A question about "forgiveness"

Parent Cafe
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<p>How interesting, as I was just pondering the similar downturn in a sibling relationship that has rocked my core. Again, a series of emails. The break in trust is so profound, and it is hard to know where to go from here. </p>

<p>But my personal start is figuring out boundaries for myself. I can’t say that I’m angry, rather hurt, and wary of future contact. I can figure out where he is in life, understand. If he were willing to go toward the future and attempt to resume the past relationship, I think I’d be glad and able to forgive, if more careful with words and actions than previously. As it is, will stay away. </p>

<p>Understanding where that person was emotionally, psychologically when the infraction occurred is perhaps key. Not that it justifies behavior, but it is a start.</p>

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<p>[Stanford</a> Magazine - Peace Work - May/June 2001](<a href=“http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=39032]Stanford”>http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=39032)</p>

<p>Best article I’ve read on the meaning of and the process of forgiveness. It’s really helped me to move on with my life. Forgiveness is not meant to help the wrongdoer, but to help to person who has been wronged.</p>

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<p>Thank you for all the helpful comments. It is comforting to hear that others have had similar experiences and feelings about it. We are conditioned to believe that every apology deserves forgiveness, but it is not that simple when the damage is severe.</p>

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<p>Before you decide you cannot really forgive a person who is important to you, a face-to-face conversation is needed. If you can, meet your sibling and explain in as neutral, non-judgmental terms as you can why the emails hurt you. See what he/she says. Give the person a chance to see how you really feel (without anger, accusations, tears, etc.). Then go from there. I have been confronted with things I have said carelessly to a loved one, and I’m glad that person had the courage to talk to me. I was not aware of the degree to which I had offended, and I was truly contrite.</p>

<p>Family love is complicated. The relationships are not entirely voluntary but they are deep. Unless a person is really toxic and destructive, or has no interest in continuing contact, these relationships are usually worth trying to preserve.</p>

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<p>I can see how accusations would not be helpful, but if how “you really feel” includes anger or deep hurt which bring you to tears, I don’t see why those feelings cannot be expressed. Anger, hurt, laughing, crying, etc. are all normal human emotions which can and should be expressed to a healthy degree.</p>

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<p>Sometimes if you know their psychological state when saying those hurtful things, it maybe easier to forgive. People can be very judgmental of things they don’t do or have, as we have seen on CC. If you have a good marriage that your sibling wish she had, she may accuse you of catering to your H too much. If you have a trusting/loving relationship with your kids, she may say you are spoiling your kids (how else could you possibly have that kind of relationship). People will often say hurtful things when they are hurting, and siblings are the easiest people they can lash out at. </p>

<p>I fought with my siblings constantly whe I was younger. We said a lot of hurtful things to each other, but over the years we have also stood by each other over some rough times. It is very hard when it comes to siblings.</p>

<p>When people are happy they are less judgmental and tend not to say hurtful things intentionally.</p>

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<p>I agree with oldfort that sibling relationships can be the toughest. So many old hurts and so much unfinished business. OP, does the hurt come from what was said, the fact that the painful statements were the sib’s true feelings (i.e., apparently not said in anger), or the sib’s expectation that he/she can fix your pain simply by saying “I’m sorry” without understanding how hurt you are? </p>

<p>My mother is completely off base in how she sees her older sister. They were raised in poverty by alcoholic parents. My aunt’s life has been so much harder than my mother’s. She is a cancer survivor, has one child who has suffered cancer and a debilitating disease, another child who was permanently injured and disfigured in a car accident. She is a widow, has very little money, and is the caregiver for their 100 year-old mother. My mother and stepfather are healthy, well off, live in a beautiful home, and travel at least 3 months of every year. Yet somehow my aunt is the bad guy in my mother’s eyes - she never calls, is responsible for her poor own health because of a poor diet, wanted Grandma so they could pool their economic resources, Grandma would be so much better off in a home, etc. It is absolutely nuts and everyone except my mother can see how off-base her viewpoint is. I so wish she could “forgive” my aunt - even though, in this case, there’s nothing to forgive her for. I use this example to illustrate that what our sibs see when they criticize us doesn’t necessarily have much basis in fact.</p>

