How Can I Forgive You? Part 8

"Grace," writes Philip Yancey, "is a gift from G.o.d to people who don't deserve it."7 In his thoughtful book What's So Amazing About What's So Amazing About Grace? Grace? Yancey describes "Babette's Feast" as a parable of grace-"a gift that costs everything for the giver and nothing for the recipient."8 He writes, "Grace came to them in the form of a feast . . . lavished on those who had in no way earned it . . . free of charge, no strings attached, on the house."9 Yancey describes "Babette's Feast" as a parable of grace-"a gift that costs everything for the giver and nothing for the recipient."8 He writes, "Grace came to them in the form of a feast . . . lavished on those who had in no way earned it . . . free of charge, no strings attached, on the house."9 From these and similar writings, you, the offender, could easily believe that forgiveness is your due; that when the person you hurt forgives you, you owe her nothing in return.

It's not my place to defend or question biblical concepts of forgiveness or grace. I would only point out what many theologians have reminded us over the centuries- that grace is not a license for that grace is not a license for wrongdoing and does not absolve us of our need to seek forgiveness; that wrongdoing and does not absolve us of our need to seek forgiveness; that whatever mercy G.o.d grants us, we are still expected to acknowledge our whatever mercy G.o.d grants us, we are still expected to acknowledge our transgressions and earn salvation; and that when G.o.d forgives us, he is transgressions and earn salvation; and that when G.o.d forgives us, he is not handing us a free ride to heaven. not handing us a free ride to heaven.

When spiritual leaders talk of divine forgiveness, they usually don't mean to imply that G.o.d is offering us a gift for which He expects nothing in return, but, rather, that no matter how badly we conduct ourselves, G.o.d accepts us into a community of sinners in which we are free to atone for our wrongs.

I can relate to you only what I have observed from my patients as they struggle to heal and forgive: * If you a.s.sume that you categorically deserve to be forgiven- that you possess this right simply because you are human- you make it less likely that the hurt party will forgive you.

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* If you don't try to earn forgiveness, the person you hurt can offer you only a cheap subst.i.tute.

* If you want compa.s.sion, benevolence, love, and forgiveness, you need to act in ways that elicit these feelings in the person you violated.

* What in human terms may be as amazing as grace is your ability to take yourself to task, perform extraordinary acts of penitence, and work to earn forgiveness for your wrongs.

If you look to the New Testament for guidance, there are additional pa.s.sages you should read. Jesus, for example, tells his followers that their sacrifices to G.o.d will mean little if they don't make amends directly to the person they've harmed. Matthew says: "So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift."10 The Jewish prayer book says, "Atonement is no mere act of grace, or miracle of salvation, which befalls the chosen; it demands the free ethical choice and deed of the human being. Man is not granted something unconditionally; he has rather to decide for something unconditionally. In his deed is the beginning of his atonement."11 Mistaken a.s.sumption: If I admit I was wrong and work to earn your forgiveness, I will seem weak and vulnerable in your eyes and mine. forgiveness, I will seem weak and vulnerable in your eyes and mine.

This a.s.sumption is erroneous because you're more likely to come across as strong, not weak, when you admit wrongdoing, and less likely to project strength when you insist that you're always right.

You don't relinquish power when you work to earn forgiveness; you give the hurt person back the power you took from her. You restore the balance between you.

Be careful not to confuse humbling acts of apology with weakness and vulnerability. It takes character to embrace the truth. It takes resolve to trade in your pride for something you value more- your integrity, her forgiveness.

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If you're courageous enough to say, "I'm sorry," and then work to prove it, you shouldn't a.s.sume that the person you hurt will try to shame you and gloat over her victory. It's more likely that your confession will win her respect, diminish her need to punish you, and increase her willingness to accept a fair share of blame for what went wrong.

There are times, of course, when your work to gain forgiveness will get you nowhere. The person you hurt may want you on your knees, begging for mercy, and then walk away, unmoved. Her only goal may be to punish and humiliate you. If she has a vindictive personality, she won't be interested in forgiving you; she'll only want to get even. Another person may refuse to forgive you because to her what you did was too reprehensible, and your efforts to heal her fail to go far or deep enough. If you have a solid sense of self, however, you can choose to do what you believe is right and work to make good, whether your efforts are rewarded or not.

