December 9, 2011
Workshop on forgiveness
Speaker: ‘Love and trust are twin pillars’ in healthy relationships
Terry Hargrave talks with a member of the audience before beginning his evening workshop on “Families and Forgiveness: Healing Wounds in the Intergenerational Family.” (Message photo by Mary Ann Hughes) Click for a larger version.
By MARY ANN HUGHES (Message staff writer)
The Beatles were only half right when they sang the lyrics to “All You Need Is Love.”
In healthy relationships, people need to have love and trust.
That was the message that Terry Hargrave brought to southern Indiana last week during a two-day workshop entitled “Families and Forgiveness: Healing Wounds in the Intergenerational Family.”
Hargrave is a professor of marriage and family therapy at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, Calif.; he is also in practice at the Amarillo Family Institute, Inc. During his visit, he also gave a free evening lecture at the Catholic Center in Evansville. He told the audience there that people usually know “forgiveness is better than revenge,” and they know that “revenge leads to no good.” An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth means “everyone will be blind and toothless.”
When people don’t work out their issues “sourness tends to soak into all relationships around them, and it soaks in for generations.”
That’s why, he believes, forgiveness is so important.
But what exactly is it? Some say it’s letting go of anger, but that’s “not as easy as you think,” and it’s often not a one-time process.
In good relationships, there are two components: love and trust. Love tells us who we are. Trust tells us we are safe, and safety is a “big deal” in a relationship.
Hargrave said couples often say, “We don’t love each other anymore,” but he believes they really mean “we don’t trust each other any more.”
Relationships need to be fair in order to work. That means “what I give to my wife I can expect she will give back to me. When we live in a balanced way, we build up resources of trustworthiness. I give because I trust she will give the same thing to me.”
When one side gives and the other doesn’t, feelings of anger and resentment emerge on the part of the giver. And the ones who “don’t do squat?” They often have feelings of guilt and self-loathing. “They hate themselves. Often they lie and make excuses. They withdraw, or they become threatening.”
A relationship has to be open, he said, adding, “that’s why affairs are always so devastating.” He stressed, “Love and trust in families are the twin pillars. If you have both, then there is a good situation.”
When those two pillars are lacking in a relationship, the result is pain. And people often adopt coping behaviors. They blame others, or they shame themselves by saying “I’m not lovable.” They try to control everything yet never are “quite pleased,” or they “escape. They sleep too much, shop too much, work too much, watch TV too much, drink too much, drug too much or gamble too much.”
To begin the process of forgiveness, Hargrave said it’s important to “come to grips with who we are. We know we were violated, and we try to repair as much as possible. It’s a process of restoring love and trustworthiness.”
He offered a three-part solution which includes love, justice and power.
First, the person makes the decision to love the violator “even though you hurt me.”
Secondly, they question whether the violator “will do right by them in the future.” They need to ask if the person is sorry, and if the person has made changes in their life.
Hargrave emphasized that “any forgiveness worth its salt will result in changes in behavior on the victimizer’s part. It demands actions on the victimizer’s part.” And he warned against “forgiving people who are still dangerous.”
The third step in the forgiveness process is for the victim to “empower themselves to be able to protect themselves.”
It’s important for victims to “get wise to boundaries in relationships, and gird themselves with good boundaries so they are not manipulated.”
Hargrave noted that often after an affair, the offending spouse will say, “I confessed. I said I’m sorry.” They then expect their spouse to continue in the relationship, despite the new lack of trustworthiness. He suggests that there be a new effort to “show me you are trustworthy.
“After infidelity, trust [usually] is at zero. The couple has to work to have 20 percent. Then 40 percent. Then 60 percent. Then 80 percent.”
While we all have been violated and injured, Hargrave reminded the audience “we’ve also been careless and thoughtless. None of us is 100 percent trustworthy. We’ve let people down.
“There were times we haven’t given. There were times we haven’t been predictable. We are guilty also. We are human.”
He added, “The people who have victimized you are human. People aren’t monsters. They are people like you and me.”
We are each both victim and victimizer, and “that connects us in our humanness.”
He encouraged the audience to begin to make the efforts towards forgiveness “because any effort is worthwhile. It does make a difference in family relationships.”
The workshop was sponsored by Catholic Charities, Deaconess Cross Pointe, Samaritan Center, Southern Hills Counseling Center, Southwestern Behavioral Healthcare, Inc., and University of Southern Indiana Social Work Department.