Set Free by Forgiveness

There’s love, joy, connection, belonging, understanding, fun, intellectual stimulation, support, and lots of other wonderful benefits to be found within human relationships. There are also few things more painful than human relationships.

“My husband works in the family business,” says Rina. “When my father-in-law retired, he handed the business to both his sons. Unfortunately, my brother-in-law was very greedy. He managed to deceive and manipulate my husband and almost drove us to the point of bankruptcy. I couldn’t believe that a person would do that to his own brother.”

Betrayal is one of the deepest, most traumatic types of pain found in close, trusting relationships. Betrayal comes in many flavors and often includes aspects of abandonment, dishonesty, and manipulation — each of which leaves its own special scar. Betrayal of trust that occurs between parent and child — when a person neglects, abuses, or otherwise harms their child — also causes enduring and excruciating pain. Can victims of family betrayal ever truly forgive those who harmed them?

Betrayal is only one type of relationship pain. All human relationships have the potential to be hurtful in a variety of ways. Friends and relatives, for example, routinely let each other down and hurt each other’s feelings through words and deeds. They fail to call, to acknowledge, to protect, assist, or understand. They fail to share the burden or respect boundaries, they accuse falsely, and they malign. Neighbors, colleagues, business partners, and even strangers can act in ways that are insulting, disrespectful, uncaring, or even cruel. Of course, these are all just short lists of the harms that humans can perpetrate on each other. The question is, can we really forgive any of them for any of this?