10 Reasons People Find it Hard to Forgive Others, According to Psychology

The bitter feelings of resentment towards those who wronged us plague our minds from time to time. “Is holding onto these feelings right?”, “Will I ever be able to forget and feel right again?” These questions haunt many almost every day.

Humans inevitably make mistakes that affect not just themselves but also others

This statement leans towards assuming that all pain caused by others is accidental and unconscious. However, this is often an overgeneralised statement considering that not all the hurt we receive is unintentional. Many times, they are deliberate conscious actions intended to hurt others. Accidental or not, it doesn’t change the fact that it hurt us and left us wounded and vulnerable.

It is natural to feel upset and hurt when others wrong us. This feeling is instinctual and often necessary to survive. Negative emotions are linked to our bodies’ stress mechanisms that ensure we are safe from any potential threat. There is nothing wrong with feeling bitter towards people who betrayed our trust it would be weirder if you were happy about being betrayed. Imagine a person getting murdered and saying thanks to their murderer. Weird, right? Yet clinging to these emotions until your final breath is not exactly the solution either. If holding onto resentment isn’t the solution, then what is the first step towards healing ourselves from such hurt? The answer would be forgiveness. 

What Is Forgiveness? 

Forgiveness is the act of voluntarily letting go of hostility and resentment towards those who have hurt or wronged you. It involves transforming your attitude towards your wrongdoers’ actions to get back your ability to feel compassionate or generous again (American Psychological Association., n.d.). Forgiveness doesn’t mean that you have to forget what happened and reconcile with the person who hurt you. Instead, forgiveness helps a person move on from the trauma to live a fulfilling life beyond the injustice that happened to them. Not only does it guard you against stressors, but it also helps cultivate a positive mindset and enhance mood. Despite its long list of benefits, there are always exceptions. When it comes to situations like abuse, it can be more beneficial for the victim to allow themselves to not forgive their abuser. 

Read More: Impact of Parental Abuse on Child Development

Benefits Of Forgiveness: 

Forgiving someone is not a walk in a park. It is so much more than just accepting an apology or normally talking to the person who hurt you. It requires you to accept what has happened and find peace with it. Letting go of resentment can be extremely hard, especially since it’s much easier to keep blaming the person for your current emotions. Yes, undoubtedly the person is the reason you are in pain, but do not let them be the reason for your suffering. As hard as it might seem to think about forgiving someone, truly forgiving someone can be liberating.

Holding onto resentment can make you feel stuck as if you are bound by the chains of what happened to you. Without breaking these chains, you cannot move on with your life. Research suggests that forgiveness is good for not just mental but also physical health. Many studies and experiments have concluded that forgiveness is linked to lower stress levels, especially in older adults. Holding onto grudges can also negatively affect immune systems as it disrupts the production of important hormones (Worthington, 2004). So forgiveness is both metaphorically and practically good for your heart. 

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It takes commitment and dedication from both individuals to maintain a healthy relationship. Forgiveness is the key to a long-lasting and healthy relationship. This stands truer for marriages. Research suggests that if a couple regularly invests in their relationships, then they are more likely to employ strategies like forgiveness, which contribute to higher marriage satisfaction. Forgiveness also reduces bitterness towards coworkers in the workplace, helping individuals focus more on achieving their goals instead of making pointless comparisons with others.

Read More: 10 Habits of Highly Focused Individuals, According to Psychology

Forgiveness has countless benefits in all areas of life, as it gives you the courage to let go of your past. However, it is also important to keep in mind that while forgiveness is the best-case scenario; it is completely up to the individual to decide if they are ready to forgive yet. 

How to Cultivate Forgiveness:

Unfortunately, forgiving someone is easier said than done, when just a thought related to that person or situation evokes unbridled anger. While it’s hard, you can train yourself to become a more forgiving person. Let’s delve into effective strategies for cultivating forgiveness: 

1. Allow Yourself To Grieve:

Grieving is not always unhealthy. While grieving for too long has an extensive set of disadvantages, it allows a person to process their emotions. Forgiveness is a slow but meaningful process. Imagine one of your friends ghosted you for no reason — painful, right? You might be feeling a mix of overwhelming emotions such as sadness, betrayal, and even random pangs of heartache. Now, imagine yourself venting this out and crying about this to another friend that you trust.

