When the word "forgiveness" is mentioned, alot of people get the "I need to forgive for my own good" vibe. While it's very okay to forgive someone who has hurt you, it is not okay to be forced to forgive or to force someone else to forgive you.
Unlike the popular opinion that a person needs to forgive for their own peace, forcing a person to forgive is actually more harmful to the person, forgiveness should only be given when the forgiver has processed their anger, hatred, hurt or betrayal rather than just because someone is forcing them to because of a quote by an anonymous person.
Forcing someone to forgive is ignoring the fact that it is okay to be upset when you are hurt, it ignores the fact that the hurt needs to be processed in order to get healing from the situation.
Forcing forgiveness is prejudice against the person who is hurt as it tends to dismiss their own individual feelings. People react to being hurt in different ways, for some people forgiveness takes hours, days, weeks, months, year or even forever, forcing them to dish out forgiveness automatically means neglecting their own emotions in order to fulfil other people's belief that forgiveness is key to healing even though it will be doing more harm when it's forced.
Forcing forgiveness also shames the victim, when you persistently preach forgiveness to a person who is hurt you make them feel like they are bad people for refusing to give out something they are not ready to give yet. Not forgiving when you are not ready to doesn't make you a bad person, it only means you acknowledge your own feelings enough to process them rather than faking.
When you force forgiveness on someone, you give the offender the power to guilt trip the victim. Imagine asking a person who has been sexually molested to forgive the person who molested her rather than punishing the offender? You turn the victim into the offender and vice versa, you take away the power of confrontation which would have made the victim heal.
Forgiveness doesn't always mean accepting a person back into your life, when you forgive someone you don't have to let them back into your world, depending on the level of hurt and your own feelings. In some cases, you can let go and start afresh while in other cases, it will only you available for more abuse in the future.
Your peace doesn't come from forgiving someone who hurt you, rather it comes from forgiving yourself and accepting the situation. You especially don't have to force yourself to forgive someone who is not remorseful about their actions, this only puts you in further trauma and affects your mental being.
While asking someone to forgive may be for good reasons, it is better to acknowledge their feelings, let them know they are entitled to their feelings and allow them to make the decision of forgiveness themselves as forced forgiveness is not forgiveness but rather, an avoidance of the process which can lead to real forgiveness.
Let yourself feel the pain, the anger and hurt, accept that it has nothing to do with you and rather it has everything to do with the person who hurt you, forgive yourself, only forgive them when you feel ready and it's okay to never feel ready
Forgiving someone is a different process each time. It can't be forced. Saying an apology just to feel better cancels the whole gesture and it can hurt the person even more.
The real apologies should not be given in expectancy of forgiveness, they should be offered when you genuinely understand how much pain you caused and when you understand you might not be forgiven after all.
Thank you for sharing!
Thank you @creativemary, I'm glad someone also understands this.
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Not sure what prompted this article, but love it! I always make my kids apologize, but first explain and ask if they understand why they hurt the other person (sister usually is the target) but never thought of it the way you put it.