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Forgiving & Not Forgiving: A New Approach to Resolving Intimate Betrayal

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12 Step programs stress the necessity of making amends to all who have been harmed. Most of the practicioners of 12 Steps confuse amends -- repairing an injury -- with seeking forgiveness from the injured party -- "I've said I'm sorry, and now you have to forgive me!" The literature surrounding these 12 Step programs also tends to make the transgressor the injured party, by having the victim concentrate on what was his or her contribution to the injury, and then requiring the injured party to seek forgiveness from the transgressor, ignoring the injuries caused by the injuring party.

Safer cuts through this nonsense with a scapel, and reassures the injured parties that it may be necessary to withhold forgiveness in order for the intimate betrayal to heal. She skewers those who would offer "helpful advice" which consists of "forgive and forget" and its lemma, "Get on with your life."

Unfortunately, she relies upon a retrograde Catholic Priest, a former Lutheran minister, Richard Neuhaus, who gives his own warped interpretation of what the Christian doctrine of forgiveness is all about. Neuhaus says that anything less than absolute forgiveness is worthy of damnation. He has yet to forgive any of those who critique his own rigid theological inerrancies. Neuhaus states "It is morally imperative to forgive in all circumstances." Res ipsa loquitur.

Fortuunately, she is able to demolish this demonical straw boss of a Neuhaus, and the remainder of the book sings with joy, hope and freedom. True forgiveness looks at the betrayal, candidly weighs what is necessary to make the injured party whole, and acts accordingly. False forgiveness, doubles the injury without the necessary healing. Advising an other to forgive in order to relieve one's own conscience is the true evil, and for this Neuhaus is justly condemned. If I have not been injured, then how can I order an other to forgive? Total and unconditional forgiveness of an intimate betrayal does not come easy. When it is possible, the rewards are plentiful. Been there, done that! But a forgiveness that is incomplete beats hatred of self, and revenge towards others. And few have the fortitude of Job. And those of us that are yet unable to completely, totally, and without reservation, forgive the betrayer, may not be saints, but we are not the sinner who betrayed us.

Safer's life journey is not complete, yet she offers us a ride as she moves to a better place.

Safer gives an adult view of how to deal with friends and family members who do us wrong. It's adult because she doesn't leap to the conclusion that we must forgive everyone for every thing. Besides theory, she gives fifty stories of betrayal, many of them wrenching. My favorite: the jailed contract killer who had to forgive himself. No psychobabble, no preaching, no quick twelve-step fixes.

As a yoga and meditation teacher, I'm beginning to get tired of the spiritually correct New Age dictum on mandatory forgiveness. So, when a friend sent me Jeanne Safer's book, Forgiving and Not Forgiving, I found it very refreshing. It reads like a blueprint to help us navigate through the myriad feelings that come with the process of resolving a betrayal that may result in some form of genuine forgiveness -- or an equally genuine, defanged non-forgiveness.

Every Yom Kippor, I lead a forgiveness meditation at my synagogue. I usually precede it with some comments on forgiveness and on meditation. After reading this book, I plan to add another dimension -- a meditation on NOT forgiving.