If acts of contrition make you feel weak and defenseless, it may be because of the personal meaning you attach to apologies, not because the hurt party will use your remorse against you. Your fear of being hurt may say more about your formative life experiences than about anything that's happening today. If whenever you apologize you expect to be trampled on, it may be wise to look into your past for the reasons why.

A patient named Donna learned from her toxic parents the danger of accepting blame. As a child, whenever she did something wrong, intentionally or not, her father cursed her and went in for the kill. As an adult, she deflected criticism from herself and refused to admit complicity or imperfection. Her lifelong pattern was to a.s.sociate apologies with subjugation to a tyrant. Nothing could make her seek forgiveness. Cla.s.smates wrote her off as smug and arrogant, when in fact the opposite was true. She couldn't admit mistakes not because she believed she was always right but because she was so terrified of admitting she was wrong.

If you are like Donna, your early experiences are likely to make it hard for you to do the remedial work required to earn forgiveness.

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For you, a relations.h.i.+p will not be a place where your wrongs are forgiven, but more like a chess game in which you vie for power and make strategic moves. For you, to say "I'm sorry" is to say "I lose."

A patient named Maxine couldn't apologize for her affair because she believed her husband would abandon her, as everyone else important in her life had. "When I was ten my parents got divorced," she told me. "My mother s.h.i.+pped us off to my father's house without telling us there was no coming back. Then my father got remarried and told me, 'The house is too small. You've got to go live with your older sister.'"

Maxine grew up thinking there was something unlovable about her-why else would both her parents reject her? When she married Andy, she expected that some day he would leave her, too. After she admitted a month-long affair with his best friend, she refused to apologize or empathize with his pain. Puzzled by her response, she entered therapy and came to understand that holding out was her way of holding on-to Andy, to power, to control. "If I show him how sorry I am for hurting him, he'll realize how defective I am and divorce me," she reasoned. "If I don't show him, he may still leave me, but at least the decision will be in my hands, not his." Her twisted logic closed the door on forgiveness.

Mistaken a.s.sumption: I'm not worthy of your forgiveness.

To ask for forgiveness, you must believe you're worth being forgiven. If you a.s.sume that you have nothing redeeming to offer, or that you're too evil or empty to make good, you'll have no reason to try.

This was true of Murray, a forty-year-old pathologist, who came to see me after a devastating affair. He was determined to carve out a new life for himself with his third wife, Jill, but he felt so inadequate, so unworthy of her respect, that he made it impossible for her to forgive him. On their anniversary, he tried to buy her a card, but none captured how truly sad and sorry he felt. "I spent an hour looking around, reading the messages, feeling more and more disgusted with myself," he told me. "I finally chose one that made a joke -'If you're unhappy with me, don't worry . . . You can leave!' It was stupid of me, 132 but nothing quite said what I wanted. When Jill read it, she tossed it in the garbage. 'I would have preferred nothing,' she told me." Talking out what happened revealed the truth to them: it was not a lack of love that had made him buy a sarcastic card but his oppressive sense of worthlessness, his belief that he had no claim to her forgiveness. It was not that he didn't want to heal her wound but that he felt too wounded to heal her.

Learning this about Murray gave Jill a reason to stay with him.

It also taught him a valuable lesson: that sharing your feelings about yourself, no matter how sordid, may be the most intimate gift you have to offer.

Mistaken a.s.sumption: Nothing can undo the wrong I've done.

Here you fail to do the work to earn forgiveness because you believe that no words or gestures, not yours or anyone else's, can undo the damage. No act of penance matters, you insist, because your offense was too heinous for anyone to forgive.

If you feel this way, I would simply say: don't a.s.sume your efforts won't make a difference. There's no way to know unless you try.

Even if the person you hurt refuses to reconcile, you may help repair her wounded sense of self and reduce her hostility toward you. Your attempts at apology may not be equal to the crime, but your effort alone is likely to undo some of the damage.

Mistaken a.s.sumption: When I seek your forgiveness, I admit I'm a bad person. bad person.

You may think that if you hate what you did, you must hate who you are. This is a crippling a.s.sumption. The challenge is to be appropriately critical of your behavior behavior without turning against without turning against yourself yourself. Condemn the whole "you" rather than one particular action, and you'll have no incentive to change or learn from your misconduct.

