Forgiveness is a complex process of change, and although beneficial cannot be accomplished by simple means. It requires sustained effort and commitment.
Below we have compiled 24 tips, activities, and exercises that hopefully can be used to help find some effective ways to start the process of forgiveness today.
How to Be Forgiven: 7 Actions We Can Take
We all make mistakes, and we inevitably find ourselves in situations where we need to be forgiven. There are however effective ways how to ask for forgiveness and they often require that we humble ourselves and admit we were wrong.
One model for seeking forgiveness called CONFESSing and proposed by Worthington has 7 elements for how to communicate when one is wrong (2003).
We are told that making a good confession of one’s wrongdoing requires the following elements:
- C: Confession without an excuse: we must say that we did wrong and name the wrongdoing specifically.
- O: Offer a genuine apology. An apology involves taking responsibility and expressing remorse and contrition. Most importantly, we must get across the idea that we are truly remorseful and contrite, ashamed, guilty, and disappointed, even if we do not say explicitly the words “I’m sorry.” The key is to communicate the sadness and sorrow for having done the hurtful or offensive act.
- N: Note the pain of the other person. We need to express empathy for the person we’re asking forgiveness from and show that we understand their experience. It also helps to describe what we perceive them experiencing and suffering in a way that suggests that we understand their perspective and emotional experience and can even identify with them had we been in the same situation.
- F: Forever value the relationship. It is important to express how resolving the relationship problems is more valuable to us than winning or being right and are willing to offer to sacrifice whatever is necessary to resolve the difficulty.
- E: Equalize through restitution. However uncomfortable, we need to ask if there is anything that can be done to make up for the wrongdoing but must resist making suggestions of restitution as people understand love in different ways and value different things as an expression of it. Then be willing to do the restitution or negotiate something comparable.
- S: Say we will never do it again. We need to also express how we will never try to hurt him or her in the same way ever again.
- S: Seek forgiveness by explicitly asking for it as in: “Can you ever forgive me for hurting you?”
For a more in-depth discussion on effective confession see Worthington’s 2003 Forgiving and Reconciling: Bridges to Wholeness and Hope published by InterVarsity Press of Downers Grove, IL.
Another method for practicing asking for forgiveness involves reflecting on a time when we were forgiven. We can recall a time when we hurt someone else, either intentionally or accidentally. Then we can engage in a discussion on whether or not we feel forgiven for the offense.
If we feel we’ve been forgiven, there are benefits to reflecting on this further by asking questions like:
- How do we know we’ve been forgiven?
- Why do we think the person forgave us?
- Do we think the person we hurt felt better or worse after they forgave us?
- How did we feel after we were forgiven?
- What is our relationship like with the person now?
- Did this experience make us more or less likely to repeat the hurtful behavior?
- What did we learn from the whole ordeal?
- If we do not feel that we’ve been forgiven, it may be helpful to talk about how we might ask for forgiveness.
8 Tips and Techniques for When It Feels Too Hard to Forgive
Forgiveness is a complex process of change, and although beneficial it cannot be accomplished by simple means.
It requires sustained effort and commitment and is often more difficult than giving into unforgiveness.
Here are a few exercises that can help when it feels too hard to forgive.
1. Sympathy for the Transgressor
Sometimes it will simply be impossible to empathize with the transgressor, particularly in case of unexpected betrayals or heinous harms.
A realistic and legitimate goal in those cases will be simply the cultivation of sympathy. A therapist could invite the client to speculate about reasons for and ways in which she can feel sorry for the person who inflicted the harm.
A practitioner could also ask the client to think of what kind of help the offender might be given and if there are nice things that people could do to help this person.
Although not easy, this intervention intends to stimulate even the smallest amount of thoughts of compassion toward the transgressor (Worthington & Scherer, 2004).
2. Benefit Finding Method
McCullough suggests that writing about the benefits of interpersonal transgressions can be an effective form of intervention as it allows for cognitive processing that facilitates forgiveness.
Forgiveness is a process of change and McCullough suggests that what makes this type of journaling approach different from other approaches like empathy finding or relationship commitment, is the positive focus of the benefit finding method (McCullough, & Witvliet, 2002).
3. Self-soothing
To deal with a transgression, one tries to change what one can change after a transgression has occurred because we cannot undo the transgression. We can perceive the transgression as hurt or an offense and respond to it with anger or fear.
