I didn't know then-and that is, I do love you. I know absolutely that this is where I want to be, and I'm grateful to you for letting me back into your life."

Mich.e.l.le turned to him and said, "I'm sorry, that's not good enough. What you said to me two years ago is unforgivable."

My response to Mich.e.l.le was this: "Henry's harsh words must have sickened you. But they may have been the best he was capable of at the time, given his ambivalence about coming back. Most people have an idealistic view of reconciliation. They imagine their partner flying back to them on the wings of love. But often, particularly after a devastating offense like an affair, love comes only at the end of a long, difficult journey. The work begins when the offender gives up the lover and renews his commitment to you, his life partner. Then you open the door to the possibility of forgiving him and allow him to make meaningful repairs. Treating each other with tenderness and respect, together you foster intimacy and trust. Finally, Genuine Forgiveness 193.

perhaps, feelings of love reemerge. People don't want to hear this.

It's counterintuitive and unromantic. It requires you to act loving before you feel loving. Realistically, though, love usually comes last, not first, and only after hard work."

"Pop culture gives us a cheap brand of love," I added -"the quick pitter patter of the heart, the flood of emotion that washes over us and seems so effortless. Mature love, in contrast, requires fearless per-severance. It asks Henry to admit his culpability and atone for failing someone he cares so deeply about. And it asks you, Mich.e.l.le, to manage your disillusionment and not let it negate Henry's very real efforts to earn forgiveness and make a life with you."

Step 7: The offender helps you forgive yourself for your own failings.

You don't need his input to forgive yourself, but it can smooth the way.

My friend Donna told me about an incident going back to her dating years. "I met a guy I thought I was crazy about and invited him to an art exhibit at a downtown gallery," she reminisced. "He said he'd check his schedule and get right back to me, but I didn't hear from him until the day before the show. His message was suc-cinct. 'Sorry, Donna, I can't make it.' I never heard from him again.

It wasn't the worst thing that's ever happened to me, but it came at a very vulnerable time in my life and it reinforced my already insecure feelings about myself and my hopelessness about ever finding a loving partner. Twenty years later-guess what?-I ran into him in a bookstore. We exchanged the usual pleasantries. Then he said, 'I want to apologize for acting like an idiot back then. I had picked up the idea that if I treated a woman well, she'd treat me like s.h.i.+t; and that if I treated her like s.h.i.+t, she'd treat me well. I had a lot to learn.

You were smart to dump me.'

"The truth is, though, I hadn't dumped him. He had dumped me.

But by that time in my life, I didn't need his confession to boost my self-esteem. I was happily married and feeling OK about myself. I had moved on. When he apologized, I quickly forgave him. But I realized suddenly that he wasn't the only person who needed forgiving. I had 194 become my own worst enemy when I let his rejection destroy my self-confidence and darken my life. So I took his cue, apologized to myself, and accepted my own forgiveness."

Many of my patients have told me stories of how someone who hurt them helped heal them. Stuart and Jane are typical. Though they were still in college, he insisted on getting married when he got her pregnant-"It's the right thing to do," he told her. But he felt trapped and resentful from the minute they exchanged vows.

Jane experienced his silent rage, his continuous infidelities, as confirmation of what she had learned about herself from her remote, hypercritical parents-that she was not attractive or good enough for anyone to love her. Three years and two children later, she and Stuart got divorced.

By the time their eldest daughter, Nancy, became engaged, Stuart had developed a more honest view of his role in the relations.h.i.+p.

Realizing that he and Jane would be interacting at the wedding, he hoped it wasn't too late, even now, to apologize.

He sent her this letter: Dear Jane, Now that Nancy is about to get married, I'd like to share some thoughts I've had about our marriage and our life together. I want to apologize for making you feel you were the reason I wasn't happy or faithful. No one could have satisfied me. You had the bad luck to be married to someone who didn't have a clue who he was or what it meant to be in a relations.h.i.+p. Blaming you gave me the excuse I needed to run around and not be there for anyone but myself. I'm very sorry. You got a bad deal. None of it was your fault. The problem was me. As for the kids, I want you to know you've always been a great mother.

