Forgiveness

I've been talking with a couple of friends recently about infidelity. Across my conversations with both of them, the thing that echoed in the back of my mind was the matter of forgiveness. More specifically, I have been thinking about the fact that forgiveness central to the restoration of trust which is the foundation on which the relationship going forward will be built.

The question, then, is: how do we come to forgiveness?

In the course of writing my dissertation, I came across a chapter written by Tedeschi and Nesler (1993) that talked about how people work through being on the wrong end of someone else's bad behavior. Their model had a couple of additions, but the essence of what they argued was this:

• First, a betrayal is committed (after all, without a betrayal, there is no need for forgiveness)
• Second, a responsible party is identified as having committed the betrayal
• Third, the responsible party accepts ownership for commission of the betrayal
• Fourth, the responsible party makes some reparation for the betrayal
• Finally, the person who was betrayed moves toward forgiveness

So in plain English: someone does something wrong to someone else. The person who did wrong has to own what s/he did wrong and attempt to make up for the wrong-doing in a way that is roughly proportional to the original betrayal.

What I love about this model is that it expects that the person who committed the wrong-doing to take responsibility for him/herself and try to fix it. Now, seeing as we can't get into a DeLorean and go back in time to the moment just before we made a wrong choice, what can we do (or avoid) to take responsibility for a major betrayal we have committed against someone we love?

I've got some thoughts on that: 

1. Apologize. For heaven's sake, apologize. And not one of these perfunctory, I'm-apologizing-because-it's-the-socially-appropriate-thing-to-do-but-I'm-not-really-sorry-and-I'll-likely-do-it-again apologies. No. Like a legit statement of recognition of wrong doing and a sincere display of remorse for what you've done and the hurt the other person is feeling because of it.

2. Don't confess unless you expect the relationship to end. Okay, so now we get into some ethical gray area about whether a betrayal that your partner wouldn't know about unless you confessed it should be confessed at all. I am not prepared to get that dirty right now. What I am prepared to say, though, is that if you know you violated a major relational rule, you should should expect there to be negative consequences. One of these consequences may very well be a loss of the relationship. If your partner doesn't want to be with you as a result of your betrayal, you have to deal with that as a foreseeable outcome of your actions. What you don't get to do is accuse your partner of being crazy, irrational, unreasonable, unfair, blah blah blah if that's what s/he decides is necessary and/or appropriate.

3. Don't give more information than you're asked for. One of my rules for existing as a human being is to never ask a question that you don't want to know the honest answer to. I would amend that rule to say that if a person tells you that they don't want to know, then don't tell them. You have to understand that you just confessed to a major betrayal. That is a lot to deal with unto itself without a barrage of information coming at your partner that they aren't even sure they want to know. What's more, is that chances are that you're being ultra-disclosive for one of two reasons: either you are trying to unburden your conscience or you're trying to get your partner to break up with you. Neither helping you feel less guilty nor giving you a way out of initiating a break up conversation is your partner's responsibility in this situation.

4. Don't berate, belittle, or insult yourself. Yes, you probably feel like a big pile of poo if you genuinely feel remorse for your betrayal and if you really do want to mend your relationship. And you might really, truly honestly feel like you have nothing to say except to call yourself names. I'm telling you, though, find something else to say. If you insult yourself you're trying to beat your partner to the punch - if you call yourself a(n) [insert your favorite ugly insult here], your partner has no reason to also call you a(n) [see previous insult]. This may seem like a harmless self-protective thing to do, but it's a problem because your partner, if s/he loves you, will feel the need to reassure you that you aren't whatever insult you've called yourself. Let me put that differently: you (the betrayer) are asking your partner (whom you have just confessed to betraying) to console and comfort you in response to your well-deserved guilt. That's an awfully manipulative thing for you to be doing if you've just confessed to a major relational violation. 

5.  Don't ask your partner how they want your betrayal made up to him/her. Like alleviating your guilt, or ending the relationship you didn't want, this puts work and responsibility on your partner for repairing something s/he didn't break. You should be thinking to yourself "how can I prove I love him/her?" and then go do it. I'd like to point out that buying flowers or candy or funding shopping sprees or bringing home puppies are not expressions of love. On a good day, they are gestures of affection. If they come following a betrayal, they are small and trite and comically insignificant as compared to a major betrayal. You may have to prove your love by being willing to give something up in order to invest more in your relationship.

