How to Forgive Without Excusing the Hurt and the Four S's of Emotional Freedom
- Aug 13
- 8 min read
Hazel N. Williams is an author, speaker, and relationship coach who helps couples navigate pressure, emotional distance, and communication breakdowns. Through Holding On Together, she brings over 40 years of lived marriage and family experience into practical relationship support.
Have you ever tried to forgive someone, only to feel that doing so would minimise what they did? Forgiveness does not require you to deny the wound, excuse the behaviour or restore unsafe access. It offers a way to release the past from continuing to govern your future. Here is a practical four-step framework for putting down what you were never meant to carry forever.
What does forgiveness really mean?
There is a kind of tiredness that has nothing to do with sleep. It is the tiredness of carrying a betrayal, a broken promise, a parent's failure, a friend's silence or a wound inside a marriage that never fully healed.
We learn to function with it. We build a life around it. We become so skilled at carrying it quietly that others may never notice the weight. But unnamed pain does not disappear, it relocates. It can surface as anger, mistrust, emotional distance, over-independence, or a reaction that seems far bigger than the moment in front of us.
Research conducted through Warwick Medical School found that forgiveness significantly predicted aspects of mental wellbeing. Its review of forgiveness-based interventions also found reductions in depression, stress and distress, alongside increases in positive emotions, although the researchers described the overall evidence as low to moderate quality. The University of Warwick research gives academic weight to something many people recognise through lived experience–forgiveness is not amnesia. It is the decision to stop carrying the debt of what someone else did to us forever.
Does forgiveness mean excusing what happened?
No. Before we can talk honestly about forgiveness, we must remove the pressure created by common misunderstandings.
Forgiveness is not forgetting. It is not approval, and it is not saying the boundary crossed did not matter. It does not cancel accountability, erase consequences, or require you to call something acceptable when it was not. You can release resentment and retain wisdom. You can put down the weight without walking back into danger.
This distinction is especially important where there is ongoing abuse, coercion or risk. Forgiveness is never a substitute for protection, professional support or firm boundaries.
Forgiveness may change what you carry internally, while healthy boundaries still define what you will accept, how you expect to be treated and who has access to your life.
Can you forgive someone without an apology?
Yes, although the absence of an apology can make the process harder. We naturally want the person who hurt us to understand the damage, take responsibility and show genuine regret. But some people will never offer the words or accountability we deserve. Others may be absent, unwilling, or no longer alive.
Your freedom cannot be permanently dependent on another person's willingness to participate. Healing may still need to continue when the apology never comes. Forgiveness can begin within you, without their agreement, explanation or permission.
Can you forgive without reconciliation?
Forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same thing. Forgiveness happens within you. Reconciliation happens between people and requires truth, safety, accountability, and meaningful change.
You can forgive someone and still decide that they should not have the same access to your life again. This distinction matters because reconciliation without evidence of change can return a person to the very conditions that harmed them.
Sometimes forgiveness opens the door to a repaired relationship. Sometimes it lets you close that door without standing behind it in anger. The purpose is not to force a reunion. It is to recover your freedom to choose wisely.
Why can unforgiveness feel so heavy?
Every unforgiven hurt can begin to operate like an internal ledger. Somewhere inside, we wait for the other person to pay, with the right apology, a convincing explanation, visible regret, or enough suffering to balance the books.
That waiting can keep us emotionally tied to the injury. The Warwick research identified repeatedly thinking about the hurt, wanting revenge, feeling powerless and not feeling understood as barriers to forgiveness. Participants described forgiving as reducing negative emotions while increasing positive emotion, empowerment, meaning, and purpose.
The hard truth is that some debts will never be paid in the form we hoped for. Forgiveness does not declare the debt insignificant. It declares that you will no longer spend the rest of your life trying to collect it.
Why do people resist forgiveness?
People do not always resist forgiveness because they want to remain angry. Often, they resist because forgiveness feels like surrendering the last piece of justice they still hold. If the person who caused the hurt has not acknowledged it, apologised or changed, letting go can feel as though the wrongdoer is being released from responsibility while the wounded person is left carrying the consequences.
Fear can also lie beneath the resistance. Anger may have become a form of protection, a promise to yourself that you will never be caught off guard in the same way again. The pain may feel like evidence that what happened mattered. In that state, forgiveness can sound dangerously close to lowering your guard, forgetting the lesson, or reopening a door that needed to be closed.
That is why forgiveness must never be rushed or demanded. You are not being asked to release the truth, the lesson or the boundary. You are being invited, when you are ready, to release the belief that remaining emotionally tied to the injury is the only way to honour what it cost you. The wrongdoing can remain wrong without resentment controlling your life.
How does forgiveness work within an ongoing marriage?
Forgiveness inside an ongoing marriage is different because you are not only releasing a past event, you are deciding how to live with the person connected to it. The hurt may sit across from you at breakfast, share your bedroom, and appear in ordinary conversations. You cannot simply put the memory away when daily life keeps bringing you back into contact with the person who caused it.