When Adam confessed his affair to his wife, Lydia, he swore he wanted to repair the marriage. But then he treated her more dis-dainfully than before. "Maybe I don't love her enough and can't be there for her in the way she needs me," he told me.

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I interpreted his behavior differently. What I saw was a man who hated himself for what he had done and was afraid to admit it.

The truth was too repugnant to him. His father had been a woman-izer, destroying Adam's mother, his family, the family business. "I remember lying in bed, crying and praying, and begging him not to go off on another 'business trip,'" Adam told me.

For Adam to acknowledge that he had behaved just as despicably as his father-that by cheating on Lydia, he was no better than the man he had demonized all his life-would have stripped him bare, forcing him to turn the antipathy he felt toward his father onto himself. Unable to deal with this humiliation, he projected his self-contempt outward at his wife.

If you, like Adam, must deny your guilt to s.h.i.+eld yourself from shame, you won't be able to do the work of earning forgiveness. It may help if you distinguish between guilt and shame. Guilt is a response to a specific behavior-one you wish to correct. Shame is a negative response to yourself as a person. You feel guilt for doing doing bad; you feel shame for bad; you feel shame for being being bad. Psychologist June Price Tangney, a leading researcher in shame and guilt, has found that offenders who are more p.r.o.ne to guilt than shame tend to be more empathetic, more capable of reaching out to the person they harmed, more able to criticize themselves without crucifying themselves. Offenders who are more p.r.o.ne to shame than guilt are more likely to justify or deny their wrongful behavior and insist that they've done nothing that needs to be forgiven.12 As psychologists Exline and Baumeister point out, "Feelings of shame are more likely to prompt self-protective responses designed to hide the offense, to deflect responsibility, or to make the perpetrator appear innocent, competent, or powerful."13 bad. Psychologist June Price Tangney, a leading researcher in shame and guilt, has found that offenders who are more p.r.o.ne to guilt than shame tend to be more empathetic, more capable of reaching out to the person they harmed, more able to criticize themselves without crucifying themselves. Offenders who are more p.r.o.ne to shame than guilt are more likely to justify or deny their wrongful behavior and insist that they've done nothing that needs to be forgiven.12 As psychologists Exline and Baumeister point out, "Feelings of shame are more likely to prompt self-protective responses designed to hide the offense, to deflect responsibility, or to make the perpetrator appear innocent, competent, or powerful."13 If you can be appropriately critical of what you did (and allow yourself to feel guilt) without hating who you are (and feeling shame), you're more likely to own up to your behavior and make amends.

Mistaken a.s.sumption: You'll never forgive me, so why should I try?

If this is your position, I ask you to ask yourself, "Do I really believe it? Or am I using it to justify my self-doubt and my reluc-134 tance to do the hard work of earning forgiveness? Am I speaking the truth or expressing my sense of hopelessness-or helplessness?"

Your belief that nothing you do will win her forgiveness can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, saying less about her capacity to grant forgiveness than about your willingness to earn it.

Mistaken a.s.sumption: You should know I'm sorry.

Your a.s.sumption that she should be able to read your heart and mind may be no more than an excuse to avoid apologizing. If you checked it out with the hurt party, she might say, "If I I should know you're sorry, should know you're sorry, you you should know I need you to say and feel the words." should know I need you to say and feel the words."

My experience tells me that if you don't express your remorse, all you can expect for your cheap silence is her cheap forgiveness-or her wrath.

Mistaken a.s.sumption: If I work to earn forgiveness, I'm saying that I'm the only one who did wrong. I'm the only one who did wrong.

Acknowledging your complicity is not the same as declaring that the hurt person is innocent. The forgiveness you seek is only for the damage you caused. At some point you'll want her to accept an appropriate share of blame; but to move the forgiveness process forward, you should acknowledge your own wrongdoing and let your remorse, not your pride, lead the way.

You may want her to admit blame first, believing that she'll then be more humble and forgiving. And you may be right. The problem is that the more you try to deflect attention from yourself, the more defensive and critical she's likely to become. I therefore recommend that you begin by focusing on your own contribution to the injury, apologizing fully and generously, with no ifs and buts. This is likely to create a climate in which she comes forward freely and apologizes on her own. If she fails to do this, you could discuss it with her-but at another time. Insisting on her apology as a precondition for yours will get you nowhere. Your accusations will be all she hears. It may help to heed the advice of Matthew (7:5): "You hypocrite, first take Genuine Forgiveness 135.

the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye."

