How To Forgive Someone Who Hurt You Even When It Feels Impossible

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Whether your partner had an affair, your best friend betrayed you, or a family member mistreated you for years, figuring out how to forgive someone can seem like a herculean task. The most important thing to remember:

Forgiving someone is by no means a necessity—especially if the offender is someone who could still pose a threat to your well-being. But if you find that you are ready to let go and forgive, know that it comes with a slew of health benefits, experts say.

When you hold onto grudges, you trap yourself in a cycle of rumination, negative emotions, and stress, says Loren Toussaint, Ph.D., a forgiveness researcher and professor of psychology at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa…Story continues…

By: Cassie Shortsleeve

Source: How to Forgive Someone Who Hurt You, According to Psychologists

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The need to forgive is widely recognized, but people are often at a loss for ways to accomplish it. For example, in a large representative sampling of American people on various religious topics in 1988, the Gallup Organization found that 94% said it was important to forgive, but 85% said they needed some outside help to be able to forgive. However, not even regular prayer was found to be effective.

Akin to forgiveness is mercy, so even if a person is not able to complete the forgiveness process they can still show mercy, especially when so many wrongs are done out of weakness rather than malice. The Gallup poll revealed that the only thing that was effective was “meditative prayer“. 

Forgiveness as a tool has been extensively used in such areas as restorative justice programs, after the abolition of apartheid in the truth and reconciliation process, among victims and perpetrators of Rwandan genocide, in response to the violence in the Northern Ireland conflict.

This has been documented in the film Beyond Right and Wrong: Stories of Justice and Forgiveness (2012). Forgiveness is associated with the theory of emotion because it draws from a person’s emotional connection with the situation. Forgiveness is something that most people are taught to understand and practice at a young age.

The philosopher Joseph Butler (Fifteen Sermons) defined forgiveness as “overcoming of resentment, the overcoming of moral hatred, as a speech act, and as forbearance”.Forgiveness in marriage is important. When two people can forgive each other this contributes to a happy marriage. Forgiveness can help prevent problems from growing. 

In a 2005 study, researchers investigated whether forgiveness is important in a marriage. When does forgiveness usually accrue—before an argument or after an argument? Does forgiveness take a role when a person breaks a promise? etc. Researchers found six components that were related to forgiveness in marriage: satisfaction, ambivalence, conflict, attributions, empathy, and commitment. 

People in a relationship believe that forgiveness means you must forget what had happened. When couples forgive their spouses they sometimes need help from professionals to overcome their pain that might remain. Researchers described differences between how each individual perceives the situation based on who is in pain and who caused the pain.

The act and effects of forgiveness can vary depending on the relationship status between people. Whether you are married, friends, or acquaintances, the process of forgiving is similar but not completely the same. The researchers also came up with recommendations for practitioners and interventions to help married individuals communicate with each other, to resolve problems, and to forgive each other more easily.

 For example, people should explore and understand what forgiveness means before starting any intervention because preconceived ideas of forgiveness can cause problems with couples being open to forgive. For example, a person not forgiving their spouse out of fear that the spouse might think that they are weak can cause a conflict. In 2001, Charlotte van Oyen Witvliet asked people to think about someone who had hurt, wronged, or offended them.

As they thought to answer, she observed their reaction. She observed their blood pressure, heart rate, facial muscle tension, and sweat gland activity. Recalling the grudge increased the candidates’ blood pressure and heart rate, and they sweated more. The rumination was stressful, and unpleasant. When they adopted forgiveness, they showed no more of an anxiety reaction than normal wakefulness produces.

To be unapologetic is to refuse to apologize for or even recognize wrongdoings. “[T]he relationship between apologies and the adjectives ‘apologetic’ and ‘unapologetic’ is not quite so straightforward.”Choosing to forgive someone or not correlates with whether or not that person is truly sorry for their actions. Forgiving a person who does not seem remorseful for their actions can be difficult, but may loosen the grip the person has over you.

Intrusive thoughts can cause the person who wants to forgive to have feelings of low self-worth, and to endure a traumatic phase due to that person’s actions. Going through a negative experience can cause long term trauma. A person may benefit from letting go and accepting what has happened. Letting go does not erase what the person did, but forgiveness can lead to inner-peace from the lack of negative emotion within.

Despite the other person not apologizing sincerely, forgiving them may be the solution to problems and result in loving one’s self. Jean Hampton sees the decision to forgive the unrepentant wrongdoer as expressing a commitment “to see a wrongdoer in a new, more favorable light” as one who is not completely rotten or morally dead…

 “Articulating an Uncomprimising Forgiveness” (PDF). pp. 1–2. Retrieved 2020-01-18.

^ “What Is Forgiveness?”. University of California, Berkeley: The Greater Good Science Center. Archived from the original on 2013-11-14.

^ “Forgiving (Campaign for Forgiveness Research)”. 2006. Archived from the original on 2006-06-15. Retrieved 2006-06-19.

“Granting Forgiveness or Harboring Grudges: Implications for Emotions, Physiology and Health”. Psychological Science. 12 (12): 117–23. doi:10.1111/1467-9280.00320. PMID 11340919. S2CID 473643.