Може ли се опростити мајци која нас није волела?

The question of forgiveness in a situation where you have been severely offended or betrayed is a very difficult topic. Especially when it comes to a mother, whose main duty is to love and care. And that’s where she let you down. The consequences will remain with you for life, will be felt not only in childhood, but also in adulthood.

The poet Alexander Pope wrote: «To err is human, to forgive is god.» It is a cultural cliché that the ability to forgive, especially a severely traumatizing offense or abuse, is usually taken as a marker of moral or spiritual evolution. The authority of this interpretation is supported by the Judeo-Christian tradition, for example, it is manifested in the prayer «Our Father».

It is important to see and recognize such cultural biases, because an unloved daughter will feel compelled to forgive her mother. Psychological pressure can be exerted by close friends, acquaintances, relatives, complete strangers, and even therapists. In addition, the need to appear morally better than one’s own mother plays a role.

But if we can agree that forgiveness is right from the point of view of morality, then the essence of the concept itself raises many questions. Does forgiveness erase all the bad things that a person has done, does it forgive him? Or is there another mechanism? Who needs it more: the forgiver or the forgiver? Is this a way to release anger? Does forgiveness provide more benefits than vindictiveness? Or turns us into weaklings and conniving? We have been trying to answer these questions for years.

The psychology of forgiveness

In the early days of history, humans were more likely to survive in groups rather than alone or in pairs, so in theory, forgiveness became a mechanism for prosocial behavior. Revenge not only separates you from the offender and his allies, but it can also go against the general interests of the group. A recent article by University of North Carolina psychologist Janie L. Burnett and colleagues hypothesize that forgiveness as a strategy is needed to calculate the risks of revenge versus the possible benefits of further cooperation.

Something like this: a younger guy captured your girlfriend, but you understand that he is one of the strongest people in the tribe and his strength will be very needed during the flood period. What will you do? Will you take revenge so that others are disrespectful, or will you take into account the possibility of future joint work and forgive him? A series of experiments among college students showed that the idea of ​​forgiveness has a strong influence on risk management in relationships.

Other research shows that certain personality traits make people more forgiving. Or, more accurately, more likely to believe that forgiveness is a useful and expedient strategy in situations where they have been treated unfairly. Evolutionary psychologist Michael McCullough writes in his article that people who know how to benefit from relationships are more likely to forgive. The same applies to emotionally stable people, religious, deeply religious.

Forgiveness includes several psychological processes: empathy for the offender, a certain credit of trust in him and the ability not to return again and again to what the offender did. The article does not mention attachment, but you can see that when we talk about anxious attachment (it manifests itself if a person did not have the necessary emotional support in childhood), the victim is unlikely to be able to overcome all these steps.

The meta-analytical approach suggests that there is a connection between self-control and the ability to forgive. The desire for revenge is more «primitive», and a constructive approach is a sign of stronger self-control. Frankly, it sounds like another cultural bias.

The Porcupine Kiss and Other Insights

Frank Fincham, an expert on forgiveness, offers the image of two kissing porcupines as an emblem of the paradoxes of human relationships. Imagine: on a frosty night, these two huddle together to keep warm, enjoy intimacy. And suddenly the thorn of one digs into the skin of the other. Ouch! Humans are social creatures, so we become vulnerable to «oops» moments while seeking intimacy. Fincham neatly dissects what forgiveness is, and this dissection is worth noting.

Forgiveness does not mean going into denial or pretending that there was no offense. In fact, forgiveness confirms the fact of resentment, because otherwise it would not be required. In addition, hurting is confirmed as a conscious act: again, unconscious actions do not require forgiveness. For example, when a neighbor’s tree branch shatters your car’s windshield, you don’t have to forgive anyone. But when your neighbor takes a branch and breaks the glass out of anger, everything is different.

For Fincham, forgiveness does not imply reconciliation or reunification. Although you have to forgive to make up, you can forgive someone and still want nothing to do with them. Finally, and most importantly, forgiveness is not a single act, it is a process. It is necessary to cope with negative emotions (the consequences of the offender’s actions) and replace the impulse to hit back with goodwill. This requires a lot of emotional and cognitive work, so the statement «I’m trying to forgive you» is absolutely true and has a lot of meaning.

Does forgiveness always work?