<p>I’m not a forgiving person except in the important relationships - husband, kids, mother, sibs. Easy for me to include the sibs because they’ve never hurt me profoundly, as adults. The others have, though. But I need them and so I forgive the hurts (as they forgive me for hurting them). Maybe one way of looking at this is - how much do I need this person in my life? Some sibling relationships just can’t continue except at great pain to one or the other.</p>

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<p>You have to forgive people even when there is NO apology–and by forgive, I mean letting go of the anger and the hurt. Otherwise, the person you are hurting is yourself. Perhaps letting go of grievances is a better way to think about it. Forgiveness doesn’t mean that you have to embrace the other as a bosom buddy–it means that you are able to let go of the hateful feelings and move on with your life.</p>

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<p>So many wise perspectives.
I have found that forgiveness is a constant struggle, as there are some actions that still hurt even more than 30+ yrs later. ( like when H went on a fishing trip exactly a week after our marriage and while I was still recovering from having a d/c after a 16 wk miscarriage-he hadn’t learned yet that when wives say-" do what you want", that means don’t do it.)
I’ve also learned to be clearer about what I want.;)</p>

<p>When we can let go of expecting others to be perfect, we also give ourselves permission to be human & fallible. That is why forgiveness is critical, IMO, even if the person who we feel we have been wronged by hasn’t apologized.</p>

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<p>Sometimes you give someone you love the ultimate gift - a do over. </p>

<p>I think the things that hurt the most are things that have a core of truth to them. The hurt is commingled with embarrassment that someone sees through a facade that has been carefully built over the years. Only people very close see those things and the social norm is that the don’t address them. In moments of high frustration and/or anger, these things that are supposed to go unmentioned are said. They are often met with that person who feels betrayed hurling similar “always known but never said” hurtful things back. </p>

<p>We are all capable of saying very hurtful things to people we are closest to. The fact that we know them but don’t say them is part of what holds us together. When we’re “called out” we feel particularly betrayed. </p>

<p>The way to decide whether to forgive and/or forget is to just consider the alternative. If you’re truly okay with that, then don’t look back.</p>

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<p>I do wish there were a like button…</p>

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<p>Cartera, as I mentioned upthread, my brother actually claimed he opened his home to us when we had no place to live, then insinuated we were ungrateful. I would remember if there had ever been any time in my life when I was homeless. That’s what angers me so much. There were other things he accused me and H of that literally must have been meant for another unknown sibling because they never happened, never. I was so dumbfounded when I got this email that I honestly speculated that he has some sort of brain disorder - he did play high school and D1 football in Texas, and I’m sure had his share of concussions over the years. I wonder if he has some sort of post-concussive syndrome that I’ve read about because his hurtful accusations are such lies. He can think all he wants that I was raised as a spoiled, entitled brat, but don’t make up incidences that never happened to make a point. That’s what I don’t get. I’m sure he’s not the only family member that felt I got away with a lot of stuff - I was the only girl (had three brothers), and baby of the family by nine years, plus I was born with a cleft lip/palate which required a lot of intervention at a young age. So yea, I probably did get a lot of attention, but it was the kind of attention that a big white elephant sitting in the middle of the living room got; everyone knew it was there, but no one would talk about it out of embarrassment and I’m sure some element of shame on my mom’s part. But hey, if this brother wants to make stuff up about what an easy life I had and how ungrateful and self-absorbed I became because of it, I can’t imagine anything I could ever say to him would change his mind - which is why, up until recently, I never responded to his email, nor made any effort to maintain contact with him in the last 2-3 years.</p>

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<p>teriwitt - there is no accounting for craziness in any of this. Your brother is dealing with issues that are likely personal to him and you’re collateral damage. That doesn’t make it better, but when people just make things up, there is really not much you can do. I have a niece who makes things up about my mom and my daughter so she looks like the victim. I feel sorry for her. My D usually ignores her but it is very hurtful to my mom.</p>

