How to Really Hurt a Guy
This One is About Forgiveness and the Power of Words
Give every man thy ear but few thy voice. *
Shortly after I separated from my children’s mother—this was around 1998—I was over at the house, probably to pick up some of my belongings, and she said something to me that effectively destroyed any good memories I may have had of our time together. We weren’t even fighting, we were just talking, but she must have felt that since our relationship was finished, kindness and restraint were no longer necessary.
“I’ve always been repulsed by your back hair,” she said. “Whenever we had sex, I couldn’t put my arms around you because I didn’t want to touch it.”
Words. They can cut deep and scar for life.
I’m glad I’m shy. I’m glad I’ve always been reserved with my speech. When you think much and talk little, you’re less likely to say something hurtful, something your listener may never forget.
That’s not to say I haven’t wounded with words as well. Just last year—I wish I could say it was earlier, before I began my meditation practice; but no, it was just last year—I hurt my wife, Jennifer, with words. After she blew out a tire on our new car by hitting a low retaining wall, I yelled at her. “You’re a bad driver!” I shouted. I swear I don’t yell often. I was upset because I wanted our new-to-us Prius to stay new-looking for at least six months. I was there when the accident happened and it sounded a lot worse than it was. I thought the whole side of the car was sideswiped. Turns out that after she bought a new tire and we buffed out a few scratches, you couldn’t even tell.
But I still feel terrible that I yelled like that. It was like an explosion happened inside me.
My children’s mother’s hurtful comment on that day so long ago was not an explosion. It was delivered with cool intent, and I doubt she even remembers it now. I certainly remember it, not so much because my physique was criticized—though she knew my body hair was an area of which I was self-conscious—but because I learned something terrible about the most intimate aspects of our eleven-year relationship that I was completely ignorant of.
If you’ve been reading my essays for some time, you may have noticed—as I am noticing now—that I’ve several times mentioned or alluded to the hurtful words spoken to me by the person with whom I’d planned to spend my life and raise our children.
What does that say about me, and my own flaws and weaknesses, and blind spots? Because, forget about her; I haven’t seen or spoken to my ex-wife in years, and the only time I’m even going to have to think about her is next summer when my son gets married. She’ll avoid me, as she did at my daughter’s wedding a couple years back, and I’ll be fine. There is only one person who can make me happy—or unhappy—and that is me. I do understand most of the complex reasons I chose to be with that person at that time, and thankfully I’ve grown a lot since then.
Besides, I honestly do not want to bash another person on this platform, this one-of-a-kind publishing and gathering place that is all about words, and the power of words.
I hold the power now, don’t I? I could get all my readers to sympathize with me and feel for me and to believe that my ex-wife is a cruel person, and not really such a good mother, despite her obsessive and overprotective parenting style.
But that would be ignoring the fact that she is a human being with feelings and needs just like me, one who laughs and suffers, goes to work every day, hangs with her friends, craves love and attention, and surely just wants to be happy.
I can’t help her with any of that but it certainly won’t improve my life or anyone else’s to be hateful and unforgiving, to hold resentment in my heart and to look for validation from others.
I’ve been wanting to write about forgiveness for a while now. I don’t think this is that essay, but I will say that I do forgive her. Not because I don’t still hurt when I think of her or believe she wouldn’t take another opportunity to swipe and scratch at me if she could (it’s been a long time but from what I hear from my children and others, she hasn’t changed much). I forgive her because I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to be human. Because I understand, just from looking around, that the human mind can tell itself all kinds of stories, and believe them, in response to a world that’s confusing, a world that’s filled with suffering and judgement and selfishness and greed. It’s hard to find your way in this world. It’s hard to find a reason to feel generous when you believe no one is going to be generous with you (and eventually, a hardened heart cannot recognize generosity even when it’s given).
I have to forgive the people who’ve hurt me and who will hurt me in the future because I have hurt people. Because I have felt scared, unloved, hopeless, and weak. And from those places, I have lashed out at people I love, believing my pain to be their fault. I didn’t understand, and I will forget again in the future, that my feelings were stories I was telling myself, that I often couldn’t help telling myself, because I’ve been conditioned as an American, as a Christian, as a man. Consequently, I hold deep-rooted expectations of others; that they treat me according to my beliefs about myself and what I deserve. Sometimes I get mad when those expectations aren’t met, and then I treat people exactly the way I don’t want them to treat me.
How can I expect others to be perfect when I am not capable of it myself?
And of course, because the human race is so diverse, and minds so complex, some people are more wounded than others. I have to hold space for that, and not fall back on judging who’s behavior is the better or the worse (Well, sure, I may have lost my temper, but I would never do what you did!).
This subject, of my divorce and subsequent battle for rights to my under-age children (the latter not addressed here; perhaps not for a long time), is very hard for me to write about. I’ve been wanting to bring it to this platform for a while now, but every time I try, I end up feeling a little queasy and putting it aside. This time I told myself, eight-hundred words, Don. That’s all you gotta write. Just dip your toes in the water. I’m quite well beyond 800 now, and I think I’m going to say good day.
I’ll just finish with this: brave and honest self-reflection, with no personal agenda (I’m a good person, I did my best, it’s not my fault), is, I think, where forgiveness comes from. This kind of vulnerability to truth reveals where all human behavior comes from; it comes from me, it comes from fear, it comes from the human race. All of us, as a single whole. We are all afraid at some level, and we are all in this together.
Since words do have such power, that will be my healing-not-hurting power word for today: together. Let’s stop telling ourselves stories about me versus you and start telling stories about us.
*William Shakespeare, Hamlet
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Thank you so much, Niki. Sometimes I think the word forgiveness needs a new name. Release, maybe. I think real forgiveness is releasing this person from their hold over you by letting them go. Your forgiveness is simply not caring what they do or what they think anymore. Not holding any resentment anymore. You understand that they did what they did because they were ignorant, or uneducated, or ill, or suffering in some way. It’s really just about acceptance.
Thank you so much for always being here, Niki. 🩷🌈
There’s an old saying, Don, “The most influential person in your life is the one you refuse to forgive.” I try to keep that in mind always. Thank you for another wonderful essay!