Handing It to God
Forgiveness involves handing over to God the responsibility for justice. The longer we hold onto it, the more it strangles us.
— Beth Moore, Praying God’s Word Day by Day, p. 73
Category: Forgiveness
10 Posts
Challenging Unenforceable Rules
Once you’ve identified your unenforceable rule, you need to figure out how to hold on to the enforceable desire and get rid of the unenforceable demand. Hoping that things will go the way you want and working hard to get your wishes gratified is a good approach to your relationship. At the same time, remind yourself that you cannot control your lover’s behavior, and it is foolish to demand things that your lover isn’t willing to give. Try substituting the words “hope” or “wish” for “must” or “have to” in your unenforceable expectation or demand. This will help you to avoid driving yourself crazy and retain the energy to maximize the relationship you have….
Challenging your unenforceable rules lets you take responsibility for your feelings and helps you take your partner’s quirks less personally. You become aware that much of what you took personally about your partner’s behavior was only rules you could not enforce. You remember that you love your partner, not the things you are demanding from him or her. Once you do this, you can see that your thinking played a significant role in the anger and hurt that you felt. As you challenge your rules, you will see that clearer thinking leads to more peaceful coexistence in your marriage and day-to-day life….
Notice that when you wish or hope that things will be a certain way, you think more clearly and are more peaceful than when you demand that they be a certain way.
— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 121-123
The Pain of Broken Rules
The problem comes when we forget that what we hope for is not the same as what we need or have the power to compel. Unenforceable rules warp our judgment. We try so hard to get our rules obeyed that we do not see the damage that ensues from that effort. We blame our lovers for breaking our rules, and we withhold our love when they do so. Our pain and frustration cause us to do things that harm our relationship rather than help it….
The first step in unraveling your unenforceable rules is to recognize them. When you finally realize that you are making unenforceable rules, you are taking the first step toward helping yourself. Simply by doing this, you have taken back some of the power you gave your spouse to hurt you. This is true whether your spouse failed, or was selfish, or stood firm defending his or her quirky behavior, or loved you wrong, or forgot your birthday.
When you challenge your unenforceable rules, you take the next step in learning to forgive. The good news is that challenging unenforceable rules is a simple process. Unenforceable rules make their presence known. You do not have to look far to find them. Every time you are more than mildly upset with the actions of your lover, it is because you are trying to enforce an unenforceable rule. Every time you are more than mildly upset with your life, it is because you are trying to enforce an unenforceable rule. Every time you are more than mildly upset with yourself, you are trying to enforce an unenforceable rule….
What you need to realize is that underneath your most painful feelings are rules you are helplessly trying to enforce. Once you start to challenge your rules when you first feel upset, then your bad feelings won’t last and will not be as severe….
None of us have the ability to force our lovers to comply with our demands, and therefore they often break our rules. It can be difficult to accept the fact that your lover does not have to make your life easier or better or lessen your suffering when you want him or her to. You will only suffer more, however, when you try harder to enforce your unenforceable rules than challenge them.
— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 116-120
Unenforceable Rules
Nearly all relationship problems begin when our partners break an unenforceable rule. Your frustrated attempt to enforce such a rule is at the root of your anger toward your loved one. Feelings of anger, helplessness, or depression are all indications that you are trying to enforce something that cannot be enforced. Your anger is telling you that things are not working out the way you want them to. These situations are painful because you are not able to control them, even though you try over and over to do so….
If most of your partner’s actions cause you a good deal of emotional distress, you may be trying to enforce an unenforceable rule. We cling to our unenforceable rules and refuse to accept our partner’s mistakes, flaws, and disagreeable traits, thinking that we should not have to put up with them. This is like clinging to the anchor of a ship you fell off of. As you gasp your last breath, you’re still complaining that the anchor was there to keep your boat safe, and damn it, dragging you to the bottom of the sea isn’t helping. The anchor is wrong. It hasn’t read the anchor rulebook and doesn’t know the right way to do its job….
