“No way,” She looked at me with angry eyes. We had talked about her anger toward her mother several times. She had no solutions. When I suggested the idea of forgiveness, without demanding it or putting any pressure on her at all to forgive, she did not even want to hear the word “forgiveness.” This is not an isolated case. Many people hold out the idea of forgiving until the other person uses those three little words: I am sorry. Yet, those words sometimes never come.
What is a person to do if the other never apologizes or refuses to do so? We will consider six ideas here if you have ever faced the dilemma of moving forward or not with forgiveness in the face of the other person’s resistance to apologizing to you.
Point 1: An apology moves the conversation more toward justice, which we all expect.
When a person apologizes, there is an admission of wrongdoing. This can open the door to a change in the other, to recompense for what was taken away, if anything was, and to increase hope that the relationship may improve. Thus, an apology is good in the moral sense because it opens the door for fairness to enter. Therefore, those who want an apology are doing something moral because they are hoping for a positive change in the other person. When the apology does not come, the forgiver may think that justice is thwarted, which might be another forgivable offense in the eyes of the one wronged.
Point 2: We often want justice rather than to give mercy.
There is sometimes a tension in the forgiving person between offering mercy to those who acted unfairly and waiting for justice. Mercy can seem so weak because it does not confront, demand, or even ask for fairness. Therefore, there is a tendency to set forgiveness aside as inappropriate in the situation of the other’s refusal to apologize.
Point 3: Some people incorrectly think that without the other’s apology, there is no boundary setting.
This kind of thinking dichotomizes forgiveness and justice into an incorrect “either/or” scenario. The thinking is that if I do not get the apology and I forgive, then I have not protected myself. I am vulnerable to the other person’s nonsense. Yet, this is not correct. As Aristotle (340 BC/2012) reminded us thousands of years ago, we should not practice any of the moral virtues in isolation. Forgive and seek justice. In other words, as people forgive, they can and should set the boundaries that allow for self-protection and even may aid the other in behaving better. This kind of “both/and” thinking does not put a burden on the forgiver, who no longer needs to wait for the other’s fairness before starting the forgiveness process, as well as the setting of reasonable boundaries.
Point 4: As the one who is wronged resists forgiveness, there is a tendency for the anger to grow.
Waiting for an apology can take a toll on the offended person’s mental and physical health. The longer the delay in forgiving, the angrier the offended person might get. The resentment can deepen and lead to the challenging psychological conditions of anxiety and depression (Enright & Fitzgibbons, 2024). The anger can trigger an increase in cortisol in the brain, a stress hormone that can interfere with clear decision-making. If the buildup of anger becomes strong enough, the offended person might seek revenge, and then have to forgive oneself and even say, “I am sorry” to the person who originally offended. The increased anger, in other words, can become a new barrier to offering forgiveness.
Point 5: Those who resist forgiveness without an apology fail to see the power the other has over them.
In light of Point 4 above, the offended person may be putting themselves at risk by waiting to forgive. In other words, the offending person is exercising power over the other because of the possibly uncomfortable psychological and physical effects of the injustice just described. A paradox here is this: Those who withhold forgiveness may think they are showing strength, yet over time, they may become psychologically and physically weaker.
Point 6: Sometimes people withhold forgiving the offending person, hoping that the lack of forgiving will motivate an apology, sincere remorse, and repentance.
This issue of withholding forgiveness is altruistic in that it is being done for the other. The underlying assumption is that withholding forgiveness is an attention-getter for the other to change and apologize. Yet this reasoning fails to recognize that sincere remorse, repentance, and an apology can follow the offended person’s forgiveness. It does not have to work in only one direction of apology, then forgiveness. It could be the reverse of forgiveness, then an apology. In each case, the forgiving can still be for the offending person, as an aid to changed behavior. In this case, forgiving is hard without the apology because the person wants the best for the other and assumes that the best is in the direction of apology first, then forgiveness. As in the case of “either/or” for forgiveness and justice, that form of reasoning fails to take into account that the other may have a softened heart because of your forgiving, which may motivate the apology.
In summary, there are challenges to forgiving without the other person’s apology, but none of these six challenges are permanent barriers to forgiving, which always can be unconditional in that you are free to forgive whenever you are ready, no matter what others do, whether this is a withholding of an apology, or pressure from others not to forgive, or even ridicule of the forgiver as doing something wrong. Forgiveness is yours when you want to offer it. Apologies help, but they need not hinder.