But, perhaps we can control some of the anger and fear. If we can self-soothe, we can lessen any subsequent unforgiveness. Self-soothing can also give us a sense of control and can help convince us that we are not all that unforgiving (Worthington & Scherer, 2004).
4. Lessen the Injustice Gap
To reduce the perceived injustice gap and unforgiveness people often attempt to cope through problem-solving or regulating emotions by self-soothing, avoiding thoughts, replacing of negative with positive emotions, and finding meaning.
We can change the magnitude of the injustice gap through two strategies. A victim can introduce more justice by changing how one perceives things as they currently are. Alternatively, a victim can lower expectations about the ideal outcome. Usually, one cannot fully exact justice.
Although people can mouth the words that a situation is merely challenging, the physiological threat appraisals are notoriously unresponsive to willful changes. A tip from solution-focused therapists suggests that we should find what might be working, even to a small degree, and try to magnify that positive perspective.
5. Short-Circuit Rumination
Rumination that triggers negative emotions activates neoassociationistic networks. If one spots rumination quickly, he or she can usually short-circuit the rumination before it gets revved up.
6. Emotional Replacement
Replacing negative unforgiving emotions gradually with positive other-oriented emotions is facilitated by experiencing other self-forgetful positive emotions.
The therapist facilitates emotional replacement by helping the client give an altruistically motivated gift of forgiveness.
The practitioner can use a memory described by the client to motivate altruism through:
- humility in realizing that the client to has offended,
- contrition over his or her wrongdoing,
- gratitude for having been forgiven, and
- hope from the expectation that we can all do something good for others, even those who have hurt us, and that blessing will come back to us.
Clients are directed to reflect on their past to recall times in which they offended another but were forgiven.
These times can be difficult to recall. The therapist can give prompts to think of whether the client offended a parent, teacher, romantic partner, friend, or coworker.
Usually, with these prompts, people can recall many experiences where they wronged someone and were forgiven (Worthington & Scherer, 2004).
7. Empty Chair Technique
One of the most effective ways to help a client experience empathy is to use the empty-chair technique. The client imagines sitting across from the offender, who is imagined to be sitting in an empty chair.
The client describes his or her complaint as if the offender were there. The client then moves to the empty chair and responds from the point of view of the offender.
The conversation proceeds with the client moving back and forth between chairs. The objective is to allow the person to express both sides of the conversation personally, and thus experience empathy.
In doing so, the person might imagine an apology or at least an acknowledgment of the hurt that was inflicted.
8. Naikan Therapy
Still relatively unknown in North America, Naikan therapy is a Japanese practice of self-reflection that involves, by Western standards, an arduous method of meditation.
The traditional and most rigorous form of Naikan involves a degree of sensory deprivation and isolation and is practiced in Naikan centers for one week.
Naikan retreats start by focusing on the three questions:
- What have you received?
- What have you returned?
- What trouble have you caused?
They first focus on the individual’s relationship with the mother and then expand outward to other relationships. During the sessions, a guide comes and listens to the participant from time to time allowing them to put into words what they have discovered.
It is important to stress the unique environment that Naikan centers create. Many participants report vivid and religious-like experiences that seem to be a direct result of the deprivation.
There are viable substitutes for the sensory deprivation of Naikan therapy and the intensity of the contemplative practice of Buddhist meditation.
For example, a simplified form of Naikan therapy could involve asking the intervention participants to journal daily for one week answering the three Naikan questions after a brief version of loving-kindness meditation. But these may not be as effective in cases where forgiveness seems out of reach (Ozawa-de Silva, 2006).
7 Activities and Exercises to Help Practice Forgiveness
The activities and exercises below can be used by anyone alone but can also be used as interventions with the help of a practitioner.
1. Perspective Taking
A key to helping someone forgive and develop empathy for the transgressor is to help them take the perspective of the other person. We can use five prompts and write the five Ps on a sheet of paper as a cue:
- Pressures: What were the situational pressures that made the person behave the way he or she did?
- Past: What were the background factors contributing to the person acting the way he or she did?
- Personality: What are the events in the person’s life that lead to the person having the personality that he or she does?
- Provocations: What were my provocative behaviors? Alternatively, might the other person, from his or her point of view, perceive something I did as a provocation?
