Doorways of Support and Inspiration:
Forgiveness

 

Can I Forgive My Parents? Dan Neuharth, Ph.D. From If You Had Controlling Parents: How to Make Peace With Your Past and Take Your Place in the World (Cliff Street/HarperCollins).

 

People go too fast into forgiveness. Having enough time to feel angry was important to me. I had to blame. I had to feel like a victim.

          – Evelyn, 46, nurse

I forgive my father because I understand him.

 – Sally, 31, computer programmer

 

Few issues cause more concern and confusion for those who grew up controlled than forgiveness.

 

I believe forgiveness is optional. Forgiving may aid healing or it may slow it down. For some, forgiving – and, more important, letting go – is freeing and healing. Others never forgive and still heal.

 

It takes courage to forgive, because it means letting go of part of your identity as a wounded person – a role which may have served to break denial and start your healing. Forgiving, then, may feel like you’re abandoning hard-fought recognitions of how you were wounded and what it cost you.

 

Yet it also takes courage not to forgive, if done consciously, in order to explore your feelings so that you can set them free. Doing this may mean you have to tolerate many difficult feelings on your way to a resolution.

 

Many myths surround our conceptions of forgiveness.

 

Myth #1: Forgiving means forgetting.

Reality: You will probably always remember abusive parental control.

 

Forgiveness does not mean forgetting or excusing, nor does it mean denying your wounds. It means acknowledging a wrongdoing, experiencing the feelings connected with being wronged and, after a time that only you can determine, letting go of actively holding the wrongdoing against the wrongdoer. Forgiveness includes letting go of a belief or illusion that things “should” or “could” have been different. Forgiveness can restore your general sense of trust and love to what it was before you were hurt, though you may never again fully trust the specific person who hurt you.

 

You may find it helpful to distinguish between the content of what parents said or did and the intent behind their actions, as Cocola and Matthews suggested in How to Manage Your Mother. Even though your parents may have hurt you, it’s possible their intent was to protect you, as an act of love.

 

Myth #2: Forgiving is the answer in any troubled relationship.

Reality: For some, forgiveness is unwise or impossible.

 

Forgiveness can be a trap, Susan Forward writes in Toxic Parents. While it is important to let go of a desire for revenge, which can work against emotional well-being, you never have to forgive or absolve someone who betrayed you. Forgiveness often does not enhance healing and can even be a form of denial, writes Forward, who suggests forgiving only if the person who wrongs you does something to earn forgiveness, such as acknowledging what happened and seeking to make amends.

 

Myth #3: The sooner you forgive, the better.

Reality: Premature forgiveness can reinjure you.

 

Premature forgiveness can be especially injurious if it leads you to dishonor your feelings, ignore the truth, or do things for others that hurt your own best interests. These may be the very things you were forced to do in childhood.

 

Wayne Muller writes in Legacy of the Heart: The Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood, “Forgiveness, while it may bring healing, has its own timing. It should be nurtured and invited, but never pushed. Any fear and rage must be honored and allowed to be true for as long as it is present. The heart knows when it is ready to forgive”.

 

Pressuring yourself to forgive can interfere with healing. It may be helpful to give yourself a grace period – six months, a year – with no pressure to forgive. During that time, you may attain forgiveness or you may not. But resolution comes more freely without pressure; you were pressured enough growing up. Parents or friends may get irritated with you for not being ready to forgive or for choosing not to forgive. “Let bygones be bygones,” they urge. Their comments, however well-intentioned, often reflect their own discomfort rather than your needs. Never forget, your timetable is your own. Nobody else can determine it.

 

Myth #4: Forgiveness doesn’t count unless you tell the person you’ve forgiven.

Reality: Forgiveness can be done silently or proclaimed verbally. What counts is that you hear it.

 

As a child, you may have been prevented from making choices that were in your best interests. Forgiveness is just such a choice. It may or may not include continued contact: you can cut contact with your parents and still forgive them; you can remain in contact and never forgive them.

