Yom Kippur is approaching, and with it words like forgiveness, pardon, and atonement return to our language. We think about the people we’ve hurt, the things we said and those we didn’t say, and the places where we wish we had acted differently.
Within a relationship, asking for forgiveness seems almost self-evident. I hurt the person I love, so I say to them: “Forgive me.”
In recent years I find myself pausing precisely on those two words. What am I actually asking of you when I say “forgive me”? Am I truly seeing you and my hurt toward you, or am I asking you to help me stop feeling guilty? Am I taking responsibility for what I did, or transferring to you, without noticing, the responsibility for what will happen between us now?
Asking for forgiveness in a relationship can open a door to repair when it includes recognition of the hurt, taking responsibility, and willingness to change. When I need my partner to forgive me in order to stop feeling guilty, I may transfer to them the responsibility to soothe me. Forgiveness belongs to the person who was hurt, responsibility for the action belongs to the one who caused hurt, and repair, if it becomes possible, is built between both.
In my view, these are questions worth asking especially in the days before Yom Kippur. Not to give up on forgiveness, but to understand what turns asking for forgiveness in a relationship into a movement that holds responsibility, love, and repair.
I don’t remember the first time I asked for forgiveness from someone I truly loved. I do remember clearly that I didn’t know how to do it, because in the home where I grew up there were no conversations of repair. There were silences.
My mother’s silences were not quiet. They were punishment in “I’m not speaking to you.” As a child I felt them as excommunication. When I was offended, cried, or dared to rebel, one thing was required of me: to ask for forgiveness.
It was a one-way movement. The child asks forgiveness from her parents. The parents, the adults, did not ask forgiveness from us, the children. This created in me a child’s understanding: the adult does not ask forgiveness from the small one. Whoever asks for forgiveness is the one who lost.
Between my parents, too, I don’t remember conversations of repair. There were residues, reckonings, silences, and power dynamics. In my parents’ home I learned that to forgive means to stop resisting, and that to ask for forgiveness means to shrink and admit defeat.
It took me years to understand there is another possibility.
From a systemic perspective, we bring into the relationship the emotional language of the family we came from as well. The ways they expressed anger at home, fell silent, punished, reconciled, or continued as if nothing happened. We carry with us what we saw happen after hurt and also what we never saw. So the question—how do we ask for forgiveness in a relationship?—sometimes begins long before the relationship itself.
Let’s say I hurt my partner. I said something cruel during a fight, broke a promise, ignored something that was important to him, hid something from him, or repeated behavior I already know hurts him.
Now I see his hurt and inside me feelings of guilt, shame, fear begin to rise. Perhaps I’m afraid he’ll distance himself from me. Perhaps it’s hard for me to meet myself as a person who hurt someone they love.
I want this feeling to stop, and then I say: “Forgive me.”
Seemingly I’m turning to him, but here I suggest we stop and ask honestly: For whose sake is this request for forgiveness being said right now?
Sometimes “forgive me” actually means “tell me I’m still okay.” Sometimes I’m asking to know that you still love me. Sometimes I want us to return already to the state where things are comfortable between us. Sometimes I’ll ask you, without consciously knowing that’s what I’m doing, to help me stop feeling guilty.
Asking for forgiveness can be a movement of closeness and responsibility; it can also become a request for the person who was hurt to take care of the discomfort of the person who hurt them.
There is an important difference between the ability to feel guilt and sinking into shame.
Guilt can direct me toward the action: I did something that hurt you. It can tell me I behaved in a way that doesn’t align with my values and motivate me to take responsibility and repair. Shame turns the gaze toward my identity: if I did such a thing, something in me must not be okay.
When I’m drawn into shame, I become very occupied with myself. I may shrink, defend, explain, attack back, or need my partner to tell me I’m still good and worthy.
It’s precisely the ability to remain worthy that allows me to bear the knowledge that I made a mistake without falling apart from it. I can see that I did something that doesn’t align with the person I want to be, learn from it and repair, without turning my mistake into a definition of who I am. My worthiness doesn’t cancel the severity of my action. It allows me to look at it without averting my gaze, and the less occupied I am with defending my value, the more room opens in me to see the person I hurt.
There’s another movement that sometimes occurs within the “forgive me.” I’m the one who hurt you, but from the moment I asked for forgiveness the central question may become: “Will you forgive me?”—the center of gravity shifts to you.
If you forgave, we can seemingly move forward, and if you’re not ready to forgive, it’s easy to arrive from here at sentences like “but I already asked for forgiveness,” “how much longer will you be angry at me?” or “what else do you want me to do?”…
This way the conversation is no longer about what I did and what my action did to you. It’s about your difficulty forgiving me.
In my work with couples I meet this movement again and again. One partner says in pain: “But I apologized. I asked for forgiveness. What else can I do?”
When we stay a bit longer with this sentence, sometimes it turns out that underneath it lies another request: “I can no longer bear that you’re still hurt by me.”