Mistaken a.s.sumption: It makes no sense to try to earn your forgiveness if I don't intend to have an ongoing relations.h.i.+p with you. if I don't intend to have an ongoing relations.h.i.+p with you.

Most of you won't bother to seek forgiveness from someone you don't plan to see again. But there may be benefit in trying.

A friend named Erin drove home this truth to me. "I rushed over to Eileen Fisher, bought a dress, ran home, tried it on, and then brought it back-all during my lunch break," she told me. "A salesgirl tried to credit my card, but she couldn't get the machine to work. I was late, and exploded. 'If you weren't trained to do this job,'

I hissed at her, 'stay away from the front desk.' She took my cue and retreated into the back room. I felt terrible, so the next day I went back and apologized. 'I was in a rush to get back to work,' I told her.

'I'm sorry for being so obnoxious. I know those machines can be temperamental, too.'

"I'll probably never see that salesgirl again," Erin realized, "but what I did left me-and probably her-feeling better. It was totally gratuitous, but I ended up taking some of the meanness out of me, and putting back something kinder. I apologized as much for myself as I did for her."

What we all might take away from this incident is that forgiveness and reconciliation are two separate processes, both for the person you hurt and for you. Like Erin, you don't have to have a continuing relations.h.i.+p with someone to seek her forgiveness and come out ahead.

Critical Task #2: Bear witness to the pain you caused.

To earn Genuine Forgiveness, you need to encourage the person you hurt to open up to you, and listen to her with a caring heart. She can't heal until she releases her pain, and you can't earn forgiveness until you're willing to know what's packed away inside her.

Let's look at what each of these initiatives asks of you.

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Encourage the Person You Hurt to Share Her Pain.

To defend against feeling dependent and vulnerable, she may silence herself in a number of ways. She may forgive you too easily.

She may go numb. She may go along to get along, as though she has forgiven you, while inside she continues to storm. Or she may retreat into herself and shut you out.

If you're a conflict avoider, her silence will seem preferable to her rage. But don't be fooled. m.u.f.fled pain is just as problematic as uncontrollable fury, and perhaps even more dysfunctional. If you don't draw her out and encourage her to talk through her injury, she'll never get close to you or forgive you.

I can't stress this point enough: no conflict, no closeness no conflict, no closeness. If you want to rebuild the bond, you, the offender, must regularly invite and embolden her to reveal how deeply you have hurt her. This opening up to you is an act of intimacy, a first step in lowering the barrier between you. Detachment may be her protection. But what may be protective to her is likely to be a death knell for the relations.h.i.+p.

When Vicky learned of Sid's eight-month affair, the couple came into therapy looking like smiling plastic dolls: attractive, impeccably manicured, oh-so-respectfully mannered toward each other. When I asked how things were going, they listed all the nice things that were happening-their child getting into Columbia's MBA program; their bid on a retirement home in Palm Beach that had been accepted. Sid told me in an individual session, "Things are going just fine." Vicky, however, had a different story. She talked about her alcohol abuse, her deep clinical depression, her bitterness over his betrayal. What looked like an absence of conflict was simply a cover-up. Vicky was crackling with resentment. Sid was determined to look the other way.

The couple had spent a lifetime avoiding painful issues. But as the therapy progressed, and Vicky revealed how shaken she was by his affair, and he acknowledged how unsettled he felt about his retirement and a recent bout of prostate cancer, he began to fight for the survival of the marriage.

The challenge for both of them was enormous. "Do you know Genuine Forgiveness 137.

how badly Vicky's hurting?" I asked Sid. "You need to prove to her that her misery matters to you. If you want her to heal, you need to emotionally reengage with her and help soak up the anxiety and bitterness inside her."

Sid understood and responded-first by asking Vicky to join him in weekly therapy sessions so that they could learn how to talk out their pain together, and then by following up at home, setting aside time when he encouraged her to open up to him. He began by prodding her with simple, gentle words like, "How are you? Please don't shut me out. I'm serious about reconnecting with you, and that won't happen if you keep your feelings from me. What do you need me to understand? Tell me more. Is there more?"