- Plans: What were the person’s good intentions? Did the person want to help me, correct me, or have in mind that he or she thought would be good for me, but his or her behavior did not have that effect? It had just the opposite effect (Worthington, 2004).
2. Fantasizing About Apology
Leslie Greenberg and Wanda Malcolm (2002) have demonstrated that people who can generate such fantasies and vividly imagine the offender apologizing and being deeply remorseful are most likely to forgive successfully.
Those who cannot imagine such scenarios are often unable to forgive without some form of justice being involved, or without a large amount of work to promote experiences of empathy, sympathy, compassion, or love.
3. Mindfulness
Also positively linked to forgiveness, especially when it comes to forgiveness towards others, not as much with forgiveness directed toward self or situation.
Depending on the level of a client’s spiritual diversity, the process can be explained as an energy exchange where forgiveness frees up energy for mindful engagement (Webb, 2012).
Both mindfulness and forgiveness have been linked to greater psychological health in separate research undertakings, but we can combine the two to amplify benefits and find similarities. Cultivating forgiveness promotes mindfulness and therefore better health.
4. Naikan Therapy
Naikan Therapy focuses on distinguishing between first the actual memories we have, second the interpretations we give them, and finally how we develop the sense of self as a result.
The self is shaped by the narrative of the past we create, and our memory is deeply influenced by how we see ourselves through the judgments we make about our past.
Our memory, being a subjective experience, is often static and we are convinced that ours is the only valid perspective and we often accept it as an absolute (Ozawa-de Silva, 2006).
A hundred times a day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depends on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the measure as I have received and am still receiving.
Albert Einstein
To develop a fluid sense of self would take a lot of energy if we had to do it all the time. However, if the static memories are built around a painful past, often the only way to recreate the past is to take a dynamic approach.
The Naikan method suggests that taking another perspective on the painful memory is the answer, and particularly from the other person’s point of view by asking other focused questions: “What have you received? What have you given? What troubles and difficulties have you caused?”
Our sense of self is defined through our relationship with others. Cultural context becomes important here and discussion on collective memory can play a role as the social sense of self can be developed only about others (Ozawa-de Silva, 2006).
5. Roleplay Forgiveness
Forgiveness can also be practiced through roleplay. We can pick a family member to be the forgiver and ask them to describe a particular person that they blame for something hurtful.
Then we stand in the offender’s shoes and ask questions like: Why might he have done what he did? What emotions might he have been feeling? The forgiver is encouraged to see the broadest picture possible, to give the offender the benefit of the doubt, and imagine different things that the offender might have been going through.
It is important to remember here that practicing empathy is not the same as excusing bad behavior, but that it is simply a technique for letting go of anger. Then role-play forgiving by verbally expressing forgiveness to the offender.
It helps to pay attention to the emotions we are feeling as we do the role-play and even try on the facial expressions that we might have when expressing forgiveness. Finally, we want to bring attention to what our body feels like when we’re feeling or expressing forgiveness.
6. Write a Forgiveness Letter
Write about a time when we were hurt in a letter that we may or may not ever send to the person who hurt us. Illustrate how we were affected by it at the time and the hurtful or negative feelings we are still experiencing.
State what we wish the offender had done instead. End this forgiveness letter with an explicit statement of forgiveness, understanding, and even empathy if we can muster it. Another variation of the forgiveness letter would be to write a letter as if we were the offender.
7. Combining Methods
Unforgiveness might be reduced most effectively by using several different strategies. Sometimes, in the spirit of problem-focused coping, a person might seek redress for injustice.
Sometimes, in the spirit of handling negative emotions, a person might emotionally forgive. Both strategies might be simultaneously or sequentially employed. In addition, a person might use meaning-focused coping (Park & Folkman, 1997).
Forgiveness Worksheets (PDF)
McCullough showed that writing about the benefits of interpersonal transgressions can be an effective form of intervention as it allows for cognitive processing that facilitates forgiveness.
Forgiveness worksheets provide prompts that can help with emotional and cognitive processing of hurts, rewriting the narrative of transgression, and practicing of perspective taking, among other benefits.
Whether you’re practicing forgiveness toward another or self-forgiveness, there are plenty of useful resources and the examples below are just some of many available out there.