Stuart P.S. I look forward to seeing you at the wedding. Will you save me a dance?

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Jane was grateful for his letter. She wrote back: Dear Stuart, For years I a.s.sumed you left because of me. I blamed myself. Your thoughtful words helped me forgive you, but more important, they helped me forgive me. I, too, look forward to celebrating our daughter's wedding together. Thank you.

Jane The fact that Stuart had treated Jane in a conciliatory, considerate way over the years certainly made it easier for her to accept him.

But when he took owners.h.i.+p of the harm he had done, he released her from her excessive self-blame, her unbearable self-doubts-and helped her forgive herself, and him.

Critical Task #3: Create opportunities for the offender to make good and help you heal. make good and help you heal.

To cut a path to Genuine Forgiveness, you need to create opportunities for the offender to hear your pain, care about your feelings, and compensate for the harm he did. If you treat him as evil incar-nate and blast him with your silence or rage, you can be sure that nothing corrective will take place.

There can be no Genuine Forgiveness either if, for the sake of an easy peace, you dismiss or deny your injury and treat him as though he had never hurt you. Ask nothing of him, or of yourself, and why should he feel any compulsion to make amends? He may not even know he hurt you. When nothing is faced or resolved, the best you can offer him is a cheap subst.i.tute for forgiveness.

Genuine Forgiveness requires reciprocity. You must decide whether to open the door and let him in; he must decide whether to cross the threshold and reach out to you. Either of you can take the first step. He can come forward and ask to be forgiven, or you can let him know what you need from him in order to heal. In an ideal world you'd probably want him to take the first step, but in an ideal world he wouldn't have hurt you.

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If he says "no" to the work of forgiveness, you don't have to forgive him-you can accept him instead. But if he wants to make amends, why stand in his way? Why not let him help you heal your past, even if you don't want him in your future? Why deny yourself the health, the possibilities, that may spring from his desire to make good? You can choose to move forward slowly, but why block progress altogether?

In her work with couples who have suffered "attachment wounds," Susan Johnson tries to help both partners become more responsive to each other and "foster positive cycles of comfort and care."48 This delicate give-and-take is exactly what happens with Genuine Forgiveness. While the offender works hard to bind your wounds, you allow him to comfort and care for you. Each of you helps the other to put his best self forward-the self most likely to elicit a healing response.

How exactly can you encourage the offender to reach out and earn your forgiveness? Here are several ways: Open Yourself Up and Share Your Pain with Him.

You shouldn't a.s.sume that he knows you're hurting, or that if he did know, he wouldn't care. Tell him, and give him a chance to make amends. When you spill out your angst directly to him, and he listens attentively and caringly, the two of you engage in an act of healing.

When twenty-year-old Lydia came to my office, she was developing anorexia and drinking heavily. Her father's affair had scarred her, but what cut her even more deeply was what she saw as his attachment to his girlfriend's daughter, Mary. "He never loved me as much as he loves her," Lydia told me.

I listened with fascination because Lydia's story had nothing to do with her father's version of reality. I had seen him in therapy over the past five months while he struggled to extricate himself from his affair, and not once did he express any affection for Mary-he never even mentioned her.

I brought Lydia and her father together in my office and encouraged her to pour out her feelings-her sadness, her anxiety, Genuine Forgiveness 197.

her jealousy. Afraid of further alienating him, she was reluctant to speak her mind. She was also afraid to have her worst fear confirmed-that she really didn't matter to him. Eventually, though, she opened up. "When I had my wisdom teeth removed," she told him, "you never came to the hospital to visit me; you went to Mary's graduation instead. When I was home on vacation, you took her and her mother on a trip to Spain."

Her father listened closely. I had coached him to mirror what Lydia needed him to understand, so he pulled his chair close to hers, looked her in the eyes, and said, "I understand that you believe I had a closer relations.h.i.+p with someone else's daughter than I have with you-that I did things with her and for her that make you feel I don't love you as much, or that I don't love you at all. You feel replaced."