When you try and fail to enforce one of your unenforceable rules, you become angry, bitter, despondent, and helpless. Trying to force something that you cannot control to go your way is an exercise in frustration. You can’t force your spouse to love you or to stop cheating; nor can you force your kids to treat you respectfully. The more unenforceable rules you have, the more likely you are to feel agitated and disappointed with your marriage. When you cling to unenforceable rules, you leave yourself open to pain every time one of them is broken.
— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 111-112
No Gray Grudge Areas
Jesus eliminates any gray areas for grudges. In fact He says that our attitude is to be so far removed from avenging ourselves that we are willing to open ourselves to the possibility of being taken advantage of again.
— John Bevere, The Bait of Satan, p. 137
Openness
You still need to be open with your partner about the things he or she does that are hurtful, offensive, or selfish. You don’t have to be a martyr about it. A strong, healthy relationship needs open communication, and letting your partner know how he or she is hurting the relationship is necessary for things to improve. The important thing is to forgive your lover before you initiate that talk. Then you can talk openly and pleasantly, without anger….
Forgiveness does not solve every problem. But it does reduce the intensity of emotional distress so that our problems can be talked about and solved if possible. Blaming our partners for not being the person we want them to be creates anger in both us and them. This anger causes stress.
— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 105-107
What Would a Perfect Person Want With Us?
I am trying to remind you to be humble about your own flaws and to remember that you too regularly require forgiveness. If you want a successful relationship, you need to be gentle with the inevitable flaws of your lover. I also want you to understand that dealing kindly with the mistakes and wounds of your partner is how you open yourself up to true love…. Coming home to a passionate sex partner who was also a great cook, hard worker, high wage earner, good communicator, and all-round fabulous person would be great. The problem with that scenario is twofold. First, what would such a perfect person want with us, and second, how would we learn to really love if our needs were always met with a smile? It is easy to love those who never test us because they are always giving and never in a bad mood. It is difficult to love real people because they ask us to give and give and forgive and be humble….
There must be something we need to learn from our partners’ weaknesses and our own weaknesses. It may be that when we love our partners in a way that includes their differences and flaws, we go deep enough to create an enduring partnership. When we are cruel and dismissive about our differences and our partners’ weaknesses, we impose our fantasy of how a lover should be on a live human being…. Forgiveness emerges once we accept the challenge of loving the real person we are with. Only then can we begin to develop a deep and lasting partnership.
— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 105
Recognize That Everyone Is Flawed . . . Including You
The next step in this process is to honor without resentment the flawed nature of the human being with whom you share your life. By definition, you are with someone who has significant limitations. Unfortunately, you did not get in the line where they were offering saints, angels, personal saviors, or slaves. You got in the line for a regular person, warts and all. Learning to accept your partner’s limitations with tenderness is the next step of forgiveness and the opening to a true love.
— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive For Love, p. 99
More Fun, But Impractical
There are some who say that you should forgive everyone, even the people who have disappointed you immeasurably. There are others who say you should not forgive anyone, and should stomp off in a huff no matter how many times they apologize. Of these two philosophies, the second one is of course much more fun, but it can also grow exhausting to stomp off in a huff every time someone has disappointed you, as everyone disappoints everyone eventually, and one can’t stomp off in a huff every minute of the day.
— Lemony Snicket, Horseradish:Â Bitter Truths You Can’t Avoid, p. 26
A Boomerang
Cursing is a boomerang. If I will evil towards someone else, that evil becomes visible in me. It is an extreme way of being forensic, toward myself, as well as toward whoever outrages me. To avoid contaminating myself and everybody around me, I must work through the anger and the hurt feelings and the demands for absolute justice to a desire for healing. Healing for myself, and my anger, first, because until I am at least in the process of healing, I cannot heal; and then healing for those who have hurt or betrayed me, and those I have hurt and betrayed.
— Madeleine L’Engle, A Stone for a Pillow, quoted in Glimpses of Grace, compiled by Carole F. Chase