1. Self-Forgiveness Letter Template
Painful guilt, self-blame, or regret can often hold us back from growing stronger when we’re the ones who need forgiveness.
But feeling better and letting go of our own past mistakes requires self-forgiveness and a commitment to learning from the experience.
Often, writing a letter of self-forgiveness can help with that healing, and give us a chance to cultivate a more compassionate relationship with ourselves.
This Self-Forgiveness Letter Template offers a four-step approach to crafting your self-forgiveness narrative and beginning to move forward.
The steps are:
- Taking Responsibility
- Showing Remorse
- Rectifying Mistakes, and
- Releasing Past Hurt
All you will need is a quiet place and some time to reflect on the past actions that are holding you back, as well as how you might go about forgiving yourself for the hurt you currently feel.
For more guidelines to help you write a self-directed letter of forgiveness, this Forgiveness Letter exercise may be highly valuable. The activity introduces the idea that forgiveness is a tool, which is relevant only to oneself and contains many useful perspectives to help you get started.
It invites us to forgive others who have hurt us to ease or eliminate our suffering, and release our negative emotions in the process.
2. Forgiveness and Acceptance Worksheet
Whether we choose to forgive or hold a grudge, is our decision. While we may not be to blame for a past event, we are responsible for its current impact – accepting this is an important first step in moving forward from past hurt.
It’s the premise behind this Forgiveness and Acceptance Worksheet, which takes the reader through several questions related to acceptance and forgiveness.
By the end of the sheet, the reader will have been invited to take ownership of the hurt they now feel and make a conscious decision to release it.
3. 4 Ds of Forgiveness
The process of forgiveness can take place both internally and externally.
Internally, we go through emotional changes in which negative feelings and thoughts are let go of – we decide to put our hurt, anger, and resentment in the past.
Interpersonal forgiveness, while not necessarily required, can involve trying to put ourselves in the wrongdoer’s shoes and seeing things from their perspective. Often, it can help us feel more positive toward ourselves and the person we are trying to forgive.
The 4 Ds of Forgiveness introduces four steps through the forgiveness process, and the reader is encouraged to reflect and write their responses. They are:
- Deep-Diving: Developing more insight regarding the offense and its present impacts
- Deciding: Considering what forgiveness means and electing to forgive – or not.
- Doing: Taking the transgressor’s perspective in an attempt to understand their motives and reconcile with your feelings.
- Deepening: Discovering meaning in the event and how you have grown from it.
4 Ds of Forgiveness invites the reader to consider the transgression and their decision to forgive from several perspectives: emotionally, psychologically, practically, and behaviorally.
4. CONFESSing: Seeking Forgiveness
CONFESSing is more of a fact-sheet or handout than an exercise; nonetheless, it offers a stepwise approach for anyone who is seeking forgiveness from others.
This exercise is based on the 7-step model proposed by Worthington (2006) and described above:
- Confessing with the wrongdoing, being specific, and without offering excuses.
- Offering a genuine apology
- Noting the other’s pain
- Forever valuing your relationship with them
- Equalizing, or balancing the scales
- Saying we will never repeat the wrong or attempt to hurt the other person, and
- Seeking forgiveness by explicitly asking for it.
CONFESSing – Seeking Forgiveness may be a helpful resource for clients who are keen to apologize to someone in their lives, and would like a little guidance on how to go about it.
5. Moving Toward Self-Forgiveness
The inability to move past guilt and self-doubt can take its toll on our daily lives. Particularly, struggling to forgive ourselves for our actions can be damaging to self-esteem; the more we suffer, the greater the potential impacts on our productivity, mood, and state of mind.
In comparison, self-forgiveness can be liberating and empowering. Whether you can make amends for your actions or not, Moving Toward Self-Forgiveness may be a valuable resource in helping you begin the journey.
This exercise involves:
- Specifically defining what you’d like to forgive yourself for
- Identifying the negative emotions you’d like to release
- Acknowledging the benefits of self-forgiveness – for yourself, and others, and
- Make a dedicated commitment to forgive yourself and accept the benefits that come with it.
Forgiveness Questionnaires
Forgiveness has been investigated through many methods of assessment and these measurements can be grouped into three types of forgiveness scales:
- dispositional forgiveness,
- episodic forgiveness, and
- dyadic forgiveness.