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<p>This thread got a little out of order? Teriwitt – did your brother always make things up? Or is this recent? Substance abuse? Mentally ill? Brain tumor? It is so weird when people invent things that never happened.That is a tough one, to be sure.</p>

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<p>Here are two different perspectives.</p>

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<p>Some statements do not merit a response. </p>

<p>If you were to feel compelled to respond to every accusation from person X, you would be granting power to X, not regaining power from X. What if X always replies with further accusations? Must you respond? </p>

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<p>Consider the possibility that your refusal to contact him spoke, and continues to speak, your denials with eloquence.</p>

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<p>On the other hand: I agree with mstee. Could it be that he was/is mentally ill? Why else would he send you accusations that were truly baffling? Like the one about you having been homeless?</p>

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<p>Flip side question-- at what point do you stop forgiving and just write off the person as a mean-spirited, hurtful, disturbed person, and stop letting them hurt you over and over? I have stopped turning the other cheek and jsut disengaed for am very disturbed sibling, but he keeps picking at the scab just as it begins to heal…</p>

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<p>Silpat,
I think our sibs are clones. Unfortunately there is one more hurdle we need to get past (I thought we were done but alas, he is stirring the pot again) and then there will be no need to have any communication, direct or indirect. It is truly sad.</p>

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Teriwitt … how old is your brother? The accusations sound like they may be a symptom of Alzheimers.</p>

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<p>I faced the same thing with my own family of origin, wish I could say it has come out happily, but I am the pariah, haven’t really spoken to anyone in about 10 years (long, messy drama , that in effect revolved around the fact that for the first time in my life, I set boundaries around my own family, refused to be a doormat, and well, became the pariah…which hurt/hurts, but in other ways was a godsend). </p>

<p>I think there are two issues here, forgiveness and reconciliation, one may follow the other usually but they aren’t the same:</p>

<p>1)Forgiveness is exactly that, looking inside yourself and saying ‘that person hurt me, they were a complete a-hole, but I consciously choose to let it go, forgive them for the act, and move on’ as you say, it is for yourself. It doesn’t mean you like the person, it doesn’t mean you forget, it means you simply stop dwelling on it, recognize the bad act, and forgive them as one human to another. This is true whether you confront them or not, they apologize or not, whatever.</p>

<p>2)Reconciliation can follow from forgiveness, but it is not the same thing. In reconciliation, first of all, the other person has to acknowledge what they did and really show they understand how it hurt you (and it could also be you need to acknowledge things as well that weren’t great, for example they may have blown real incidents out of proportion and that is why they were mean;doesn’t justify the mean act, just says I am willing to acknowledge my own faults). Saying mean things then saying ‘I love you’ isn’t acknowledging anything…it is covering it up. Saying "I am sorry I said those mean things, i really didn’t mean them, I said them because I was angry about x, y and z and I realized I took it out on you’ is getting closer. The old concept of repentance comes to mind,that if you do wrong, you have to find an appropriate way to do it, that is part of the process. </p>

<p>More importantly, reconciliation is about going beyond forgiveness and forging a new relationship, one that gets rid of the old crap. Doesn’t mean you forget but rather you both agree to put that in the past, remembering it, but not repeating what caused it to happen, the old ills. With my own siblings, I attempted this, I made clear the door was open, but I also made clear what my own boundaries are, what didn’t work for me and my family and what I wanted, and what I got back instead was a barrage of complaints, how everything was my fault, how I denied them the right to know their nephew, how I did this…which isn’t reconciliation, it is guilt and demeaning me to try and get me ‘back into the fold’ the same way I always was…and that ain’t gonna fly. </p>

<p>The first you can do unilaterally, the second has to be joint. And with forgiveness, there is no need to be in contact, be around the person, be their friend or buddy or sibling, it is all about you moving on.</p>