Part 2 coming soon.
It even happens to happy living people that sometimes they do something stupid to hurt their loved ones. Usually, they regret it afterward and are willing to fix the damage. In ENM it is unbelievable how many hoes can be stepped on – overstepping boundaries, violating rules, sanctimony, not enough communication, too much redundant or inappropriate information, strong outbursts of emotional reactions, you name it. And all this is in addition to the usual and conventional faults in interpersonal relationships. Let’s have a look at apologizing, forgiving, and rebuilding trust from the perspective of the one, who is in the “wronged party’s” position.
I allow myself to take upon this topic because I know that I am one of those people who find it difficult to forgive. And I know very well what I want from others when I am in the position of the one being hurt, offended, or affected.
Other than “I wish this had never happened”, everything I want for the person who hurt me is to understand crystal clear what they did and how that made me feel. For me, this is the minimum prerequisite for further positive progress in our relationship, and sometimes even that alone is enough for me to forgive. This doesn’t sound like something very complicated or illogical, but it could be difficult for the other person to understand how I feel about an action of theirs and in what way exactly they hurt me.
What should we do when we want to be forgiven? First of all, we don’t deny that we’ve hurt the other person i.e., we try to avoid the defensive and explanatory mode. We don’t downplay the feelings of the other person, more specifically, we do not call their anger irritation, we do not characterize their sadness as decrepitude, and we don’t compare their insult to pouting. We don’t pretend that we don’t see in them the pile of hurt feelings that we may not fully understand, but at this moment they make us observe the other person’s reactions carefully and to step “on eggshells” around them.
We take responsibility for our behavior and the way it affects the other person – how they feel as a result.
We apologize specifically for what role we played in the situation without making excuses or trying to blame other people or circumstances.
In my opinion, the apology should be given verbally, and face to face. I wouldn’t count on an apology in the form of a gesture, gift, or some other token. I’m not against gestures, but there should be a clear, unambiguous discussion of the situation, saying the apology out loud. The gesture can be only a complement to the verbal apology.
We need to ask to be forgiven especially for that in which we have erred, and not for what we imagine the other person feels. In the past, I received a mere “sorry” and had to ask for what exactly. The answer I got was, for example, “Because you are offended”. I don’t want an apology for the fact that I am offended, but for the behavior that offended me. “I’m sorry because you’re offended” just screams that the person in front of me has no idea whatsoever what in their behavior has provoked me to feel offended and makes me doubt that they even care.
“Sorry because you are hurt/angry/sad” also makes me think that the other person just wants to submit their formal apology, so I can formally accept it, formally close this chapter, and move on with our formal and not completely open relations. This is by no means exaggerated, because an unspoken, not quite realized and not genuine apology leads only to sweeping such situations under the rug, to further sweeps and insincerity. Thus, we normalize future sweeps under the rug, we bring up a culture of non-disclosure. And when we collect too much dirt under our rug, we start tripping over it more and more. Not only the offering but accepting of such a formal apology leads to the same unpleasant sweeps under the rug and qualitative changes in a relationship between people who care about each other. As we accumulate dirt under the rug, not only do we start tripping over it more and more, but we also start to care less about each other. The formal apology, as well as the formal forgiveness, are a certain recipe for a gradual establishment of coldness and distance between the souls of people, regardless of them being lovers, friends, or relatives.
Admitting your mistakes can be difficult, but in case we’ve already decided to ask for forgiveness – we need to take it to the end and do it properly and to name our mistake specifically.
We don’t make excuses and don’t explain the circumstances under which we made the mistake for which we apologize. At least for the moment. Asking for forgiveness is not about us and our feelings or the circumstances around the mistake we committed. Our first goal is to provide the opportunity to the hurt-loved one at least to show their feelings. What we need to do in the first place is to reflect and accept the feelings of the person in front of us, so that they can feel our understanding and willingness to accept the consequences of our behavior. We need to give the other side the opportunity to express their negative feelings to the fullest and together to stay in them until they pass. If they pass. Not every deed deserves forgiveness, and we must act humbly with the fact that being forgiven is not a given, but a matter of assessment and choice.
Too many circumstances about why we’ve committed the mistake take the focus off the hurt person’s feelings and somehow blur them and prevent them from being fully felt so that they can pass eventually. This is why, in the most emotionally intensive moment we should not address other involved people of circumstances. There will be time and room for that, but at a later stage – when nobody is extremely angry, offended, or repulsed anymore in the situation.
In the past, I had a colleague who was the daughter of a military officer. When working with her, it was somehow apparent that she was raised by somebody working in the military – because of her brutal discipline and effectiveness, because of her constant diligence and lack of excuses when, in the end, she makes a mistake. All this made the whole team and myself to admire her. On one occasion when she made a mistake, for which she was really upset with herself, I tried to support her and to ask around what led to this situation. She answered that she prefers to not elaborate unnecessarily on the side factors that led to her mistake because her father – the military officer – has raised her that way. “Excuses are for the worthless”, she quoted him saying. She seemed to feel bad because I had to take the consequences of her mistake. This seemed to me both somewhat reasonable, but rather harsh, after all, we were in a work environment, where she was not solely responsible for everything in the work process. However, “Excuses are for the worthless” resonated in me strangely well, although it had a negative nuance.
Years later I started to understand why – the lack of excuses and shifting the blame to other people and circumstances just allow the focus to remain in the hurt feelings of the ”sufferer”. And focus is needed there, at least until the strongest feelings pass – that way we allow them to be recognized and ultimately expressed in the fullest. We owe this to our wounded person. That’s how we “compensate” them. By witnessing their feelings, we demonstrate maturity and taking responsibility for our deeds. We also provide an opportunity for trust to begin to build up again. If the person in front of us does not believe that we understand how they feel, I don’t think that there are a lot of reasons to believe in us for something that we promise for the future e.g. “I won’t do that again”. We may not be forgiven right away or at all, but if we are still going in the direction of forgiveness, we will notice it by the fact that we are allowed to become witnesses to the pain of the other person. In that sense, this is a privilege – I don’t think that a person who gave up on me and is not willing to ever forgive me would allow me around them, while they are emotional and vulnerable. For me in particular, the pain of a loved one can be even harder to bear than my personal one. To witness the negative effect of my actions on a loved one is an excruciating but sobering experience. It makes me realize the great trust that was given to me, how much I mean to this person, and the love I feel towards them. So, since I’m wrong, I will stay here, I will witness their feelings and I won’t bury my head in the sand.
We should note that a partner’s anger may be difficult to bear, but our focus should not necessarily be on their anger. We must enable ourselves to see through the anger to its two mothers – the sadness and the fear.
You can read more about rebuilding trust in Part 2.
The illustration is used with the permission of the author – Saoud Abdallah
Leave a Reply