Forgiveness vs. Reconciliation

Recently, someone informed me that forgiveness is about forgiving, forgetting, and making nice with the person who we feel has wronged us. To me, that's a tragically false belief that makes absolutely no sense in the case of repeated disrespect, cruelty, and/or abuse. No one - not me, not you, not anyone - should feel as though he or she is required to forgive, forget, and 'make nice' with an abuser or someone who habitually treats us poorly.

Trying to figure out how best to explain my thoughts on the legitimacy of forgiving, but not forgetting or 'making nice' with an individual we consider a wrongdoer, I found an article called Forgiveness vs Reconciliation. I harmonized with the logic expressed by Dr. Howe; In my opinion, forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves. It's not something that we necessarily need to broadcast or even express to a party we feel wronged us. And, most importantly, we need not reconcile in order to have fully forgiven an individual who has trespassed against us.

Unfortunately, forgiveness is mistakenly considered by some to be absolutely synonymous with reconciliation. These people make it clear that they do not believe you have truly forgiven and moved on unless you have 'made nice' with the individual who has wronged you. They often pressure us to approach the person who trespassed against us in order to prove our forgiveness is genuine.

When more than the wronged and wrongdoer are involved, you'll often meet with situations where the third party(ies) find it difficult to believe or outright deny that the wrongdoer has done such a thing, or that you are overreacting. They wish to maintain the 'status quo'. They may even argue that they know the wrongdoer to be a kind and decent individual. And that may be very true - in every other interaction the wrongdoer has besides their interactions with you. It's common for abusive personalities to seek out their prey carefully. That is why you hear so many comments along the line of "But he seemed so nice" or "She seemed so normal" after people are convicted of crimes. Someone only needs to rape one person to be termed a rapist. A person who has only murdered one individual is still a murderer.

It's particularly hard to manage forgiveness vs. reconciliation in family relationships, because they mean so much to us, and often have the additional complexity of involving more persons than a wronged and wrongdoer. I've had my share of experience with these situations, and after a while I discovered how to more easily maneuver the delicate territory that comes with family strife. I learned to step back and view the family member as a person. I would consider the harm or wrong I feel was committed, and ponder how I would react as though the wrongdoer were an individual entity with no intimate connection to me.

Forgiveness is important, but I'm very much in harmony with the fact that it does not mean we need to forget or reconcile with wrongdoers. I think it's important to do what we can to maintain relationships which are important to us, but not at the expense of our personal peace. When someone's cruelty, disrespect, or abuse continues no matter how you try to 'make nice', then decide if it's important enough for you to maintain the relationship. If not, forgive and make peace with moving on - whether you decide to reconcile or not.