As is always the case, this list isn't by any means exhaustive. It is, however, a compilation of some of the major missteps I've witnessed people making in the course of confessing betrayals to their loved ones.

In the end, you can avoid all of this by really truly trying, every day of your life, not to suck. 
 

References

Tedeschi, J. T., & Nesler, M. S. (1993). Grievances: Development and reactions. Aggression and Violence: Social Interactionist Perspectives. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

Lesson 4: "I'm Sorry" is Not a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Card

The topic of our last lesson was the fact that a fight and a conflict are not the same thing. We haven't talked yet about effective, collaborative conflict management strategies, and we will come to that. Before we approach some conflict management strategies, though, I think it is important to talk about apologies. Regardless of whether you work hard at managing your conflicts well, and regardless of whether you can separate a conflict from a fight, it is reasonable to expect that occasionally we will need to give or accept an apology in a relationship.

If you're a fan of the drama show NCIS, you'll know that the quiet-but-effective protagonist, Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, has a set of rules. Among them (number 6, I think it is) is that a person should never apologize as it is a sign of weakness. In general, I think Gibbs' rules are a good idea - always carry a knife (Rule 9), never date a co-worker (Rule 12), never screw over your partner (Rule 1). These are bits of wisdom and good advice for life. The business of never apologizing, on the other hand. Well that's a whole bunch of nonsense and I'll tell you why.

An apology is not a sign of weakness. Rather, when it is sincerely given, it is an acknowledgement of responsibility for some betrayal or other wrong-doing for which another person had to bear negative consequences. Without going into a whole lot of research, we do know that the acceptance of responsibility for wrong-doing serves important relationship functions including restoring equity after a transgression has been committed, and enabling forgiveness. So, Gibbs is way wrong when he says that apology is a sign of weakness. Rather, an apology  is an overt recognition and ownership of actions that we have taken that have harmed people we care about.

Now, here's the tricky part: an apology isn't a cure-all. An apology is not just a couple of little words that can smooth over the negative consequences of a wrong relational turn. An apology really only has any hope of moving two people past a betrayal if it is a legitimate sign that we are willing to accept responsibility for our negative actions and committed to trying to avoid the same wrong-doing in the future. We often make the mistake of translating our own apologies to other people as "I'm sorry that I did something that upset you and that we got into a fight over it." Rather, the more appropriate translation of our apologies should be "I'm sorry that I made a choice that caused you hurt. I accept responsibility for my actions and I commit to us both to try my best to avoid repeating the hurtful act."

If you find yourself (or your partner) repeatedly apologizing for the same hurtful action we must confront at least one of three likely realities:

1. You (or your partner) fail to realize that there was really, truly hurt on the other end of an action.

2. You (or your partner) fail to realize that the apology is a sign of ownership and acceptance of personal responsibility. You also probably fail to realize that accepting responsibility for a wrong-doing necessitates an attempt to modify the problematic behavior.

3. You (or your partner) realize that you did something to cause hurt and that you should change hurtful actions, but you just don't care. This can be the consequence of laziness, selfishness, or relational disinvestment. The particulars of why you don't care about the consequences of your actions are less important than the fact that this attitude has almost no hope of resulting in anything except the continuation of a pattern of wrong-doing.

If your situation is either 1 or 2 above, you have some hope for remedying repeated hurt. You can talk to your partner about what an apology really means. You can talk about why the action is hurtful or otherwise negative. You can talk about possible alternatives to the problematic action that can meet your needs without hurting your partner. There is talking to be done, but there is a lot of potential here to move past a repeated conflict.

On the other hand, if scenario 3 above is more what you're looking at, it might be time to revisit whether or not the relationship is something that you should be bound to. I do believe in talking, productive conflict and relational work, but if you need to be convinced to do right by a partner, you probably have some work to do for yourself first before you try to bind yourself to someone else. (If your partner is the transgressor, you might want to revisit an earlier post here at Relationship School about knowing when to toss in the towel).

Here's the long story short: It is important to exchange apologies in a relationship. Being able and willing to honestly say to a partner that you have committed a wrong-doing can help us move past the hurtful action and into a place where we have learned and grown together as people and as partners. Apologies are not cure-alls, they aren't instant fixes, and they don't take the place of working to be better for the people we love. Don't apologize if you don't mean it - that action cheapens an apology and causes it to lose their tremendous relational value that we often take for granted. 

Class dismissed.