Lydia nodded.

"May I respond to that?"

Lydia nodded again.

"Lydia, you're my only daughter, and you're the one I love. As you know, I got involved with someone I shouldn't have and lost myself and hurt you and your mother terribly-I'm more sorry for this than I can ever say. But I didn't have a close relations.h.i.+p with her daughter. I spent time with her because I spent time with her mother. Mary never meant to me what you mean to me. She was part of the package I bought into. I can see why you'd think differently. I'm sorry for not being there for you when you were sick. I'm sorry for abandoning you and making you feel unwanted. I want us to get to know each other again."

Lydia hung on her father's words. It was he who invited her back into his life, but it was she who started the healing process by sharing her inner turmoil. Her silence would have incubated her pain and made forgiveness impossible.

Speak from the Soft Underbelly of Your Pain.

You may believe that unless you rage at the offender, he won't understand the severity of his violation. You may also think, as many 198 mental health professionals have, that you need to explode in order to discharge toxic emotions from your system. This "cathartic model" is false and destructive, however. We now understand that when we release rage-particularly when we do so repeatedly-we do not deplete our supply; we may, in fact, increase it. As we express rage, it continues to foment inside us.

How you convey your outrage or shame is likely to affect the way the offender responds to you. John Gottman, one of the nation's leading marital researchers, has observed in his "love lab" that the way a person sends a message shapes the way it comes back. "Discussions invariably end on the same note as they begin," he reports.49 He therefore recommends a "soft start-up," in which you hold back your harsh words of criticism or contempt and invite the offender in. If you share not the hate but the hurt-what I call the "soft underbelly of your pain"-you're likely to evoke a less defensive, more supportive response.

That's what my patient, Marcy, learned to do with her husband, Jeff. Often in the past, when she returned from a business trip, she would find that something had gone wrong at home that Jeff had failed to fix. Her standard response was to attack his competence. "I don't know how I get involved with such helpless men," she would blurt out. "You're just like my first husband. You use people. You want a free ride. You want me to do all the work and pay the bills, too."

It was only when Marcy stopped shredding his manhood and began sharing her more vulnerable inner core that he was able to address her pain and respond as a loving partner. She learned to convey to him, "I'm feeling overwhelmed and taken for granted.

When you wait for me to get home to fix the phone or garage door, I feel like a workhorse. My whole life I've taken care of people. I'm asking that when there's a problem, you try to solve it, whatever it is.

It doesn't matter if you succeed. It only matters that you try. Then I'll feel you're in this marriage with me. I need your help."

Marcy changed the tone of her message in two ways. First, she went from expressing hard emotions such as hatred, bitterness, and contempt to expressing softer emotions such as sadness, loneliness, Genuine Forgiveness 199.

insecurity, anxiety, and shame. Second, she went from talking to him in a finger-pointing, "you're no good" kind of way, to talking about herself-her hurt, her fatigue, her despair.

When you express only hard emotions in a raw, accusatory manner, you're likely to win a Pyrrhic victory, crus.h.i.+ng your opponent but losing the game. The person who hurt you may get your point but want no part of you. You may succeed in making him feel rotten about himself, but you won't get a shred of compa.s.sion in return. Buffeted by your intense hostility, he's likely to respond by emotionally distancing himself, counterattacking, or feeling just plain paralyzed-all death knells to forgiveness.

It's natural to feel angry and guarded toward someone who has injured you, but if you want him to redress your wound, I advise you: Don't make it easy for him not not to earn forgiveness. Don't give him an excuse to earn forgiveness. Don't give him an excuse not not to come forward. Don't reinforce his idea that nothing he does will make a dent in your feelings. As one apologetic offender told his wife, "If you act like a tiger, how can I embrace you?" to come forward. Don't reinforce his idea that nothing he does will make a dent in your feelings. As one apologetic offender told his wife, "If you act like a tiger, how can I embrace you?"

