Here’s Why You Should Think Twice Before Forgiving Some Things
On potential dangers of “taking the high road.”
Yesterday, while routinely scrolling my Instagram feed before bed, I stumbled upon a post titled “ How to forgive an abuser.”
This post was written by a psychologist to answer a question from a girl who had been emotionally abused in a relationship for three years before she left. Now, seeking closure and ways to reduce the pain and move on, she wanted to forgive him.
In the response post, the psychologist describes a five-step process of forgiving and, ultimately, healing, taken from the book “Radical Forgiveness”:
- Tell someone your side of the story;
- Feel the feelings;
- Look at the event from different and broader perspectives;
- Reframe the story, making it empowering and useful;
- Integrate the new story into your life.
She finished the post emphasizing the imperative importance of forgiveness for our mental health.
From the very request to the response, this all rubbed me the wrong, disturbing way. The reason for that lies, with no intent to dramatize, in the hidden psychological dangers of such a seemingly virtuous way to approach forgiveness.
How Forgiving Things Affects Our Boundaries
It seems like a weird headline, but bear with me. Not many of us have ever analyzed such a familiar notion as forgiveness regarding the negative effects.
When we forgive something, our brain marks a certain situation or behavior as not crossing our boundaries and, therefore, tolerable in the future. And vice versa.
This imprint happens unconsciously all the time. Our brain collects the stories of when we forgive or not forgive something and which circumstances escort this decision. It further serves us as, for the most part, a subconscious guide for our future interactions with people.
To put it simply, the decision to forgive or not to forgive someone is what shapes your psychological boundaries.
Our boundaries dictate how we treat the world and what treatment from it we put up with. They define what tone, words, and actions we are ready to tolerate from the people around us. Everything that crosses them is marked as a threat to our well-being and security.
The tendency to be easy on forgiving excruciating and hurtful things can be a sign of almost or completely erased psychological boundaries — the building blocks of our self-esteem.
To which extend we are allowed to inflate these boundaries is debatable. And just like the counties on a macro level, we have micro fights for our personal boundaries every day.
Forced Forgiveness As a Road to Victimization
From what I’ve seen up to this point, most peoples’ boundaries suck.
We let other people ask us inappropriate questions, make rude comments about our appearance and life choices, manipulate us, cash in on us, even abuse some of us emotionally and physically.
If you look close enough, you’ll notice a disheartening correlation: the more forgiving the person is, the more often they are treated like garbage. Because every time we try to be comfortable and forgive those who really hurt us, we give away our boundaries little by little until they shrink to the size of a dog booth.
This is a one-way road to ultimate victimization.
Imagine the following situation: someone rushes into your house, pisses all over your floors, and breaks your furniture with a hammer. Would you forgive the nutjob who did this? I assume only after they paid for the full repair plus extra for the time they took from you and the stress they’ve caused.
But we don’t use the same logic for repairing the bearing walls of our psyche. In fact, we do the opposite. We force ourselves into going through a five-stage forgiving process because people say we should. Because we think it is what will help us to cope, to let go, to forget.
Here is the thing, though: if you have to force the forgiveness, you shouldn't force it.
It should come naturally as a result of your self-reflection and healing, plus the other person deserving it.
And the more we feel hurt, the more it should take to deserve our forgiveness. Proportional — this is how it should be for our brain to maintain its natural healthy boundaries. Unless deserved with blood and sweat, some things can’t and shouldn’t be forgiven for our own good.
Final Thoughts
Many of us have been taught the wrong things about forgiveness, boundaries, and self-love. Many of us are unconsciously guilt-tripped and virtue-motivated into being all-forgiving and understanding, convinced it’s what will bring us the inner peace and closure we seek.
But it is not true.
What will get us there is a deep reflection about what happened, why, and how to prevent it from happening again. It’s reframing the situation and looking for positives. It’s, in some cases, seeking therapy.
And for that, we don’t need to forgive the unforgivable, especially if we are not ready!
