What good is it to tell someone the things of the past when they are busily correcting their mistakes now?

Question

I just want to hear you people say it, that's all.

Refer to my previous question about telling people what they've done wrong after it's already been done if you are confused as to what I'm asking this time. Thanks!

I'm asking why do people ignore what the person is doing now, not give them any credit for coming up with their solutions and not even help them get to that solution and then think they have the right to continually harangue them with the past, the past the errant one most definitely beats themself up about every minute of the day without "help"?

I know that stuff, but it's not fair that they won't even acknowledge any of their own wrongdoings. Most of mine were immature reactions to their treatment of me. Oh well. Guess I have some options....

Gosh, I make myself sound like a really bad person. I'm not.

Answer 1

Hi October,

Since the issue is probably a private one, you left some details out of your question, but there are still some general principles that can be applied here:

1. If the person is honestly trying now to change, make amends, or whatever, then bringing up the past is usually more discouraging than helpful. (The person would feel as if others did not appreciate the efforts they were making and that they can never change or be viewed as changed... so why try?) The person needs room to grow.

2. Just because the person is honestly trying to change does not mean that the pain they caused others by their original mistakes is "gone." It still needs to be dealt with at some point. Fixing one's act and making amends in no way compensates for actually hearing the grievances, admitting one's mistakes, apologizing, and listening to each other.

Unless someone actively dislikes the one who is changing (and wants to discourage them), usually those who bring up the past to this person are doing so because the matters were never sufficiently addressed and they're still hurt.

A prime example: My father was an alcoholic for probably forty years. Last year, he quit drinking and went sober (and is still sober now).

I am proud of him and happy for him, but my initial pleasure at his change has been shifting towards a mental account of all the ways he had hurt and short-changed my family and also how he really messed me up in some ways. Now I find myself angry sometimes, hurt other times, and just very distant from him.

Despite his going sober, he has never EVER initiated any conversation about the impact his drinking had on us, or apologized to us for what he did.

So what do I do? I have no desire to derail his progress or stir up bad feelings... but at the same time, we have little relationship because the past was never addressed and dealt with. It looks as if, to get past this, I am going to have to initiate something myself not out of anger, but because I want things to be fixed.

So I think both sides need some grace when dealing with each other. The people who are hurt need to give the "changing person" room to transform, while the one who hurt others needs to accept responsibility for what they had done and apologize for the past hurts.

This admission of guilt and asking for forgiveness is PART of the process of spiritual/personal growth for the perpetrator and everyone involved.

Neither side has to be a victim. Those hurt can choose to give the perpetrator some grace, space to change (thus, they are making decisions for themselves). The perpetrator can choose to initiate the process of reconciliation and ask forgiveness, rather than making those they hurt ask for it.

Answer 2

In the first place, why bother to do that when the target person is so busy with something else?

It would be good only if the thing you're goint to tell the person is good for him ---- something that really can help him see things clearly.

Answer 3

In Gestalt therapy there is something named "unfinished business". And they're all the things you don't expressed to someone sometime in the past.

If you don't resolve your unfinished business you are investing a lot of energy in them, instead of investing in your current present,in the hera-and-now Gestalt way of life.

Answer 4

I think we don't want people to forget! If you forget you are more likely to repeat.

Answer 5

If you don't pay attention to history you are doomed to repeat it.