Forgive Me, or, How to Have a Happy Marriage

In previous work at the family blog I have mentioned one of my favorite podcasts, Speaking of Faith, a public radio show featuring a wide variety of religious and spiritual thinkers who probe insightfully into a range of interesting topics.

Today I listened to the first part of an episode on revenge and forgiveness with Michael McCullough, a professor of psychology in Florida, who Summer described as "ruggedly handsome." McCullough's research into different animals--including us humans--shows that both revenge and forgiveness are rooted in our evolutionary psychology, and that understanding our instincts towards both emotions--and their resultant actions--helps us with the deep spiritual issues associated with responding to violence. (McCullough also teaches in religious studies.)

The basic idea is that for self-preservation, we are wired to defend ourselves and those we love, but that in order to truly love others, we also have to forgive. In fact, counterintuitively, he argues that in our close relationships, those where trust exists, "you don't put any effort into forgiving. It naturally happens and you move on." Drawing from evolutionary biology, McCullough makes the case that a parent has to forgive its offspring in order for them to survive, and so, as parents, we look past a,lot of little slights from our children.

I think there's a great spiritual truth here, that we have two competing but ultimately complementary instincts to grapple with, and the tension between the two is the struggle of our lives--to protect what is valuable and nurture it at the same time. This is especially true in the context of marriage, where we see too many relationships lost when selfishness and pride collide and derail forgiveness. Again, McCullough's argument is insightful: "relationships that have value in them are ones in which we're naturally prone to forgive." There is an investment of time and energy in our relationships that makes us predisposed to forgiveness in order to preserve and enrich those relationships.

Returning to marriage, it seems that the cause of exploding divorce rates among baby boomers (and,increasingly, my own generation, although the trend here is to not marry at all, avoiding the relationship in the first place) is related to an unwillingness to invest that psychic energy into establishing relationships in the first place, making them easier to dissolve.

I am convinced that Summer and I have made it work because we had it tough early on--we were poor, busy with work and school, and we had a baby--and we had to circle the wagons of our relationship to keep any semblance of sanity. That unity, forged in those early days, makes us more likely to look past each other's flaws and focus instead on the good. (It helps that she's an immensely patient and naturally forgiving woman. My two rules of marital bliss: 1) Strive for unity early on so you can learn to get along [see above], and 2) marry someone better than you.)