On the Limits of Forgiveness
Here I would like to draw attention to conversations I had twenty years ago (in the early 1990s) with a young woman aged twenty-six. Our conversations lasted for more than two years. Of the hundreds of women and men exposed to sexual abuse whom I have spoken with, I believe this woman made the deepest impression on me.
Why?
I think it had to do with the way our conversations confronted me with the meaning of shame. Not her shame—for she carried herself with her head held high—but my own shame. I felt ashamed of being a man after hearing her story, and this led me to reflect deeply on my own understanding of masculinity, and more broadly on power, gender, and sexuality in our society.
Meaning appears between voices.
Abuse and violence are, to a large extent, male phenomena (Sætre et al., 1986; Andersen, 1998), and she made me wonder whether many of the conversations I had previously held with both perpetrators and victims had, in one way or another, also been about this.
My shame forced me to reconsider my self-image as a man. These conversations became one of the reasons I later chose to write my PhD dissertation on shame and sexual abuse.
Anthony Giddens (1997) distinguishes between guilt and shame. While guilt concerns the anxiety that arises when the boundaries of conscience are crossed, shame concerns failing to live up to one’s own ideals. My ideal image of what it means to be a man is part of what I strive to become. Shame was directly connected to that ideal image—my sense of self—and to how I wished to live my life.
In this sense, Giddens argues that regarding problems of self-identity, shame may be even more significant than guilt. The opposite of shame is pride, and it was precisely my masculine pride that I was forced to see in a new light through these conversations.
Her attitude toward guilt and forgiveness also made a profound impression on me.
To speak of forgiveness in relation to abuse is to enter a minefield. Many feel reluctant even to raise the subject. In many ways, it becomes a non-topic. Many would argue that abusers should not and cannot be forgiven. What they have done is unforgivable. They deserve punishment—not help, not therapy, not forgiveness.
Often I have seen perpetrators rejected by helping institutions on the grounds that priority must be given to victims rather than offenders. Many would understand such a position.
Yet this woman spoke of forgiveness in a way that left me silent.
That is what I wish to reflect upon here.
She told me that as an infant she suffered from Celiac disease, which caused severe nutritional difficulties. The illness was not diagnosed until she was close to death from malnutrition at the age of one.
She also had Cerebral palsy, though this was not properly diagnosed until she was eighteen. She said she had lived with bodily pain for as long as she could remember.
At school she was bullied because she often fell. Teachers became angry with her because of coordination problems, such as difficulty holding a pencil. She also struggled to express herself verbally.
She felt she was treated as a difficult child throughout her early school years.
Later she was wrongly diagnosed as intellectually disabled and placed in a special school for children with learning difficulties. There, for the first time in her life, she experienced recognition from both teachers and fellow pupils—for who she truly was, or at least seemed to be.
She looked back on this misdiagnosis as a rescue from a brutal everyday life in a sick society.
It should also be said that she later became a qualified preschool teacher with specialist competence in working with vulnerable children.
She had always been known as “Daddy’s girl.” He tied her shoelaces, helped her dress, comforted her when she fell, read to her, and let her sit on his lap.
So it did not seem unnatural to the family that, at the age of nine, she slept in the same bed as her father when they stayed overnight with friends.
That was when the sexual abuse began.
It continued for several years.
Her father, in a sense, had ownership over her, and no one questioned it. Everyone was simply pleased that he cared for her. She did anything she could to please him and to gain his recognition.
Fifteen years had passed since the abuse first began when she came to speak with me.
For those fifteen years she had “forgotten” the abuse, but suddenly the memories returned, and she needed help dealing with the emotions that overwhelmed her.
One of the first things she said was:
“I feel terribly sorry for Dad. What he did to me was horrible and dreadful, but he has taken all the blame and is trying to make things right.”
She had confronted her father one month earlier.
She refused to report him to the police because:
“He has taken the whole burden of guilt, and that is no light burden. I respect him for that. If I carry all of this inside me, it will destroy me and hinder me through the years. I do not want that. So I take the difficult road and try to forgive him—not forget what he did—but forgive. When he has taken the punishment, then the punishment is done.”
