Forgiveness is a return to a state of inner peace after one has perceived a wrong done against him/her. When we forgive another person who has wronged us, we no longer feel negative emotions towards that person. We are no longer upset about what he/she has done to us. We have accepted what has happened, and we are ready to move on.
When we forgive somebody, it does not necessarily mean we continue to have a relationship with the person. Sometimes someone’s bad deed is a representation of his/her true character. In other words, the bad deed may indicate something about the person’s true character that we did not know before. This new information about the person’s true character may give us reason to permanently terminate our relationship with this person.
What forgiveness also does not mean is ceasing to recognize the other person’s actions as wrong. As long as the other person’s actions are wrong, you should always recognize those actions as wrong no matter how long ago those actions took place. Time does not make a wrong less wrong. What time can do is heal. While you should always recognize the wrongdoing as wrong, you still can emotionally heal, stop feeling angry and resentful, and return to a state of inner peace.
Sometimes the other person we are forgiving does not feel remorse for the bad deed that he/she has done. Not only may there be no remorse, but also he/she may have tendencies to repeat the same destructive behavior. In such a context, there would be reason to set boundaries that are necessary to prevent us from continuing incur harm. Setting boundaries that were not there before does not mean you are being unforgiving.
Let us say you have a family friend babysitting your children, and then you find out that the family friend sexually molested them. Such a heinous act would give one good reason to be shocked and quite upset, but it is forgivable. In other words, it is possible to return to a state of inner peace about what happened and move on. What forgiveness does not involve is forgetting what happened, and then letting the person babysit your children again. One could say it would be wrong to remain in a relationship with this person at all. You also would still press charges and have the person arrested and prosecuted.
The Evildoer’s Definition of Forgiveness
An evildoer may define forgiveness as water under the bridge, forget it ever happened, and continue having the same relationship with the other person as you had before. This definition of forgiveness does not consider whether the person, who has wronged you, has tendencies to continue repeating the same destructive behaviors in the future.
Forgiveness in its true form is more for the sake of the one doing the forgiving than for the one being forgiven. However, the evildoer may pervert the definition of forgiveness so that it now benefits the one being forgiven, and leaves the one doing the forgiving vulnerable to being harmed again. Indeed, the evildoer’s definition of forgiveness more closely resembles the definition of tolerance. Evildoers want us to tolerate their destructive behaviors; and when we refuse to tolerate their behaviors by dissociating from them, we may be called “unforgiving” even though we may have returned to an inner peace about what happened.
The definition of forgiveness can have different meanings in different contexts. In a legal context, forgiveness refers to exemption from punishment for an offense. In some contexts, someone may be called “forgiving” when he/she decides to be friends with people whom other people would not be friends with. These different contexts can cause confusion regarding what forgiveness is.
No matter how we define forgiveness, certain relationships are meant to be terminated.
Forgiveness in Television
Television most often features the evildoer’s definition of forgiveness, which involves making up, forgetting what happened, and continuing the relationship with the perpetrator as if nothing happened, no matter how heinous the wrong that was done. In his article Why TV friendships are unrealistic – people forgive each other, Dan Barrett brings up logistical issues that would occur if characters in sitcoms terminated relationships that in real life should be terminated.
If indeed a relationship is terminated or changed between two characters in a sitcom, ratings could go down, some viewers may stop watching and all successive episodes would need to be modified to accommodate this change in the status quo. Producers will probably find it to be simpler and safer to just have the characters make up and continue their relationship exactly as it was before so that writers do not have to take into account a change in, or termination of, a relationship between two characters when writing new episodes.
Even if the dispute between two characters lasts a long time, viewers would find it difficult to watch, and ratings could go down. Therefore, to keep ratings up, not only do characters need to make up, but also they need to make up quickly. This, however, creates an unrealistic environment where humans’ negative emotional responses to a terrible wrong done against them is short-lived and quickly forgotten.
In her article on 20 Things Wrong with Friends, Sara Sanderson discusses a number of reasons that nobody in his/her right mind would be friends with some of the characters on the popular 1990s hit series Friends. She asks “How many times were the so-called friends in Friends the exact opposite of a friend?” For example, Rachel sabotages the love lives of her friends just so that she can benefit her own. Ross is prone to treating women badly, which would give women reasons to not want to be his friend, or girlfriend. Furthermore, when the laugh track is removed, Ross sounds like a psychopath, as shown in multiple videos posted on youtube. Chandler uses and mistreats Janice despite how nice of a person Janice is. Phoebe is unreliable and sabotaging.
Friends, like many sitcoms and movies, shows destructive behaviors being tolerated among friends that nobody in his/her right mind would tolerate in a friend. Yet when someone terminates a friendship with such a person, he/she is, according to the land of television, “unforgiving.” But regardless of what the definition of forgiveness may be in different circles of people, people should not be allowing themselves to be treated badly by someone who is choosing to behave that way out of his/her own free will. People can modify their behaviors, but they often will not stop behaving in a destructive way unless other people say something and/or burn bridges with them.
Summary
By continuing a relationship with a toxic person, you are not only hurting yourself, but you are also potentially hurting others. The reason is that you are sending a message to the other person that his/her behavior is okay when it is not, and he/she will be encouraged to continue hurting not only you, but also others.
Wow, this is well written. I have a few thoughts about forgiveness, although they go in a somewhat different direction from this article.
As you mentioned, forgiveness is not about amnesia, but a change in perspective. I think of my father, who was not as emotionally available in my teenage years as I would have liked, but he tried. (He died suddenly when I was 22.) For years, I held resentment about that. My moment of clarity, and forgiveness, came when I began to look at all the good he did for the family and for me (providing financially, teaching and encouraging me to know the Lord, etc.). I now see him in a whole new light. Yes, he had his faults. Yes, he didn’t always connect with me in the exact ways I needed, but I now see that he DID connect in the ways that he knew how, and he did that very well. What a great father I had.
Your blog is a great resource for anyone curious in learning about a variety of subjects. Thanks for all that you do.