I have struggled with forgiveness for most of my life. Perhaps that is the consequence of growing up in a fundamentalist religion where forgiveness was demanded. Forgiveness was for the other person rather than a gift to myself.
I also admit to an internal cringe whenever I hear terms like patriarchy and toxic masculinity. I get that patriarchy exists, and many behaviours that men exhibit do fall under the umbrella of toxic masculinity. I also fully understand the societal pressures that have coerced and, at times, bullied me into acting in a masculine role that was not authentically me. As a gay man, I played a straight role for half a century.
The question for me, is how do I forgive and navigate the terrain of forgiveness as a man who has acted in ways that have not been authentic. How do I forgive myself, and more importantly, how do I forgive the other men in my life?
The other men in my life, being my father and my son. My father, who, like many of his generation, lived lives of silent despair and rage and who passed down his frustration, anger and rage to me. My son, who acted in a way that cost him his life.
It is easy to fall into the trap of talking endlessly about the damaging impact of societal pressures on men. To talk at length about the rise of toxic masculinity and the re-appearance of brittle masculine mentality that cannot admit any difference, and any expression of healthy vulnerability is met with fear and violence. But talking does not bring me closer to forgiveness. It keeps the issue out there, in society. It is society that needs to change, it is other men who need to change.
Ultimately, I am the one who needs to change.
Let me be clear: I believe for the sake of our relationships, whether they are straight or diverse, for the sake of our children and our health, societal expectations of how men act must change. I also recognise that societies are changing, some at a faster rate than others. In terms of societal change, the courage of people who are Trans and gender diverse cannot be underestimated because they are often creating spaces where those of us who are more timid can step into and be more aligned with who we are rather than playing a role of masculinity.
So, while there needs to be change within societies, endless talking about patriarchy or toxic masculinity does not ultimately heal nor necessarily assist me in being authentic, because healing and authenticity is personal.
Healing is personal
Healing is personal because the first man who wounded me was my father.
Some of you will have had loving fathers; some will have had fathers who were good enough, and many of you will have had fathers like mine who fathered out of his rage, deep frustration and unresolved fear about his adequacy.
Fathering is never about perfection. As a father myself, I understand that. Because I am not perfect, I have wounded my children. However, I have learnt the importance of asking for forgiveness when I wound them.
As my father wounded me, I have wounded my children.
People would argue that my father and I are the product of the patriarch and societal pressures I wrote about in the introduction, and that is right. We are.
But the wounding was still personal. It was face-to-face, person-to-person, so the healing must also be personal, which raises the tricky issue of forgiveness.
The tricky issue of forgiveness
In Greek mythology, Cronos, the youngest of the Titans and son of Uranus and Gaia, overthrew his father and became Ruler of the Universe. Then, afraid his sons would overthrow him, he devoured his children as they were born.
The eternal struggle between fathers and sons still gets played out today. In my case, my father ruled with an iron fist to enforce his fundamentalist worldview on the family and everyone around him. When my son entered his teenage years, he started pushing back against me, asserting his emerging power and flexing his strength against mine. They were the years when I struggled with the desire to force my authority over him, as my father had over me and the need to step back and allow him to grow into his authority.
If we don’t deal with the personal wound, we will repeat it on our children.
To deal with the wound, we must start with forgiveness.
Full disclosure – I grew up in the church where forgiveness was spoken about ad nauseam and practised very little. It was also a requirement for victims to ask forgiveness from those who were abusing them, be it emotional, spiritual, psychological or sexual abuse. So, what I write is what makes sense to me about this tricky issue of forgiveness.
Forgiving our Fathers
The extent of our fathers’ wounding often determines our struggle with forgiveness. Forgiveness may be more straightforward for those with loving fathers or fathers who were good enough. It is more challenging for those like me who have had more complicated relationships.
Forgiveness is continual.
I was around 12 or 13 years old when I became aware of consciously having to forgive my father. The wounding had started years before, but I had assumed he was right and I was wrong, so I adapted to what he wanted. By 12 or 13 years, I began to experience rage as he asserted his power and control. I learnt quickly to swallow my rage, to play the good Christian boy who submits to his parents. After all, as my father said, “If I wanted to live a long life, I had to honour them no matter what because that was what the Bible said”.
Fifty years later, I find myself having to continue to forgive. Why?
Forgiveness is the act I give myself to prevent myself from being swallowed by the past. Each time I reach a different stage in life and gain more insight and understanding, I have to practice forgiveness.
Forgiveness is tiring
Yes, it is tiring to forgive continually.
Forgiveness is not saying, “I forgive you,” smiling, and saying, ” Bless you,” and you are done and dusted with forgiveness.
Forgiveness is the drudgery of saying, “Oh, here we go again!” knowing the ache and hurt that is carried. Forgiveness is remembering those incidents that have seared themselves into the hard wiring of our brains and still choosing to forgive.
Forgiveness is about weighing up who we can talk to when we begin to feel overwhelmed. We know from past experiences that people will blank out or look at us perplexed as they wonder why we haven’t moved on.
Forgiveness isn’t the same as repair.
Forgiveness is no guarantee your relationship with your father will be repaired. From the age of nine, my relationship with my father was marked by fear, anger, rage, shame and hatred, interspersed by periods where we tried to negotiate a truce.
What love there had died and was buried long before he physically died.
Ultimately, forgiveness never built a bridge. However, it has given me a deep compassion for the man who was my father.
Forgiving our Children
It is easy to fall into the delusion that because we love our children, we don’t need to forgive them. Yet, sometimes, we do.
In my situation, my son made a terrible decision fifteen years ago that cost him his life, with consequences that continue to ripple through the family to this day. As the years pass and the ache of his passing continues, I find I need to forgive him for the decision he took that night.
Forgiveness is complicated
My father wounded me, and ultimately, there was no love. I love my son deeply, and his decision wounded me and the rest of his family. Yet, I find myself needing to forgive. It is continual, it is tiring, and ultimately, there is no repair.
I find myself having to forgive in both directions.
As I shared these thoughts with a person, he asked me the following question.
“What about forgiving yourself?”
I felt myself retract like a sea anomie under threat, for perhaps that is the hardest thing to do.
To forgive ourselves as flawed men. To forgive myself as a flawed man.
While forgiving myself is equally continual and tiring, perhaps there is a chance of repair. To repair a relationship with myself first and then to bring an authentic self to those around me.
I cannot change the societal structures that reinforce patriarchy. Yet, I know if I don’t practice forgiveness, then I will carry my father’s rage and fear as Cronos did and bring destruction to those around me. In doing this, I will reinforce the toxicity of destructive masculine behaviour.
So it is in the personal, in the continual, tiring practice of forgiveness that I may be able to repair a relationship with myself and live authentically so that those around me may also live authentic lives.