All other measures of forgiveness that don’t quite fit into the above categories but assess some aspect or characteristic of forgiveness are implicit, behavioral, or biological measures of forgiveness (Fernández-Capo, et al. 2017).
The gold standard measure of forgiveness is the Enright Forgiveness Inventory (EFI), which is available for purchase at Mind Garden. EFI is the most comprehensive and best psychometrically supported measure of forgiveness.
There is extensive research supporting its use. Three other recently developed instruments for adults are described and presented in their entirety in the book The Forgiving Life (Enright, 2012):
- the Forgiveness Landscape Rating Scale,
- the Personal Forgiveness Scale, and
- the Forgiveness Guidepost Form.
Forgiveness and Reconciliation
Forgiveness can be a response to a perception of injustice and involve reconciliation. It can be both an internal and external process of resolving a conflict.
McCullough and Witvliet defined reconciliation as “a term that implies the restoration of a fractured relationship,” while Richard Moore defines it as an aspect of the process of forgiveness. He specifically mentions reconciliation within oneself, which is forgiveness literature can only be compared to self-forgiveness.
Forgiveness is embedded in a social context where reconciliation is about restoring trust. Discussing the transgression is both a road to reconciliation and a social context within which people express and often experience forgiveness.
We do not have to reconcile. So reconciliation involves a decision and the cooperation of the other person. People decide whether, how, and when to do so. Unlike forgiveness, reconciliation requires the cooperation of both parties.
Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.
Bruce Lee
The benefit of reconciling is that it typically reduces the victim’s injustice gap. The perpetrator usually engages in vulnerable behaviors, such as apologizing, which can help the victim by bringing more of a sense of justice into the situation. This will often increase the likelihood of forgiveness, but it will also motivate reconciliation.
Richard Moore was of an opinion that there can be forgiveness without reconciliation, but there cannot be true reconciliation without forgiveness. Forgiveness must precede reconciliation for it to be effective.
Moore believes that forgiveness is not dependent on justice and that justice is not necessary to forgive, because it is the legal system and society that administers justice.
Forgiveness is about the person doing the forgiving. Forgiveness within yourself allows for reconciliation within yourself, which enables forgiveness towards others and can lead to reconciliation.
Richard More noticed that for him reconciliation became a natural reflex because forgiveness came first. He believes that this route to forgiveness and reconciliations can be practiced and cultivated.
To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.
Lewis B. Smedes
Worthington and Drinkard identified two primary ways to reconcile. One is implicit reconciliation, and the other is explicit reconciliation (2000). Implicit reconciliation often occurs in non-troubled relationships where forgiveness occurs almost automatically.
Explicit reconciliation, often aided by therapy, occurs when partners work together to reconcile by explicitly processing the issues. For explicit reconciliation to occur, hostilities have to be brought to an end first. This is why nations declare cease-fire and truce. Only if an agreement to put an end to hostilities is reached will progress be made toward reconciling.
Then and only then can parties come together. Merely ceasing hostile actions but having no interactions will not build trust. As soon as a truce violation occurs, the parties will immediately resume the conflict. As such, some peaceful coming-together is important.
This may require a third party to serve as an intermediary. When the parties come together, both have to act positively toward each other. There has to be some positive interaction to continue to build trust or the parties will not consider themselves trustworthy and reconciliation will not occur (Worthington & Drinkard, 2000).
Forgiveness in Marriage and Relationships
Interpersonal offenses often mar close relationships.
Conflict and social harm can take a considerable toll on our psychological and physical well-being and some argue that happiness depends to a large extent on how we respond to and recover from these difficult and painful experiences.
Forgiveness looks different when we forgive a stranger versus a loved one and depends on the relationship. Many researchers and clinicians claim that forgiveness is a cornerstone of a successful marriage (e.g., Worthington, 1994).
This belief underpins the development of several marital interventions that emphasize forgiveness, particularly in the context of marital infidelity (Gordon, Baucom & Snyder, 2005). Research evidence supports this view, as forgiveness has been linked to several key constructs in the marital domain, including conflict resolution, relationship-enhancing attributions, and greater commitment.
The most robust finding in this emerging literature documents a positive association between forgiveness and marital quality.
Makrothumeo is a Greek word for forgive. Its literal meaning is ‘have patience with me; give me time’.
Thayer & Strong, 1995.
