Real reconciliation is great, but . . .

Emily Yoffe ("Dear Prudence") brings up the unpopular truth that reconciliation needs to come from both sides, and we really have no control over whether the other person even feels they've done anything to be forgiven for.

Loved ones and friends – sometimes even therapists – who urge reconnecting with a parent often speak as if forgiveness will be a psychic aloe vera, a balm that will heal the wounds of the past . . . What these people fail to take into account is the potential psychological cost of reconnecting, of dredging up painful memories and reviving destructive patterns.

She's writing about parents (and it's hard both to be estranged from such a close relation, and to forgive someone who devoted their life to staying drunk when they should've been helping you grow up), but reconnecting with anyone you've broken with can have its cost.

And yes, I think you can forgive someone and still "leave them alone except in prayer"  as Marie Luttrell once wrote. No embraces, no chance to say magnanimously, "I forgive you", just a moving on from your own anger.