In marriage, forgiveness is not permission for the same behaviour to continue. The wounded partner should not be pressured to forgive quickly so that the household can return to normal, while the person who caused the hurt avoids the uncomfortable work of repair. A marriage cannot heal through one partner's forgiveness alone. The other partner must be willing to listen without defensiveness, accept responsibility, understand the impact, and demonstrate change consistently.
Forgiveness may be a decision made in a moment, but rebuilding safety and trust happens over time. There may be good days followed by a reminder that reopens the wound. That does not necessarily mean forgiveness has failed. It may mean the relationship is still healing and the hurt needs to be heard again, not used as a weapon and not dismissed as something that should already be over.
The goal is not to pretend the marriage has returned to who you were before. It is to decide whether you can build something more honest from what has been exposed. Forgiveness can clear space for that work, but reconciliation is sustained by truth, changed behaviour, emotional safety and the repeated choice of both partners to protect the relationship differently.
How do you begin to forgive? The Four S's of forgiveness
Forgiveness is often spoken about as though it were a single emotional leap. In reality, it is usually a journey, and sometimes one we need to walk more than once. I developed the Four S's of Forgiveness as a practical way to move through that journey honestly and wisely.
See it, name the hurt honestly: You cannot release a weight you have not admitted you are holding. Seeing it means telling the truth about what happened without minimising it, exaggerating it or shaming yourself for still feeling it. Not, 'It was nothing.' Not, 'I should be over this by now.' Simply, 'This happened, and it cost me something real.' Sometimes we bury an experience because naming it feels like giving it more power. Yet buried hurt often develops roots. It appears in how quickly we become irritated, how difficult it feels to trust, how little we share, or how far we move emotionally from the people we love. Seeing the wound is not weakness. It is the first honest act of healing.
Say it, speak it in a safe place: Pain grows in secrecy. Saying it does not mean broadcasting your story or confronting the person who hurt you before you are ready. It means finding a safe place where the truth can be spoken, perhaps to a trusted friend, counsellor, coach, faith leader or, for those of faith, in prayer. Choose wisely. The right person will not inflame the situation, force a decision or make your pain about themselves. They will help you hear your own truth clearly and consider your next step without trying to decide for you. Confrontation is not a prerequisite for forgiveness.
Set it down, release the debt you are owed: Setting it down means closing the internal ledger, not because the debt was insignificant, but because you were never meant to spend the rest of your life collecting it. It is the moment you say, 'I will not allow what happened to keep deciding what I carry into tomorrow.' For a deep wound, this may not be a one-time decision. The memory may return, and you may need to set the weight down again. That is not failure. That is how forgiveness becomes a practice rather than a performance.
Start again, decide wisely what comes next: Starting again does not always mean starting again with the person who hurt you. Sometimes it means beginning a repaired relationship, slowly and with new agreements. Sometimes it means beginning again without them. When both people choose to rebuild, forgiveness may make repair possible, but it cannot do the work of repair on its own. Brainz Magazine's exploration of how relationship repair rebuilds trust and connection complements this step, repair requires both people to respond differently to what happened, not simply one person deciding to forgive.
Ask yourself, What does freedom look like now? It may be a boundary set, a conversation held, joy allowed, support accepted, or trust rebuilt gradually with people who have earned it. Freedom is not forgetting. It is remembering without being ruled by the memory. The person who shaped one painful chapter of your past does not have to remain the author of your future.
What is one honest step you can take today?
You do not have to resolve every hurt today. Begin with one weight.
See it: Write one sentence that tells the truth about what happened and what it cost you.
Say it: Choose one safe, trustworthy place in which you can speak honestly.
Set it down: Name the payment you have been waiting for and consider releasing your need to collect it.
Start again: Take one small action that reflects the future you want, not only the past you endured.
Forgiveness cannot rewrite what happened. It does not erase accountability, and it does not guarantee reconciliation. But it can loosen the past's hold and give you back the right to decide what happens next.
You may have carried the weight for years. You may have become very good at carrying it. That still does not mean it was yours to carry forever.
Begin reconnecting before the hurt becomes a crisis
If unresolved hurt is quietly creating distance in your relationship, visit Holding On Together to explore relationship resources, upcoming events, and ways to work with Hazel. You don't have to wait until disconnection becomes a crisis to begin an honest conversation.
Read more from Hazel N. Williams
Hazel N. Williams, Relationship Strategist & Author
Hazel N. Williams is an author, speaker, relationship coach, and founder of Holding On Together, supporting couples and families through communication breakdown, emotional distance, and relationship pressure. With over 40 years of lived experience in marriage and family life, she brings a practical, relatable voice to conversations about connection, resilience, and restoration. Hazel also speaks into corporate wellbeing, helping organisations understand the hidden impact personal and relational pressure can have on focus, confidence, wellbeing, and workplace performance. She was recognised as a Tesco Inspirational Mum of the Year for her community impact work.