Ability to forgive and seek forgiveness significantly contributes to marital satisfaction and is often rated as one of the most important factors that affect relationship longevity.
Forgiveness in marriages has been linked to relationship quality, attributions, and empathy. Fincham and colleagues found that positive marital quality was related to more benign responsibility attributions regarding transgressions, which as a response, were found to foster forgiveness.
These attributions, where the offense would be viewed as less intentional or avoidable, were expressed through more positive reactions and more expression of empathy toward the transgressor because they were found to be understood by partners as a willingness to forgive (Fincham, Paleari, &Regalia, 2002).
This was an interesting finding because it related marital satisfaction directly to forgiveness by explaining that people in close and supportive relationships were more likely to be empathic and experience fewer negative emotions, and empathy was found in many studies as playing a significant role in one’s ability to forgive (McCullough, Worthington, & Rachal, 1997).
Forgiveness has been hypothesized to be related to some important relationship skills. For instance, people who forgive more readily might have:
- a greater number of general coping repertoires for handling the stress of negative emotions,
- more robust emotion-regulation strategies (Gross, 1998),
- less likelihood of offending a partner, which could lead to lower guilt and shame (Enright and the Human Development Study Group, 1996),
- less capacity to commit to a relationship (Finkel et al., 2002), and
- less willing to sacrifice for a relationship (Van Lange et al., 1997).
Interestingly, the link between forgiveness and relationship skills also suggests that more forgiving people may be less prone to sacrifice for a relationship (Van Lange et al., 1997), and less capable of committing to a relationship (Finkel et al., 2002).
Gender is also related to forgiveness and there are several suggestive findings that women are more forgiving than men (e.g., Exline, Baumeister, Bushman, Campbell, & Finkel, 2004; Karremans et al., 2003).
Transgressions, especially if they are significant enough to disrupt a relationship, elicit strong negative feelings. We are also instinctively predisposed toward revenge. When we bring this tendency into close relationships, it can take on some interesting variations when we consider retaliatory tendencies are just as strong as the need to feel connected to others (Tullisjan, 2013).
Studies show that transgressions might change goals for a relationship, as we are told by Frank Fincham and Julie Hall of the University of Buffalo, and Steven Beach of the University of Georgia, who reviewed 17 empirical studies on forgiveness in relationships.
Participants of the studies reported that partners who were committed to cooperation tend to become competitive after betrayal and start keeping scores in arguments versus seeking compromise and enjoyment of each other’s company (Hall & Fincham, 2005). Relationship researcher John Gottman also found that blame and defensiveness tend to contribute to the deterioration of relationships over time (Gottman & Silver, 2015).
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
One longitudinal study by Tsang, McCullough, and Finchum charted the fights and the instances of forgiveness every week in couples for nine weeks. The study showed that in close relationships we are inevitably engaged in a certain amount of conflict over time, but couples who reported forgiving after the conflict were happier nine weeks later than those who didn’t forgive (Tsang, McCullough, & Finchum, 2006).
Although we have a predisposition toward empathy and compassion, taking perspective and attunement with others often requires effort. In close relationships, practicing only decisional, and therefore a shallow form of forgiveness over longer periods, could lead to resentment and become a barrier to effective communication (Worthington & Scherer, 2004).
Studies also indicate that relationship satisfaction, as well as parties’ personality traits, plays a role in the process of forgiveness. High levels of relationship satisfaction were positively related to forgiveness and a low level of relationship satisfaction was negatively related (Allemand, Amberg, Zimprich & Fincham (2007).
Forgiveness was also shown to contribute to relationship satisfaction and longevity, and when the commitment aspect was analyzed, it turned out that cognitive interpretations of the transgression influenced the process of forgiveness in committed relationships (Finkel, Rusbult, Kumashiro, & Hannon, 2002).
One definition of interpersonal forgiveness by McCullough, Worthington, and Rachal (1997) describes it as a process of replacing relationship-destructive responses with constructive behavior.
In one study, forgiveness in marital relationships was linked to conflict resolution skills and showed gender differences in the approaches to conflict. Specifically, women were more likely to bring up issues while husbands would exhibit more avoidant behavior characterized by demands.
Perspective-taking was shown to be of importance, as recollections of harm that tend to be self-serving lead to an escalating level of negative interactions (Fincham, Beach, & Davila, 2006).