From there a new movement can begin; instead of trying to make the person who was hurt move forward faster, it’s possible to say “I see you’re still hurt. It’s hard for me to meet this, and I want to stay here and listen.” This way the request for forgiveness is actually an attempt to end the pain before we’ve truly agreed to meet it.
Hurt in a relationship doesn’t exist only within the person who was hurt. It changes something in the space between the partners as well. Something in the balance of giving and receiving was disrupted. Perhaps trust was hurt, perhaps the sense of security was hurt, perhaps respect, intimacy, or the knowledge that we can lean on each other took a blow.
A word of forgiveness alone doesn’t necessarily restore the balance. Repair requires actual movement: recognition of what happened, willingness to bear the consequences, and actions that can gradually return to the relationship something of what was hurt.
If I hurt your trust, my repair needs to be connected to trust.
If I humiliated you, I need to examine how I restore respect to the space between us.
If I was absent from you again and again in moments when you needed me, the question is how I begin to be present differently.
Repair needs to be connected to the hurt. Asking for forgiveness can open the door; what happens after it is what will determine whether something in the relationship can actually change.
From a constellative perspective, it’s also interesting to observe the places we position ourselves vis-à-vis each other when we ask for forgiveness.
When I need your forgiveness in order to feel worthy again, I may position myself opposite you as small facing large: I am the guilty one and the petitioner, and you have the authority to grant me forgiveness or withhold it from me.
Seemingly the power is now with you. Along with the power, I’ve transferred to you responsibility as well: it’s in your hands to decide whether I can feel okay again and whether our relationship can continue forward.
The very saying of the words “forgive me” doesn’t necessarily create this structure. It’s possible to ask for forgiveness from a mature, responsible, and differentiated position as well. The question that interests me is: To what extent do I need you to forgive me so that I can bear myself and what I did?
It’s possible to stand facing each other as two people of equal worth, even when one of them hurt the other.
One of the things that makes it difficult for us to take responsibility is the confusion between who we are and what we did.
If I need to see myself always as a good, moral, considerate, and sensitive person, the knowledge that I hurt you threatens my identity. So I may begin to explain: “I didn’t mean to,” “you didn’t understand me,” “you do this to me too,” or “you know how hard that day was for me.”
Sometimes all these facts are true, and yet, in this moment they may distance me from the encounter with my hurt toward you.
Worthiness allows a different movement—I can be a worthy person who did something unworthy and that hurt another person. My value isn’t erased because of my mistake. I don’t need you to restore it to me, and therefore I can look more directly at my behavior.
Taking responsibility requires me to agree to see myself wholly: a person who has love, good intentions, and value, and who is also capable of making mistakes, hurting, and being responsible for the consequences of my actions.
One of the deep tests of differentiation in a relationship comes precisely after we’ve hurt.
I tell you I’m sorry, and you’re still angry. Perhaps you don’t want to get close to me right now and perhaps you need more time. Perhaps my apology isn’t enough for you.
This in my view is differentiated responsibility-taking. I remain connected to myself while at the same time staying in contact with the impact my action had on you.
There’s another difficult part here and it is agreeing that I have no control over the outcome of the repair.
It’s possible I’ll take responsibility, apologize sincerely, listen and change my behavior, and my partner will still need time; it’s possible trust will return slowly. Sometimes a hurt will have consequences I don’t want.
Taking responsibility is not currency with which I buy back closeness. I can take responsibility for what I did without receiving in return the outcome I want.
The person who was hurt also has a full place within this process. They are worthy of their time and their pain. They are not required to forgive in order to soothe the person who hurt them, and are not obligated to return to closeness before they’re ready for it. At the same time, they too remain a person with choice and responsibility. They are responsible for the way they express the hurt and for the choices they make in its wake. Forgiveness, if it comes, can be their choice. A boundary, distance, or request for change can also be their choice.
Responsibility for the hurt is not automatically divided between the two partners. Responsibility for the action belongs to the one who did it; responsibility for myself belongs to each of us.
This way it’s possible to remain two people of equal worth even when responsibility for a particular event is not equal.
Forgiveness and repair are not the same movement.
Forgiveness is in the hands of the person who was hurt. I cannot determine whether they will forgive me, when they will forgive me, and what forgiveness will look like for them.
Responsibility for my action is with me. I can recognize what I did, listen to what it did to you, take responsibility, examine what caused me to act as I did, and consider what I need to do differently so this pattern won’t continue to run me and our relationship.
Relational repair is already a movement created between us.
I can offer repair, but I cannot force it. You can choose whether and how to meet it. If both of us can stay in contact with what happened and move from within it, something new may be built in the relationship.
Your forgiveness belongs to you. My responsibility belongs to me. Repair, if it becomes possible, is created between us.
I suggest beginning with clear recognition of the hurt:
“I see that I hurt you.”
