Forgiveness, and what it is not

Forgiveness is recommended to people in difficult relationships with a confidence that the evidence partly supports and that is frequently misapplied.

What the research finds

Forgiveness in this literature is generally defined as a reduction in negative motivation toward someone who has caused harm — less desire for revenge, less avoidance — rather than as a positive feeling.

Measured this way, it is associated with better outcomes for the person forgiving: lower reported anger, better relationship satisfaction, and in some studies better health markers.

Intervention studies using structured forgiveness programmes have found improvements on these measures, with moderate effects.

The causal direction is not fully established, and a good deal of the work is correlational.

What it is not

The part that is more useful than the findings.

Not reconciliation. The research definition concerns internal state, not resumption of a relationship.

These are separable and are constantly conflated, which is how the concept is used to press people into returning to situations they left for good reasons.

Not condoning. Reduced anger toward someone does not entail a revised assessment of what they did.

Not forgetting. An accurate memory of what happened is compatible with reduced hostility about it, and is generally necessary for good judgement about the future.

Not an obligation. Nothing in the literature establishes a duty to forgive, and the framing of forgiveness as a moral requirement is imported from elsewhere.

Not a state that can be produced on request. Which is the practical problem with most attempts to encourage it.

The pressure problem

Worth stating directly.

People who have been harmed are frequently told to forgive, by third parties, in a way that serves the comfort of everyone else.

Premature forgiveness — declared rather than reached — has been associated in some research with worse outcomes, including continued distress and, where the relationship continues, repetition of the harm.

There is a body of work on what has been called the doormat effect: forgiveness in the absence of any change from the other person is associated with lower self-respect and continued mistreatment.

The same research finds that forgiveness following genuine amends does not have this effect, which suggests the other person's behaviour is a relevant variable rather than an irrelevant one.

What appears to help it develop

Where someone wants to and cannot.

A full and honest account from the other person. The most consistently identified facilitator.

Genuine amends, including changed behaviour rather than expressed remorse alone.

Understanding the context — not as excuse but as explanation, which reduces the sense of the act as arbitrary and personal.

Time. Which does not do it alone and is a precondition.

Expressing the anger first. Attempts to forgive that skip this generally do not hold.

The everyday version

Most of what a relationship requires is not forgiveness of serious harm but the routine letting go of minor grievances.

This is a different and more important process, and it works through a mechanism discussed elsewhere on this site: raising things early and specifically, so that they are resolved rather than stored.

Grievances that are addressed do not require forgiveness. Grievances that accumulate silently require a great deal of it, and eventually more than anyone can supply.

Which suggests that most of the practical work is upstream — in the complaining rather than the forgiving.

Where it is not appropriate

A limit worth stating.

Where harm is ongoing, forgiveness is not the relevant question. The relevant question is whether the situation continues.

Where a pattern is repeating, an apology accepted becomes part of the pattern rather than a resolution of it.

And where the harm was serious and the other person disputes it, forgiveness would require accepting a version of events that is not true, which is a considerable cost and not one anyone is obliged to pay.

General information about relationships, not psychological advice. Consult a qualified professional about your own circumstances.