Gradually, Vicky began to warm up, trust his words, and talk through some of the insufferable moments in their marriage-such as the time she had had a miscarriage and Sid had arranged for a neighbor to drive her to the hospital so that he could go to work. Sid learned to stay present and steady, and to support her efforts to release the sadness in her heart.

When you, like Sid, invite the person you hurt to share her pain and make herself vulnerable in your presence, you build a bridge to her and help heal her brokenness.

Initiate Discussion About the Injury.

Each time you bring up the violation, you let the hurt party know that it's on your mind, too-that she's not alone with it.

When you demonstrate that you won't forget what you did and will continue to be mindful of its lessons, you help release her from her preoccupation with the injury. I often say, If you want your partner to If you want your partner to move on, you must pay attention to her pain. If you don't, she will. move on, you must pay attention to her pain. If you don't, she will.

A patient named Jim took the first step when, as Mother's Day approached, he told his wife, Donna, "It was last year at this time that you found out about my affair. I'm sure it's on your mind. It's on mine, too. I've been thinking about how we might spend the day differently this year, to create a new memory, a more positive a.s.soci-ation. Here are some thoughts I had . . ."

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On a personal note, I remember having lunch with my frail, elderly father almost one year after my mother died. Though I wasn't the cause of his distress, I wanted to be a source of comfort. As we sat in a diner sharing a tuna fish sandwich, I wondered to myself, "Does he know we're approaching the anniversary of her death? Should I bring it up? Will I make him feel sad if I mention it?" Finally, I found myself stumbling over the words, "Dad, it's been about a year since Mom died." This man who often seems so cognitively fuzzy, so lost, looked right at me and said, "I know. This Sunday, October twenty-first."

I had a.s.sumed that if he had wanted to talk about this, he would have brought it up himself. Or that if I brought it up, I would upset him. Or that if I didn't bring it up, he wouldn't remember. But this trauma-the untimely pa.s.sing of my mother, his bride of fifty-three years-was all that he wanted to talk about. It was just a question of whether he was going to be alone with his pain or I would share it with him.

Listen to the Hurt Person's Pain with an Open Heart.

You may want to run from the anguish you inflicted on another human being. What good can come from allowing her to pour out her grief, you may wonder, except to punish you and make you feel small? But your listening helps her open up to you and let you back into her life. You can't skip this step. And she can't come forward, trust you, or forgive you until you convince her that you understand and care about the damage you did.

How can a person forgive you if you're indifferent to her suffering? She can't, not authentically-not until you reach out and hold her hold her pain pain. By "hold her pain" I mean that you put aside your own feelings, your own needs, your own agenda; I mean that you dismantle your defenses and justifications, even your version of the violation, and experience her pain as she experiences it, as though it were your own.

You shouldn't try to cheer her up-she's likely to see this as a manipulation to discount or dispel her suffering for your own advantage. Better just listen and allow yourself to be affected by her Genuine Forgiveness 139.

story. Try to taste her fear, her sadness, her indignity, even if you've never been hurt in the same way-even if you believe your offense isn't as serious as she makes it out to be.14 Allow yourself to enter her world and resonate with her grief.

A patient named Howard learned to do this, but it didn't come easily or without discomfort. When he left home after a string of affairs, his fourteen-year-old daughter, Alice, tried to cut him out of her life. Occasionally he would stop by and offer to take her to soc-cer practice or dinner, but she remained sealed off. One day, after listening to her mother screaming at him on the phone, Alice poured out her pain in an E-mail and sent it to him: Today you made me realize what a bad and horrible person you have been. The only feeling i have right now toward you is HATE, and i feel it wholeheartedly. Time and time again, ive had conversations with you about how you hurt mommy and how you promised to try and act with dignity and respect. But right now, mommy is crying in the kitchen because you treat her like she is nothing but the dirt on the ground. YOU are the one who is cheating on mommy, don't deny it, so why should mommy try to be nice to you?

The other day, at the tennis courts, Roger [Alice's older brother] called you "Howard" and we all laughed about it.

You want to know why? He doesn't even want to be related to you anymore. He doesn't want to call YOU father. YOU don't deserve it and never will. I hate you i hate you i hate you. I tried to keep that hate away, but now i realize that's all i can ever feel toward you. Roger can never forgive you, yet i have never heard you tell him once you were sorry. Are you that much of a coward? What are you good for then-lying and cheating behind people's backs? Dad . . . i know that you are probably really angry and upset because of what im saying, but i cant deny it anymore and i have to get my feelings across to you. Just imagine, in 30 years, when you are left alone in the world . . . who is going to be there for you???