I asked what punishment she meant.
She replied:
“Not prison... but the guilt he has taken upon himself when he says he cannot live with what he has done. That must be the worst punishment there is. That guilt.”
There I sat before a young woman who had endured a painful childhood and years of abuse, yet who said she was trying to forgive her father.
I struggled both to understand and to accept it.
So I asked whether it was important for her to forgive him.
She answered:
“I think it is important to keep that goal before my eyes—that I shall manage it. There is much we do not understand, and much we can receive help with. But what we can do ourselves, we must do. What we cannot do, we must leave to God.”
What did she mean by forgiveness?
She said:
“I have connected forgiveness with continuing to love Dad and wanting him to be well with himself... that we might have as good a relationship as possible, despite what happened.”
She also believed he must eventually forgive himself:
“He deserves the guilt for a while. But then he must learn to forgive himself too... If he is to live with himself, he must find peace.”
Forgiveness here became something relational—something between a daughter and a father. Something he had to receive, and something she tried to give.
Paul Leer-Salvesen (1998), inspired by Martin Buber, writes that it is natural to speak of self-forgiveness, while forgiveness itself remains a phenomenon between an “I” and a “Thou.”
She also spoke of divine forgiveness. What she could not forgive herself, she entrusted to God.
Sometimes, she said, forgiveness is impossible for human beings—but not for God.
My client showed me that forgiveness exists as a phenomenon.
She spoke of it, reflected upon it, recognized its limits, and offered it.
Yet defining forgiveness remains difficult.
Perhaps impossible.
But the way forgiveness is spoken of in everyday language can be examined, and such reflection gives us a basis for thinking more deeply about it.
Forgiveness happens between persons. It is relational. It exists in relation to others, and in relation to oneself.
It also seems clear that repentance is often a condition for forgiveness. To forgive someone who shows no remorse is far less common.
Her father met his daughter face to face. He expressed sorrow. He asked forgiveness.
She stood upright.
He was broken.
Something had changed between them.
Aristotle, in the Nicomachean Ethics, speaks of virtue as a disposition—something one can strive toward and embody.
Forgiveness may involve such a disposition, but it is more than virtue.
It is both possibility and impossibility at once.
No one can demand unconditional forgiveness as if it were owed.
Leer-Salvesen, inspired by Knud Ejler Løgstrup, writes that forgiveness is better understood as a fundamental life-expression, always requiring interpretation.
Its place is the relationship itself.
Her interpretation of her father’s plea took place within a horizon of trust.
Her attempt to forgive reflected a desire for trust.
Yet trust broken by abuse can never simply be restored as though nothing happened.
The past cannot be erased.
She wished to forgive what was possible for her to forgive.
What was impossible, she entrusted to God.
This created at least the possibility of reconciliation.
Not innocence restored—but a different future.
I still find forgiveness remarkable.
I cannot define it fully.
Yet I have seen that it exists.
It is like standing before a mystery that fills one with silence.
A wonder that leaves one speechless.
And perhaps that is where the deepest truths often begin.
Nordic references used in this text
English references for further reading on foregivness
Hannah Arendt, H. (1958). The human condition. University of Chicago Press.
Martin Buber, M. (1970). I and thou (W. Kaufmann, Trans.). Scribner. (Original work published 1923)
Robert D. Enright, R. D. (2001). Forgiveness is a choice: A step-by-step process for resolving anger and restoring hope. American Psychological Association.
Judith Herman, J. L. (1992). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence—from domestic abuse to political terror. Basic Books.
Everett L. Worthington Jr., E. L. (2006). Forgiveness and reconciliation: Theory and application. Routledge.
June Price Tangney, J. P., Stuewig, J., & Mashek, D. J. (2007). Moral emotions and moral behavior. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 345–372.
Jacques Derrida, J. (2001). On cosmopolitanism and forgiveness (M. Dooley & M. Hughes, Trans.). Routledge.
Miroslav Volf, M. (1996). Exclusion and embrace: A theological exploration of identity, otherness, and reconciliation. Abingdon Press.
This text was written by me
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