When you forgive, you in no way change the past – but you sure do change the future.
Bernard Meltzer
Although not singled out as a family or a close relationship aspect of forgiveness, forgiveness-seeking behaviors and their motivations from the perspective of the perpetrator are also important to consider.
Specifically, in one study, the difference between interpersonal and intrapersonal types of forgiveness was important, where the first seeks to reconcile, while the latter just wants to feel better.
The study also showed that there is a link between forgiveness-seeking behavior and perpetrators’ either extroverted or introverted personality and the severity of the transgression. If the event was significant, self-forgiveness would become more important first regardless of personality type, but when the transgression was minor, the extrovert sought to repair the relationship.
Severity and timing also played a role in the type of forgiveness-seeking behavior perpetrators engaged in as some would approach, while others would exhibit avoidance, denial, and groveling (Rourke, 2006).
How forgiveness is communicated also plays an important role in how effective forgiveness and the subsequent reconciliation process is. Conditional communication was linked to relationship deterioration after the episode of forgiveness, but more genuine and explicit strategies that included nonverbal expressions of forgiveness contributed to relationship strengthening (Waldron & Kelley, 2005)
Forgiveness in Families
Most interesting and frequently published accounts of forgiveness are those that involve trauma where forgiveness is almost a heroic act. But what about the subtle yet ongoing and committed forgiveness that goes on in close relationships and families?
In close relationships and families, forgiving occurs much more often and can be contextually much more complex. Forgiveness looks different in close versus more distant relationships, and family relationships and their dynamics can become a significant context and influencing factor in the process of forgiving.
The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.
Honore de Balzac
Although research shows that forgiveness has significant positive consequences for various aspects of family relationships and the general family environment, it also shows “asymmetries in associates of forgiveness across parent-child and parent-parent relationships, demonstrating the relationship-bound nature of forgiveness” (Maio, Thomas, Fincham & Carnelley, 2008).
Maio and colleagues provided an even deeper discussion of how the forgiveness construct is relationship specific in their 2008 study that related forgiveness to several individual and relationship-level variables.
The difference in attachment explained the relationship-specific nature of forgiveness between children and fathers and children and mothers. The effects of evolutionary pressure to forgive children, in general, were studied.
This was a longitudinal study that considered many individual and relationship level variables linked to forgiveness:
- empathy toward the transgressor,
- conflict resolution,
- relationship satisfaction,
- cooperation,
- psychological wellbeing,
- high consciousness,
- agreeableness,
- emotional stability,
- levels of depression, and
- ambivalence toward married partners.
A disposition toward forgiveness and other family members’ perception was used to test the validity of the measures (Maio, Thomas, Fincham, & Carnelley, 2008).
The significance of some findings here cannot be underestimated. Forgiveness expressed by parents was positively linked to more expressiveness in the family, less conflict, and more family cohesiveness.
It also predicted less anxiety and less attachment dependence in the family as a whole and better feelings about quality and closeness in marriage.
Some of the most profound conclusions here state that children learn forgiveness behavior at home as it is modeled for them by their parents. This becomes an important part of value transmission from parents to children, which can have a significant impact on the lives of children as they grow up and mimic forgiveness in their new relationships.
Although this study claims that personality traits play an important role in the capacity toward forgiveness, it found the opposite to be true as well. Forgiveness predicted emotional stability, agreeableness, and higher conscientiousness (Maio, Thomas, Fincham & Carnelley, 2008).
The 2005 study by Hoyt and colleagues confirms that interpersonal conflict in families has far-reaching consequences on the well-being of individual family members that vary from physical and mental health and family outcomes such as poor parenting, problematic attachment, and high conflict.
It analyses the complexity of “transgression-related interpersonal motivations” (TRIM) via three distinct factors trait forgiveness, situational forgiveness, and ability to obtain forgiveness as well as relationship effect. The finding pointed to the importance of the family role and the need for studying forgiveness in a more complex psycho-social context.
Dispositional tendencies were found more significant for fathers and children and relationship-specific effects were more frequently reported for mothers (Hoyt, Fincham, McCullough, Maio, & Davila, 2005).
Our closest relationship as spelled out by the attachment theory shapes our perceptions of the world and others (Bowlby, 1960). Perhaps the saying that we become the five people we spend most of our time with has some scientific merit. The closer the bond, the bigger the impact.