Read More: Ghosting and Dark Psychology

Just imagining this made you feel slightly better, right? After this mini catharsis session, the cogs in your brain may get back to work and lead to thoughts, such as “Maybe she had her reasons” or “holding a grudge won’t change anything”. This is because you allow yourself to process and sort out emotions and learn who holding a grudge affects. 

Gratitude helps us focus on what we have more than not. It shifts the focus from what hurts us to what makes us happy. When we open the door to gratitude practice, our attention shifts from the pain and hurt of betrayal to the joys in our lives. This allows individuals to let go of grudges and give way to forgiveness (Laurence, 2023). 

3. Reflect On How Not Forgiving Is Impacting Your Life:

Chances are not forgiving is impacting your life more than you think. Reflect on how resentment is affecting your well-being. Is the person who hurt you feeling similar frustration? Most probably not. While it depends from person to person, the individual that is the cause of your pain may already have moved on with their life, leaving you stuck behind. It is a hard pill to swallow, but by not forgiving you might not find the power to move on from your past, letting resentment prevent you from living your best life. 

4. Give an Altruistic Gift:

This does not mean that you should go buy a present and give it to the person who hurt you. Instead, consider forgiveness as a gift to give to yourself and others who hurt you (Ferguson, 2022). Compassion goes a long way. By choosing to be the bigger person and gifting forgiveness within boundaries, you are not only giving a gift to others but also a gift of peace to yourself.

Read More: Altruism: Motivations Behind Kindness and Helping Behavior

Why Do People Find It Hard To Forgive?

Why is it that, despite its benefits, only a few people choose to forgive? Psychologists have researched this question for years. Here are ten factors that hold people back from moving on:

1. The Curse Of Language:

Language makes and breaks humans. Human beings were blessed with the ability to learn languages and speak. However, this blessing is also a curse at times. Our tendency to focus on everything but the present holds us back. It is really hard to forgive if all we can think about are the words that hurt us. Human beings use language not just to communicate but also to freely navigate through their memories.

We are both blessed and cursed with the power of breaking or making people. We tend to remember negative words more than positive ones, We can’t help but ruminate on hurtful words. They haunt a person more than any ghost or monster. Holding onto such words makes it impossible for a person to stop thinking about it, let alone forgive (Heile, 2013). 

2. Fear Of Getting Hurt Again:

It’s painful, even torturous seeing people who you would give up the world for stabbing you in the back. Perhaps some here might be able to recall the pain of overhearing your loved ones, saying horrible things behind your back. How could you not be terrified of going through that again? “It’s better to just avoid everything till it goes away”. It’s natural to feel this way. However, this feeling never goes away. Instead, it gets a stronger grip on you until forgiveness is not a word you remember anymore. 

3. Craving Revenge:

“They deserve the same hurt as me”. It’s a thought that is hard to ignore. After all, they hurt you first, no? We try to justify holding onto grudges, and how it’s fair for the person who hurt us to get hurt themselves. While in hindsight, this sounds like a fair deal, we often forget that then it will make us no different from them. Imagine a person who hurt you and then visualize getting revenge on them.

Did it feel satisfying? It did not right? The sense of satisfaction lasts for just a second before it is replaced by guilt for your impulsive actions. You got your revenge now what? Now not only were you hurt, but you also stooped down to their level and did what traumatized you in the past. A person who craves revenge can never forgive and move on, even after they get their revenge (Lopez, 2021). 

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4. The Person did not acknowledge their Fault:

It can be hard to forgive someone who didn’t apologize in the first place. It’s important to remember that forgiving someone isn’t about them, but rather about healing yourself. Forgiving someone who has already apologized is challenging enough, let alone trying to forgive someone who insists they did nothing wrong. A good example would be abusive parents.

Most of the time, children are not even able to forgive parents who realized their mistakes and apologized, let alone parents who believe they were not wrong. Forgiving someone who believes that they aren’t wrong can trigger the sufferer even more, making it near impossible for the hurt individual to find a place in their heart to forgive. 