 

You may want to forgive only after receiving a parental commitment that from now on your relationship will be respectful. You can hold your relationship with your parents to the same standard you hold other friendships; if it’s a two-way relationship of trust, respect, communication and acceptance, it’s worthwhile. Otherwise, forget it.

 

Myth #5: Forgiveness is done for others.

Reality: Forgiveness is most freeing when it is done for you.

 

Your goal is to find greater peace and relationships that nurture you. Forgiving or not forgiving is an act of self-interest, not something you “should” do because it’s “right.” Sometimes, not forgiving can cause pain because it leads to suppressing love of your parents, which Harold Bloomfield in Making Peace with Your Parents calls a core need. “By holding on to . . . resentments, [we] surrender control over [our] own emotional well-being to the person who hurt [us] in the first place,” Bloomfield writes.

 

Myth #6: Forgiving is a permanent act that takes away the hurt.

Reality: Forgiving is not all or nothing.

 

Forgiving doesn’t mean you will never again feel turmoil about what was done to you. You may seesaw, feel sorry for your parents, realize their hardships and limitations, then remember the full extent of their mistreatment. It’s important to take your time, explore your feelings and protect yourself along the way, therapist Mike Lew suggests in Victims No Longer. Forgiving is a pardon, not an exoneration, he writes, and it isn’t all or nothing – you can forgive a little. Few people totally complete the task of forgiveness, even when they want to.

         

Forgiveness is a process with its own twists and timing. It’s important to let the process unfold and have faith that it will do so. Muller’s words can be a helpful guide:

 

What we are forgiving is not the act — not the violence or the neglect, the incest, the divorce or the abuse. We are forgiving the actors, the people who could not manage to honor and cherish their own children, their own spouse, or their own lives in a loving and gentle way. We are forgiving their suffering, their confusion, their unskillfulness, their desperation and their humanity.

 

Letting go

 

Emotionally letting go can be something that is more helpful to focus on than forgiveness. Letting go means finding relative peace with your feelings and memories of being hurt. Seen in this light, forgiveness is only an optional method for letting go. It helps some let go; it doesn’t help others. You can let go by forgiving; you can let go without forgiving – it’s your ball game. It’s possible simply to overlook parental abuse and remain loyal. It’s also possible to withdraw and blame. But both paths involve little conscious choice because they are reactions.

 

Bear in mind that it’s of the utmost importance to honor yourself. You were forced into things as a child; don’t force yourself into an artificial timetable now. A period of limited contact with controlling parents may or may not be wise. Some people can let go only after achieving a safe distance from parents; others can let go while living with their parents. Setting good boundaries between you and your parents, of course, helps the letting-go process. It’s harder to forgive someone by whom you still feel engulfed or rejected. And as I’ve said, seeking a supportive sounding board is crucial to healthy separation.

 

There is no easy way to measure when you’ve mourned enough. Give yourself enough time to explore feelings so scary they went underground. Some people know viscerally that they are not ready to forgive, just as others know when they have been identifying for too long with a “victim stance” in a way that is more constricting than healing. It can be hard to differentiate between the discomfort that comes from grappling with forgiveness and the discomfort of being stuck too long. Trust yourself.

 

From If You Had Controlling Parents: How to Make Peace With Your Past and Take Your Place in the World. Published by HarperCollins Publishers(New York, NY). Copyright © 1998 by Dan Neuharth, Ph.D. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Dan Neuharth, Ph.D.

Dan Neuharth, Ph.D., is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with a doctorate in clinical psychology. A popular speaker, college educator and award-winning journalist, he specializes in helping adults cope with the challenges of unhealthy family control. He is a clinical member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy and the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. Neuharth lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Contact him at drdan@controllingparents.com. For more information about the book or his work, visit his website at http://www.controllingparents.com

 

References:

Legacy of the Heart: The Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood, Wayne Muller (Simon & Schuster)

Making Peace with Your Parents, Harold Bloomfield (Ballantine Publishing Group)