As the studies discussed above showed, the relationship between forgiveness and well-being is stronger in close relationships, and the long-term implications of how forgiveness is modeled for children in families as they grow up are significant (Luskin, 2004).
A Look at Forgiveness After Cheating and Adultery
In close relationships, forgiveness happens as a part of ongoing interactions and within this context, both partners are at times offenders or victims.
As a result, reciprocity takes on a significant role and can influence partners’ reactions to future offenses. Not only ongoing but also past behaviors play a role in expectations and attributions that predict responses between partners.
Also, the ability to apologize and empathize is a good predictor of individual-level forgiveness. Commitment, closeness, and fewer tendencies to exhibit negative emotional reactions to life stressors are also positively associated with relationship level forgiveness.
Individual perceptions of trust and constructive management of conflicts are also functions of willingness to forgive, as discussed elsewhere by Rusbult in terms of “accommodate rather than retaliate response” (1991). Reactions to transgressions evolve into patterns over time where actual and perceived responses create expectations about future conflict resolutions (Hoyt, Fincham, McCullough, Maio & Davila, 2005).
There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.
Bryant H. McGill
Willingness to forgive was related to the level of commitment and trust in the relationship per research by Caryl Rusbult and colleagues, who hypothesized that people in stronger and closer relationships would have more to lose. The relationship between forgiveness and well-being was stronger in marriages than in other relationships (Rusbult, Davis, Finkel, Hannon, & Olsen, 2004).
Finkel elsewhere studied the role of commitment as a pro-relationship motivation toward forgiveness as opposed to impulses towards holding a grudge or expressing vengeance.
Interestingly enough, the association between forgiveness and commitment had to do with intent to persist and not as much with psychological attachment or long-term orientation. Specifically, regarding betrayals, the cognitive interpretations of the transgression played a significant role.
Finkel and colleagues also raised an important discussion on why we forgive in close relationships. They based their discussion on the theory of interdependence and found that “the commitment-forgiveness association was mediated by cognitive interpretations of betrayal incidents” (Finkel, Rusbult, Kumashiro, & Hannon, 2002, p. 13).
Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.
Marianne Williamson
The first step in repairing a relationship after a betrayal is to decide whether to talk about the transgression. One such forgiveness exercise suggests that we make a cost-benefit balance sheet.
To assess the rational reasons for why we might want to discuss the issue, or not discuss the issue, we make up a balance sheet in which the costs of entering the discussion are listed on one side and the benefits are listed on the other side. After the balance sheet is completed, we would use an asterisk to designate what we think are the most important reasons, pros, and cons, to consider (Worthington, 2004).
Reconciliation is the process of healing a damaged relationship. Although reconciliation can occur without each partner forgiving the other, forgiveness usually makes reconciliation easier and more lasting.
Therapists then must aim to free partners from the wounds of the past by facilitating each to decide to pursue reconciliation, then guide partners as they discuss their transgressions. After partners forgive, they can try to eliminate accumulated poisons in their relationship, and finally build positive acts of love and devotion into their relationship.
Reconciliation is a major step in relational repair after betrayals. To reconcile, trust must be rebuilt by establishing new trustworthy behaviors. The old, non-trustworthy behaviors must be detoxified. There is more, however, to building trust than simply eliminating the negative. People must focus on building positive devotion if the relationship is to be fully reconciled.
Building devotion back into a damaged relationship involves being continually willing to value the partner and being vigilant to avoid devaluing the partner.
This involves not just what each person does in the relationship, although that is very important; it also involves the way people’s emotional bond is affected by what is done. When partners love each other and want to repair their relationship, it is most helpful if they can talk to each other and explicitly point out ways that they are valuing and not devaluing the partner (Worthington, 2004).
A Take-Home Message
Although dwelling on injustice and holding onto grudges can be tempting options, study after study shows that forgiving those who have harmed us can systematically reduce distress and increase satisfaction with life. One study found that forgiving on one day resulted in participants reporting higher levels of happiness on the next day (Witvliet, 2001; Worthington, 2004).
To find out more about why forgiving others can be the best thing you can do for yourself, be sure to check out our other articles on the topic.
What are your thoughts on the forgiveness process? If you have any other tips or activities, please feel free to share them in the comments section.