5. Belief That Forgiveness Equals Accepting Their Actions:

A common misconception about forgiveness is that it involves accepting someone’s actions as right. Forgiveness’s main purpose is not really about the act itself. It’s more about not allowing someone’s wrongdoings to prevent you from living your fullest life. Forgiveness does not mean that the person’s actions are acceptable or correct. Instead, forgiveness is the process of letting go of resentment to move on with your life. 

6. The Wound Is Still Fresh:

Most people are eventually able to move on without putting in any extra effort. As time passes, most people accept that their resentment is holding them back. However, the same cannot be said about fresh wounds. When the hurt and betrayal are still fresh, raw forgiveness does not feel like an option. The first step to forgiving someone is accepting that you are hurt followed by processing these emotions. However, this can be a hard thing to do when you just get stabbed. Even physical wounds take time to heal, let alone mental ones. If the memory of hurt is still fresh, give yourself time to process your emotions and you will feel the resentment going away on its own soon. 

7. Forgiveness Or Forgetting?

While we are not writing an exam on forgiveness it is important to understand what it means and reflect on its definition. Forgiveness is the act of letting go of resentment and moving on with your life. It is easy to understand why a lot of people confuse forgiveness with forgetting. Forgiveness is not about completely vanishing that memory from your mind with a snap of your fingers. Instead, it means to accept what happened and voluntarily move on. You don’t have to forget what happened. Instead, you should acknowledge the hurt and decide when you are ready to let it go. 

8. Being The Victim Feels Good:

Sometimes individuals start finding comfort in their pain. When a person shares their hurt and gets validated in return, a temporary bandage is put on a wound that is too big for it. Humans tend to adapt to their situations, and eventually, being a victim becomes soothing. In such situations, an individual may try to avoid forgiving the person, as the pain has become a part of them. The individual may feel as if they are losing a part of themself if they let go, making it hard to forgive and move on. 

9. Forgiveness Makes People Feel Vulnerable:

At present, empathy and humanity have been replaced by cut-throat competition and a need to put others down to move up. Forgiving someone can make us feel scared and vulnerable. It may feel as if by forgiving we are inviting others to hurt us again. Such feelings discourage individuals from letting go, as our current society considers forgiveness as a sign of weakness. However, forgiveness is about letting go of the weight that is holding you back, demanding a lot of courage that not all possess. 

10. The Pain Was Caused By A Loved One:

Being betrayed already hurts a lot and the pain increases tenfold when the person who wronged us was someone we trusted with our lives. When our family or close friends are the reason for our pain, forgiveness does not feel like an option. We feel betrayed and hurt because we never saw it coming. The pain can send you spiralling down with endless questions in your mind. “Was everything a lie?” We can’t help but question their motive and if every moment with them was a lie so that they could betray you. It wasn’t the act itself that left you bleeding, but the person who did. The pain can be so intense that forgiveness feels like a betrayal to yourself and your self-esteem. 

Forgiveness has a therapeutic effect. We often close our eyes to avoid the rampant in our hearts that is caused by holding on to grudges. Being wronged can feel like a direct hit on our self-esteem and trusting someone again can feel like a distant dream. However, the person who hurt us might not feel the same and can move on, while we are left to carry the burden of resentment. By dropping this baggage you can get back the control over your life that you felt was taken away from you. Forgiveness does not mean that you are giving permission to others to hurt you again, instead it is a gift to yourself. A gift that will allow you to move on and reach your full potential within this lifespan. 

FAQs

1. When is it okay to not Forgive Someone? 

You do not need to forgive someone if you are not ready to forgive them even if they have expressed an apology. It is also okay to not forgive someone if you are still feeling the effects of PTSD because of their mistakes. 

2. What are the Psychological effects of not Forgiving Someone?

Research suggests that people who hold onto fridges are more susceptible to severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder along with poor immunity system and heart health. Unforgiveness can trap you in past keeping the pain alive. 

3. Can you love someone that you can’t forgive? 

If you cannot forgive the person you cannot sustain love and a healthy relationship. It is inevitable for a loved one to say something hurtful even if they did not mean it. Without the aid of forgiveness, you will not be able to restore the relationship. 

4. What makes it hard to forgive someone? 

Research suggests that it can be hard to forgive someone if they are continuously reliving those memories, are scared of trusting again or believe that they would become vulnerable to more hurt if they forgive. Many also struggle to forgive as they believe that the perpetrator should get punished and crave revenge.