When you express soft emotions, you create a climate in which he's more likely to feel your pain and respond in a comforting, empathic manner. This doesn't mean that you should swallow or sugarcoat your anger. It means that you should try to go beyond anger, convey the depth of your hurt and fear, and speak from the heart.

Your goal should be to elicit not just his empathy but his compa.s.sion. How do they differ? When he empathizes with you, he stops judging your behavior from his own myopic point of view and tries to understand what happened through your eyes.50 Telling him your side of the story helps him do this. When he shows compa.s.sion, he feels sympathy and wants to reach out and alleviate your suffering. He's more likely to do this when you share not just the details of your story but also your pain.

Some of you may be incapable of such a nuanced response, at least initially. You may need first to pour out your grief. Emily, a very proper sixty-eight-year-old Episcopalian-a normally soft-spoken and emotionally reserved woman-is a case in point. One day she 200 found a box of papers in her bas.e.m.e.nt that turned out to be trust fund agreements for two children she knew nothing about. After some probing, she discovered that her husband had had an affair seventeen years before and had fathered two children whom he had been supporting ever since. The affair had ended more than a decade ago, but he continued to send the woman money for the children.

When the couple met in my office, Emily screamed obscenities at her husband until she became hoa.r.s.e. As they left, she paused, then turned back to me with tears in her eyes. "I'm so ashamed of myself," she said. "I used words today I didn't even know I knew. I'm so sorry."

I responded by trying to normalize her feelings and reduce her sense of shame so that she could begin a constructive dialogue with her spouse. He wanted desperately to win her forgiveness.

"Sometimes screaming out loud is the only available and authentic human response," I told her. "To be true to yourself, you may need to release the venom trapped inside you. Just keep in mind that while this is a normal, healthy response to a significant injury- the place where most of us begin-you can't stay locked in your rage forever if you hope someday to forgive or to heal. Over time, you'll have a better chance of being heard when you can convey the hurt underlying your hostility."

Help Him Locate Your Pain, and Tell Him Exactly What You Need in Order to Heal.

For the offender to earn your forgiveness, you may need to tell him precisely how you're hurting and what you need if you are to recover. When you help him locate your pain locate your pain and tell him how to treat it, you create an opportunity for him to apply a specific salve to a specific wound that is hurting and needs attention. and tell him how to treat it, you create an opportunity for him to apply a specific salve to a specific wound that is hurting and needs attention.

Here's an example. Nineteen years after an ugly, brutal, two-year-long divorce, complete with battles over finances and child custody, Ruth and Eliot spent a weekend together celebrating their son's college graduation. As they walked together across campus, Genuine Forgiveness 201.

Eliot apologized for making her life miserable. Ruth was deeply touched but felt he had failed to address the most devastating part of his betrayal. She considered letting the moment pa.s.s-she didn't want to spoil the occasion, and he had shown more regard for her feelings than ever before-but she knew that to fully forgive him, she needed him to address a pivotal issue.

Ruth collected her courage. "I appreciate your apology," she said.

"It means a great deal to me. But there's something you did that was much worse than cheating on me or divorcing me, and I'd like us to talk about that."

"Shoot," he said.

"It seems to me you deliberately tried to turn the kids against me. You wanted them to love you and hate me. You told them things about me that were vicious and untrue."

Eliot didn't hesitate. "You're absolutely right," he said. "I did do that. And I did it consciously and calculatingly. I want you to know I'm ashamed of my behavior. I hurt you and the boys selfishly, recklessly."

Ruth continued to locate her pain and encourage him to address it. "It would help me to know why you did what you did," she said.

Eliot paused before answering. "Truthfully, I never thought about it until just now," he said. "Apologizing and admitting I'm wrong, you know, aren't my strong suits. But I think I did it because I felt guilty, and hating you kept me from feeling bad about myself.

I know I felt insecure, and in some small-minded, immature way I believed that if the kids loved you, they'd turn against me. And I was terrified of losing their love. I want you to know," he added, "they never fell for my manipulation. They're too smart, they love you too much, and you're too good a mother."

