In another thread there was a discussion about forgiving abusive parents and later, whether their abuse was intentional (which presumably would influence whether they should be forgiven or not).

I looked up some writings on what it means to forgive, and big surprise, there is no agreed-upon definition. Many psychological definitions seem to emphasize that forgiving is not the same as forgetting, nor coming to see what the offender did to us as acceptable or okay. Here's one definition:

"In forgiving, a person overcomes resentment toward an offender, but does not
deny him/herself the moral right to such resentment. The forgiver tries to have a
new stance of benevolence, compassion, and even love toward the offender,
even though the latter has no moral right to such a merciful response." (M. Subkoviak)

This is quite an interesting way of looking at "forgiving." Essentially it makes forgiving all about victim's stance, making the offense completely irrelevant. It does not matter if it was big or small, intentional or not, or how long it went on. Forgiveness here seems to operate on a whole other ground. You are not diminishing the pain nor the offense in order to make room for forgiveness. It's a whole different game.

Forgiveness, from this view, is not about denying oneself or the past, but about giving, about generosity, about the person's values and worldview.

But why forgive, why this new "stance of benevolence"? I think that's a much tougher question. I think a "self centered" reasoning, which seems to be what a lot of psychology articles are proposing, is that forgiving others has a lot of mental health benefits for the person. So you're doing it for yourself. That may not convince everybody. So what else? If you are religious, or have personal spiritual beliefs, it is quite likely that forgiveness is up there in your value system too. It can be seen as the moral and the right thing to do. Even a religious duty. But not everybody is religious. So what else?

Quite a few people also seem to use humanistic reasons to forgive others. We are all humans, we make mistakes. Sometimes we act foolishly out of ignorance or fear, we lose our way, let greed or pride...whatever, run our lives. We are all hurting or suffering one way or another. A lot of times the people who have hurt us have been hurt themselves, had difficult lives, and when we come to see in them what we see in us, emotional holes, that becomes the basis for compassion.

It took me a long time but I've forgiven my parents. At first I felt if I forgive them, it means they did not hurt me so I wanted to hang on to my anger forever. Perhaps a combination of the above reasons pushed me towards forgiveness but it did not come easy. So many years spent in pain and suffering, so many years wasted in trying to gain their approval or make them change their ways or find out WHY they did what they did (and why did not do what I wanted them to do). I was mad at my parents, myself, at God, at life, at everything. Finding that I too had acted in hurtful ways towards others (including my parents) I constantly redirected the blame at them. If they had not done this, I would have been healthy and just fine so they are to blame, I would scream inside. But then one day I thought, what if my parents say the same about their own parents, saying the blame lies with their parents, with their upbringing? But somebody has to stop this cycle, I thought. The idea that I may be able to do it felt exciting. Did I have the courage to do it? I doubted it but forgiving them has made it easier to dream of such possibility.