Making Peace with an Abuser

by Guillermo Vidal | Jul 27, 2020 | Becoming Your Best Self

Whenever I remember my father and mother, I am reminded of the thorny relationship I shared with both of them. Physical and emotional abuse played such an enormous part of our time together. It is not my intent to tarnish their memory, I bring it up because, fortunately, I have been able to reach a level of understanding and acceptance that they were, in their own way, doing the best they could. This allowed me to absolve what they did or failed to do, but it wasn’t easy.

It is a struggle to give a proper definition to the concept of forgiveness. I grew up Catholic and my religious teachers drilled into me the first version of this idea. Christ, they said, defined forgiveness for us when he said, “turn the other cheek”. Even the Lord’s Prayer implicates that our own forgiveness depends on how we forgive those who hurt us.

“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

These ideals worked fine for me as an adolescent but, as I became more aware of the way of the world, they stopped making sense. For example, it makes no sense that you would tell a person who has suffered unimaginable rape and abuse at the hands of some unrepentant perpetrator that they cannot receive God’s forgiveness unless they forgive that person. I don’t buy it…