And then taking responsibility:
“I’m sorry for my hurt toward you. I take responsibility for what I did.”
You can add:
“I want to understand better what this hurt did to you, and to examine what I need to learn and change so I don’t repeat this again.”
You can also say:
“The consequences of what I did I’m willing to bear. I will do my part in the repair.”
There is no demand for forgiveness in these sentences and no request for reassurance. There is one person standing before another person and saying: “I see you. I see what I did. I’m willing to bear my part.”
If forgiveness comes, it will be able to come as a free movement of the person who was hurt, at their pace.
The first step is to see the impact of my action on my partner, even if I didn’t intend to hurt. My intention matters, and the experience of the person facing me matters as well. Recognizing the hurt doesn’t require me to agree with every interpretation of the other. It requires me to be willing to meet the fact that my behavior affected them.
I agree to see that I made a mistake without turning myself into the mistake. I can listen, feel sorry, and learn without collapsing into shame and without transferring to my partner the responsibility to restore my sense of value.
I ask what was hurt between us and what is required of me now. If trust was hurt, what consistent action can begin to restore it? If respect was hurt, what will respect look like in my actions? If my partner experienced me as absent, what is presence for them and for me?
Taking responsibility doesn’t end with a sentence; it gains meaning in what happens after it.
I return to the child I was. To the child who learned that the small one asks forgiveness from the large one. To the child who understood that asking for forgiveness is surrender and that whoever apologizes is the one who lost. From a systemic perspective, we bring into the relationship the ways our family dealt with guilt, hurt, and repair. Sometimes we continue them without knowing that’s what we’re doing.
Understanding where my pattern came from can bring compassion, context, and meaning. It doesn’t exempt me from responsibility for it; on the contrary, once I see it, the possibility opens before me to choose how I want to act with it.
Constellation work helps me see where I came from. Differentiation returns me to the question: what do I choose to do now?
I don’t need to retroactively fix the family I came from in order to live differently in my relationship. I can see my parents as they are, receive life from them, and turn forward to my life and to the person I chose to be with.
Toward Yom Kippur I invite you to choose one hurt you know you caused your partner. There’s no need to start with the biggest event in the relationship. Choose something you’re currently able to look at honestly.
Stand alone facing a mirror. Feel the soles of your feet on the floor and notice your breath and body.
Look at your figure in the mirror and imagine that behind you stand your parents, and behind them their parents.
You don’t need to see them clearly or feel something specific.
Just give them space behind you.
Ask yourself:
Don’t search for a correct answer. Notice what arises in the body, in memory, and in thought.
Now feel the parents behind you and say, quietly or aloud:
“Mom, Dad, from you I came.
The way I learned love, anger, guilt, and forgiveness I also received within our home.
I leave what was between you as it was.
The life I received from you I take in full
and what I do with it now in my relationship is my responsibility.”
Stay for a moment with the parents behind you.
Then take a breath and direct your attention forward.
The past is behind you.
Your partner is before you.
Imagine them standing before you in place of the figure in the mirror. Don’t ask anything of them.
Say:
“I see you,
I see that I hurt you.
I’m sorry for my hurt toward you.
I take responsibility for what I did.
The consequences of what I did I’m willing to bear.
I will do my part in the repair.”
Stop.
Notice if an urge arises in you to explain, defend, remind that they also hurt, ask them to forgive, or receive from them a sign that everything is okay.
Don’t fight the urge.
Just notice it and stay another moment.
And then say:
“Your forgiveness belongs to you,
my responsibility belongs to me.
The repair, if it becomes possible, we will create between us.”
Stay facing the mirror a few more breaths and finally ask yourself:
Not a grand declaration and not a promise to become a different person; look for an actual action that will be visible in reality. That’s where repair begins.
Yom Kippur invites us to ask for forgiveness. I want to add another movement to this invitation. Before I ask you to forgive me, I want to see you. To see what I did. To agree to meet the fact that I hurt without immediately fleeing to my explanations and without asking you to ease my feelings of guilt.
I want to take responsibility for my part and examine what was hurt between us and what I can do to begin to repair.
I’m doing this not to prove I’m a good person. I’m doing this because the person I hurt matters to me and the relationship between us matters to me. I’m willing to look at what I did precisely because I want to preserve the love without asking it to hide what hurts.
The child I was thought asking for forgiveness meant I lost. Today I understand that responsibility doesn’t make me small.
I can stand before the person I love as an equal. See their pain, see my part in creating it, and remain. I can also know that taking my responsibility doesn’t guarantee the outcome I want. I cannot determine when closeness will return, when trust will return, or when forgiveness will come.
I can do my part.
Your forgiveness belongs to you, my responsibility belongs to me, and repair, if it becomes possible, is created between us.
This is one of the deep possibilities that forgiveness in a relationship can open: not to erase what was and not to rush back to what was before, but to meet the hurt, take responsibility for it, and see if from what happened we can create something new between us.
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