The Myth of Forgiveness

Jennifer Hoffman – In a recent conversation with a friend about my family and why I had to establish no contact with them 18 months ago, she asked ‘Will you ever forgive them?”

“Why should I,” I replied, “when their actions just showed me the truth I had been ignoring for years?”

“Well, that’s not very spiritual,” she replied.

“How is it spiritual to continue to let people stay in my life when they have shown me, time and time again, that they do not love, honor, or respect me and that is not going to change?”

I do not plan to forgive them for anything they did because it is not necessary. I have already done all of the forgiving I need to do, by forgiving myself for believing that fixing this family dysfunction was my job and that somehow, if I worked hard enough, overlooked enough toxicity, and forgave often enough, that some day the Norman Rockwell version of family bliss would somehow be mine.

The idea that forgiveness should be given to people who do not want it, care about it, or deserve it has kept us locked in toxic relationships for years or longer. And especially if you consider yourself to be spiritual, you believe that you should unconditionally forgive people for being cruel, unkind, and mean to you. At some point, we accepted the belief that granting forgiveness was going to change their behavior.

It will not and it never has.

I often think of the well-known quote from Maya Angelou, ‘when people show you who they really are, why would you ever doubt them?’ And yet we do that, again and again.

But there are two factors at play here, forgiveness and pardons, and neither should be confused with the other or granted lightly. Forgiveness, in modern terms, is excusing bad behavior or behavior that goes against what we believe is acceptable in a relationship.

A pardon is erasing the memory of that behavior and allowing that person back into our lives as though nothing had happened.

I never grant forgiveness or pardons and I suggest that we re-think this entire concept which I believe has caused more harm to people than anything else that we accept as truth.

Because this is the truth. People who treat you badly are just showing you who they are. When you do not believe them or you doubt that this is who they are, you are ignoring the truth that they are declaring loudly and boldly.

If you grant forgiveness and pardon them, and then let them back into your life, you are doing yourself a disservice in most cases. I won’t say that all people who act badly are not capable of change, but most are not.

Forgiveness must be granted with clear boundaries and expectations of future behavior. Otherwise, we’re just allowing bad behavior to be repeated with no consequences. And there is a caution here because bad behavior and toxic behavior are two different things.

I separate the two by defining ‘bad behavior’ as thoughtless, unintentional, and rare. Toxic behavior, on the other hand, is well considered, intentional, deliberately cruel, and repeated.

In my case, my family’s behavior was toxic, and it has been for a very long time. I tried to fix it, be more kind and loving and forgiving, only to be met with the same kind of behavior every time.

The truth was revealed to me in a dramatic incident 18 months ago that made this truth too inconvenient to deny. There would be no family bliss, no close relationships, no communication that went beyond strained meetings at required family events. Now there will be no family events, no communication, and for me, the peace that comes with acceptance.

The best gift we can give to toxic and challenging people is acceptance. This is not forgiveness or pardon, it is acknowledging who they are and have always been. It is not making them wrong for being who they are by engaging with them in yet another attempt at creating relationships they do not want or care about, and are incapable of having.

And with acceptance comes the loss of expectation, the loss of denial, the loss of pain, and the loss of the belief that it is our job to fix them or the relationship. Truth is an inconvenient reality when it reveals who people really are in ways that we can no longer deny or ignore.

In that moment of realization we have clarity and a path forward that does not include them. Acknowledging who people are and who they choose to be is emotional, spiritual, and energetic freedom.

With that freedom comes the release of forgiveness. It is not logical to expect to forgive people for who they are and who they choose to be. It is illogical to think that giving them something they do not want or care about is going to change them or their behavior.

I have discovered this fact after decades of thinking that the next phone call, after months or years of silence for an imagined slight, was going to change everything. So I let them back into my life with joy that was short-lived. And the behavior started again.

There is a point at which hope ends, tolerance ends, and forgiveness ends. And it should come sooner rather than later because once someone shows you who they really are – and you believe them – the truth becomes an inconvenient reality which lights the path to the exit for you.

You can choose to exit or to stay. But know that staying doesn’t change anything and you will eventually find yourself in front of that exit door again and again, until you decide to finally open it and leave, removing yourself from the toxicity and taking the path that leads you to people who can ‘love, honor, and respect’ you, who want to be in kind, loving, balanced relationships with you, and who don’t create drama and trauma.

And forgiveness should be granted to yourself first, and then to people who are genuinely sorry for their behavior, who can make a promise to do better and keep it, and who admit that they have made a mistake that they have the desire and means to correct.

Without this new perspective on forgiveness, you will continue to find yourself with unmet expectations, disappointment, and continue to try to fix relationships with people who don’t feel they are doing anything wrong. It is a hard truth to acknowledge, but some people genuinely will not like you. They will be petty, mean, jealous, spiteful, angry, and toxic.

Yes that includes your family, relatives, children, good friends, partner, and people that you think should love you. Acknowledge who they are choosing to be, accept their behavior, and take the exit door. Don’t burden yourself with the responsibility of forgiveness. Don’t give forgiveness to people who have shown you that they do not want or care about it.

How do you protect yourself from toxic and mean people? Some people say you should have stronger boundaries, without explaining exactly what that is. I have been teaching energy boundaries for over 15 years. It is not just a matter of saying no or deciding that you are not going to do something. This is about deciding where your energy goes and who gets to be part of it.

It is also learning why you do not have energy boundaries, are afraid to impose them, or hesitate to do that around certain people. It is understanding what your agenda is and what you believe is your reward for not having energy boundaries.

I call energy boundaries your ‘keys to emotional, spiritual, and energetic freedom,’ and they are. Once you set your energy boundaries you no longer blame yourself for the actions of challenging and toxic people. You no longer force your expectations on others. You can choose acceptance and then the exit as you move towards a new relationship path with people who are more aligned with your definition of relationships. And best of all, you no longer believe that giving forgiveness will fix everything and do not force yourself to give forgiveness to people who do not want it, do not care about it, do not care about you, and do not want a relationship with you.

Energy boundaries are not punishment, control, or emotional walls. They are the decision to stop giving your emotional, spiritual, and energetic resources to relationships that repeatedly create pain, confusion, exhaustion, and disappointment.

When you learn to establish true energy boundaries, you stop trying to fix people who do not want to change. You stop negotiating with toxic behavior. You stop abandoning yourself in the hope of receiving love, approval, acknowledgement, or acceptance from people you hold on to because you believe that they should give you those things because they are ‘family.’

And most importantly, you begin to trust yourself again.

My Energy Boundaries program teaches you how to identify the patterns that keep you emotionally entangled, why boundaries feel difficult for so many people, and how to create relationships that are grounded in mutual respect, balance, and emotional safety.

This is not about becoming cold, disconnected, or unforgiving.

It is about becoming free. And freedom does not begin with forgiveness, it begins with clarity.

Copyright (c) 2003-2026 by Jennifer Hoffman. All rights reserved.

SF Source Enlightening Life Jun 2026