Eliot then took another step to address the wound that had cut Ruth so deeply. He walked into the restaurant where the boys were waiting, and said, "I just apologized to your mother for treating her in ways she didn't deserve." And he repeated to them what he had told Ruth, and apologized again to her-and to them.

This story ill.u.s.trates the exquisitely collaborative process of 202 forgiveness-how you, the hurt party, can help the offender earn forgiveness and how he can help you grant forgiveness. Eliot was genuinely sorry for his behavior, and he apologized. But he couldn't read Ruth's mind or know what lay buried in her heart. Only she knew that there was unfinished business. Only she could bring it to his attention and ask him to attend to it. Only then could he produce the exact words and actions that would heal her.

In my work with infidelity, when a hurt partner tells her spouse what he needs to do to earn back trust, the spouse sometimes feels coerced, bristles, and says no. Other times, however, the spouse embraces the challenge. "I'd like to repair the damage I've done, but I honestly don't know what to do or where to begin," he says. "Tell me. I want to know. I want to follow through."

When you reveal what you need from the person who hurt you, you take a calculated risk. On one hand, you may learn that he doesn't give a d.a.m.n about you or what you want. On the other hand, you may give him a long-awaited opportunity to reach out to you.

That's what happened when my patient Cheryl confronted her mother.

Throughout Cheryl's childhood, her mother was addicted to pot and cocaine. "By the time you came around, I was heavily into drugs," her mother acknowledged. "You didn't get much nurturing from me."

Cheryl was grateful for this confession, but it wasn't enough. "It wasn't really much of an apology," she told me. "I still don't know how she feels about what she did. Does she have any remorse? If she does, I'd like to hear about it."

I encouraged Cheryl to go back and ask for more. She agreed.

"I've always wondered how you felt about your addiction, and if you're sorry for what you did to me," she told her mother. "I don't want you to lie or make something up, but if you feel bad, it would help to know."

"I feel worse than you can imagine," her mother replied. "I wasn't as good a mother as you deserved, as I hoped to be, and I feel terrible Genuine Forgiveness 203.

for all the anxiety I put you through-for forcing you to take care of me instead of being a carefree kid. I'm sorry for all the times you came home from school and instead of having me around to ask you about your day or help you with your homework, you found me zonked out in the bedroom with the shades down. I'm sorry for the time I took an overdose and you had to call the ambulance to rescue me. How scary that must have been. I could go on, and I will if you'd like."

It comforted Cheryl to hear this. It also taught her that when you tell someone what you need from him, you clear the way back to your heart. And so I advise you: Don't set up i nvisible hoops nvisible hoops for the offender to jump through. Be concrete. Tell him, "This is what will help me mend and let my anger go. This will allow me to get closer to you, perhaps forgive you." for the offender to jump through. Be concrete. Tell him, "This is what will help me mend and let my anger go. This will allow me to get closer to you, perhaps forgive you."

Specific behaviors you may want to request include: * "I need you to ask ask me to forgive you." me to forgive you."

* "I need you to go to your family and tell them that you lied about me."

* "I need you to let me talk out everything you've done to hurt me, and for you to listen without getting angry."

* "I need you to repeat what I've told you, so I feel that you 'get it.'"

When you tell him, "I need nothing from you," you cut yourself off from him and give him no chance to make meaningful repairs.

What you are saying, in effect, is, "I need nothing, because I'm committed to hating you and keeping you out in the cold." In contrast, when you map out what you need, you give him direction and create a path to forgiveness.

As Gaston Bachelard writes: What is the source of our first suffering?

It lies in the fact that we hesitated to speak.

It was born in the moment When we acc.u.mulated silent things within us.51 204.

Allow Him to Make Reparations.

When a person injures you, he's in your debt. To pay it off, he needs to make regular, reliable payments. When you refuse to let this happen, you put Genuine Forgiveness out of reach.

That's what a patient named Mark did. When his father died, Mark wanted to move in with his mother for a few days to keep her company, and to bring his older son with him. But his wife, Marge, who was eight months pregnant, said no, she couldn't manage alone with their two-year-old son, and she insisted that Mark stay home.