From your own experience or from anecdotes, you already know the answer to the question of whether forgiveness always works: in short, no, not always. Let’s look at a study that analyzes the negative aspects of this process. The article, entitled «The Doormat Effect,» is a cautionary tale for daughters who expect to forgive their mothers and continue their relationship with them.

Much of the research focuses on the benefits of forgiveness, so the work of social psychologists Laura Lucic, Elie Finkel, and their colleagues looks like a black sheep. They found that forgiveness only works under certain conditions—namely, when the offender has repented and tried to change his behavior.

If this happens, nothing threatens the self-esteem and self-respect of the forgiver. But if the offender continues to behave as usual, or even worse — perceives forgiveness as a new excuse for breaching trust, this will, of course, undermine the self-esteem of a person who will feel deceived and used. While the body of the study recommends forgiveness almost as a panacea, it also includes this paragraph: “The reactions of victims and offenders have a big impact on the post-abuse situation.”

The victim’s self-respect and self-esteem are determined not only by the decision to forgive the offender or not, but also by whether the offender’s actions will signal safety for the victim, her significance.

If your mother hasn’t put her cards on the table, openly admitting how she treated you and promising to work with you to change, your forgiveness may be just a way for her to consider you a comfortable doormat again.

Dance of Denial

Doctors and researchers agree that forgiving offenders is the foundation of the ability to build close relationships, especially marital ones. But with some reservations. Relationships should be equal, without an imbalance of power, when both partners are equally interested in this connection and put equal efforts into it. The relationship between a mother and an unloved child is by definition not equal, even when the child grows up. He still needs maternal love and support, which he did not receive.

The desire to forgive can become an obstacle to real healing — the daughter will begin to underestimate her own suffering and engage in self-deception. This can be called a “dance of denial”: the actions and words of the mother are logically explained and fit into a certain version of the norm. «She doesn’t understand what hurts me.» «Her own childhood was unhappy and she just doesn’t know how it could be otherwise.» “Perhaps she is right and I really take everything too personally.”

The ability to forgive is perceived as a sign of moral superiority, which distinguishes us from a host of vindictive offended. Therefore, it may seem to the daughter that if she reaches this mark, she will finally receive the most desirable thing in the world: the love of her mother.

Perhaps the discussion should not be about whether you will forgive your mother, but about when and for what reason you will do it.

Forgiveness after a breakup

“Forgiveness comes with healing, and healing begins with honesty and self-love. By forgiveness, I don’t mean “It’s okay, I understand, you just made a mistake, you are not evil.” We give out such “ordinary” forgiveness every day, because people are not perfect and tend to make mistakes.

But I’m talking about a different kind of forgiveness. Like this: “I really understand what you did, it was terrible and unacceptable, it left a scar on me for life. But I move forward, the scar heals, and I no longer hold on to you. That is the kind of forgiveness I seek as I heal from trauma. However, forgiveness is not the main goal. The main goal is healing. Forgiveness is the result of healing.»

Many unloved daughters consider forgiveness the last step on the road to liberation. They seem to focus less on forgiving their mothers than on cutting ties with them. Emotionally, you are still involved in a relationship if you continue to feel anger: to worry about how cruel your mother treated you, how unfair it is that she turned out to be your mother in the first place. In this case, forgiveness becomes a complete and irreversible break in communication.

But one daughter did describe the difference between forgiveness and disconnection:

“I will not turn the other cheek and extend an olive branch (never again). The closest thing to forgiveness for me is to be free from this story in some Buddhist sense. The constant chewing on this topic poisons the brain, and when I catch myself thinking about it, I try to focus on the present moment. I concentrate on my breath. Again, and again, and again. As many times as needed. Depression — thinking about the past, anxiety about the future. The solution is to be aware that you are living for today. Compassion also stops the whole poisoning process, so I reflect on what made my mother like this. But it’s all for my own brain. Forgiveness? Not».

The decision to forgive your mother is a difficult one, and it mostly depends on your motivation and intentions.

I am often asked if I have forgiven my own mother. No, I didn’t. For me, deliberate cruelty to children is unforgivable, and she is clearly guilty of this. But if one of the components of forgiveness is the ability to free yourself, then this is a completely different matter. In truth, I never think about my mother unless I write about her. In a sense, this is the real liberation.