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Mebbe one day you'll finally realize everything good youve ever lost. and me and Roger? we'll forget about you and move on.

Alice Howard came into therapy with a copy of his daughter's E-mail.

"I don't know how to react," he told me. "Part of me feels shaken- I've hurt my family terribly. But part of me thinks I should punish her for speaking to me with such disrespect. I never spoke to my father this way, though he did worse things than I've ever done.

What do you think?"

My response was, "Your daughter must love you very much. It's probably a lot easier for her to be distant than to share her anguish with you. She's trusting you with her pain. This is a very precious gift. I recommend that you accept it, rise above the harsh language and insults, and try to appreciate the devastation and despair she's feeling. She may be giving you a chance to earn back her trust and love, even her forgiveness."

Howard began to cry. As the weeks pa.s.sed, he made genuine efforts to reach out to Alice. He sent her an E-mail thanking her for speaking so honestly and arranged to meet with her so he could hear her out. None of this could have happened if Alice hadn't opened up to him and taken the risk of exposing her fury. None of it could have happened if Howard had been unable to bear witness to her pain and absorb what she had to say without defending himself or detaching from her.

A lesson in listening If you, like Howard, don't know how to listen with an open heart and mind, there are many communication training books that can guide you. Among them are Healing Conversations: What to Say When Healing Conversations: What to Say When You Don't Know What to Say You Don't Know What to Say by Nance Guilmartin; by Nance Guilmartin; Why Marriages Why Marriages Succeed or Fail Succeed or Fail by John Gottman; and by John Gottman; and The Zen of Listening: Mindful The Zen of Listening: Mindful Communication in the Age of Distraction Communication in the Age of Distraction by Rebecca Shafir. These books stress the importance of nonverbal communication, such as: by Rebecca Shafir. These books stress the importance of nonverbal communication, such as: Genuine Forgiveness 141.

* listening with both your eyes and ears; * being respectful of pauses and silences in your conversation and not jumping in to rush away the pain; * monitoring your tone of voice to convey the sincerity of your concern; and * using body language (for example, leaning toward the hurt party) to foster connection.

Don't underestimate the power of nonverbal communication.

According to one study, your gestures and facial expressions convey 55 percent of the meaning of a message; tone of voice, speech rate, rhythm, and emphasis convey 38 percent; and what we actually say conveys only 7 percent. In other words, "nonverbal cues communicate the bulk of the message."15 Listening to both soft and hard emotions If the person you hurt expresses her pain with "soft" emotions such as sadness, shame, or grief, I suggest that you try to mirror (reflect back) what she needs you to understand. You might say, for example, "What you need me to take in is that when I was unfaithful to you, I destroyed your belief in the goodness of people and robbed you of the way you knew yourself. You used to think of yourself as capable, attractive, funny, full of life. Now, no matter what you do, you can't recapture your familiar self, and you're angry about that." If the person you hurt expresses her pain with "soft" emotions such as sadness, shame, or grief, I suggest that you try to mirror (reflect back) what she needs you to understand. You might say, for example, "What you need me to take in is that when I was unfaithful to you, I destroyed your belief in the goodness of people and robbed you of the way you knew yourself. You used to think of yourself as capable, attractive, funny, full of life. Now, no matter what you do, you can't recapture your familiar self, and you're angry about that."

If she expresses her pain with "hard emotions"-bitterness or rage-it may help to see past her tough exterior and connect with the scared, bruised person crouching inside. Though you may experience her as trying to push you away, she may want nothing more than for you to come closer. If she's relentless in her fury and you find your patience wearing thin, I recommend that you gently try to redirect the conversation away from the details of her argument to what is happening between you on an emotional level. For example, if she is screaming at you and all you want to do is explode or run away, you might pull yourself together and say, "I want to know your 142 pain, but I need you to talk to me in a way that helps me hear it. I'm not asking you to sugarcoat what you feel, but don't shut me out, either. I'm here. I'm listening."

Listening nondefensively doesn't necessarily mean that you agree with her version of what happened. It shows only that you care deeply about the pain you caused and want to be an integral part of her recovery.