Western culture and Māoritanga have different perspectives on forgiveness. In Western culture forgiveness is largely seen as something that we can do on our own and if we can achieve it, we are then good and virtuous.  Māori frame forgiveness as a collective act with less emphasis on it being a goal in itself. Rather forgiveness may or may not be the outcome of taking action to “restore balance” due to the harm done.

Our English dictionaries describe forgiveness as an emotional response that involves letting go of ill feeling towards someone. This meaning shaped by our Christian roots. Key themes from the Bible about forgiveness are:

We must forgive others to be forgiven by God.

“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins (Matthew 6:14-15).” 

The person who has sinned must confess their sins to be forgiven also.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness (John 1:9).”

We need to be patient and steadfast in terms of being able to forgive.

“Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”. Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times (Matthew 18:21,22).”  

These passages place onus on the person who has been harmed to forgive and directs those who have caused harm to confess to god.  This seems hardly fair or balanced as there is no requirement for the ‘sinner’ to make amends. While forgiveness can be healthy and liberating, in some situation it can lead to ongoing hurt and victimisation.

The stakes are higher when it comes to forgiving someone we have a deep emotional bond and ongoing contact with, as opposed to offering forgiveness to someone we don’t have an attachment with and who we may never see again. Particularly in families or relationships with long histories of unhealthy dynamics and behaviours. Healing and lasting change results from deep inner work and soul searching. And unless a person has done this, any change will likely be superficial as they’ll be operating with the same pathology. Staying enmeshed in relationships with others who haven’t done the work can leave a person open to being hurt all over again.  

Coinciding with framing forgiveness as being integral to becoming whole and good is the notion that resentment and anger are unhealthy and bad. Labelling some feelings as good and some as bad, however, prevents us from feeling ok about experiencing the spectrum of emotions often needed to work through things. After all anger and wanting some form of acknowledgment of the harm done are normal reactions and can be forces for action.

Māori have a less puritan approach to forgiveness. For them, it’s a collective social process involving all parties affected with onus on the transgressor to “seek forgiveness” and to “make amends” as opposed to placing responsibility on the victim “to forgive”.  Perhaps more prominent than aiming for forgiveness is the notion of utu; a means of restoring harmony and balance through the reciprocal obligations that exist between individuals and groups. These obligations might include kind deeds as well as retribution or revenge. And because Māori place relationships within the sacred realm, they enter into such processes with an openness and willingness to restore, heal and preserve.

The translation for the word Muru, which has a similar meaning to the western concept of forgiveness, has only been adopted in modern times.  Rather, the phrase kimi hamutu and the word utu demonstrate the traditional Māori world view on forgiveness and reconciliation. The following entries are taken from the Maori Dictionary.

Muru

(verb) (-a) to wipe out, forgive, absolve, excuse, pardon, cancel – a modern connotation.

kimi hamutu

To make it up, make up, seek forgiveness, reconcile – an idiom used when the speaker has seriously transgressed and wishes to make it up with the person, or people, affected by the transgression.

Rangi: There is the thief that we caught stealing my car.

Pare: Yes indeed. Should we talk to him?

Rangi: Leave him alone to make it up to us.

Utu

(noun) revenge, vengeance, retaliation, payback, retribution, cost, price, wage, fee, payment, salary, reciprocity – an important concept concerned with the maintenance of balance and harmony in relationships between individuals and groups and order within Māori society, whether through gift exchange or as a result of hostilities between groups. It is closely linked to mana and includes reciprocation of kind deeds as well as revenge...

Stan Walker’s story “Impossible: My Story” is not just his story. It’s the story of his whanau’s journey towards forgiveness and healing. Their Christian values, alongside truth telling and taking responsibility, have seen the Walker family transformed. Previously entangled in intergenerational abuse, they are now able to love and laugh together and move forward as a tight-knit supportive unit. Perhaps Stan’s father Ross, who for many years dished out the same abuse he knew as a child to his own wife and children, has undergone the most profound transformation. In some respects, he has led his family’s journey towards healing through being open and honest and having a genuine intent to change.

Those of us raised as Pākehā, live in a culture that mostly values individualism over collective responsibility. Our journey towards healing often happens alone and with the help of a support person, such as a trusted therapist. In this setting we can only really work on forgiving ourselves. However, we can also work on deciding how we want to be treated and what type of relationship we want with those who have caused us harm. If family or other relationships remain difficult while doing this work, there may be a need to take emotional distance and to minimise or even go no contact.

As shown by the Walkers, forgiveness and restoration within families and other relationships is absolutely possible when issues are worked through together in a deep and honest way. Without this restorative process, finding ways to become less enmeshed may allow the mental space to let go of past hurts. With this may come a new level of acceptance and forgiveness.

When the news about Harvey Weinstein hit the headlines, one of the first things I was curious about was his children. I always go there, wondering about the family of people like him. I also wondered about his wife. How was she in the relationship? How was she as a mother? Did she know about the things he was up to? Or if I’m honest about the phrasing of the last question, how could she not have known?

The children of families like that are often the elusive shadow. As adults we tend to keep a low profile because of our shame. There’s also not much written about us. Either there’s an assumption that we were shielded from his dark side. That despite his misdemeanours, he loved his wife and his children.  Or if we weren’t spared, then our circumstances can be explained under the banner of domestic violence.  Yet the unique dynamics of our parent’s pathological relationship meant our mothers are the least likely of any type of abuse victim to seek help in any form. We therefore fly completely under the radar.

While literature about domestic violence helped explain the behaviours my father used to exert power and control, it never fully explained the relationship between my mother and father. Nor did it explain my mother’s relationship with her children.  It largely treats mothers as a homogenous group, whose foremost concern is protecting her children. Situations where a mother fails to properly do this are seen to be due to her fear, or to the father’s control. And once she ends the relationship, she will then become a better parent.

It wasn’t until I began reading about co-dependance and pathological relationships that I gained greater insight into my experiences. In a pathological relationship one (or both) of the partnership has a Cluster B personality disorder. This includes the “Dark Triad” of conditions – borderline, narcissism and anti-social personality disorders (which includes sociopaths and psychopaths). In essence, people in the Dark Triad category appear to have little or no conscience and be incapable of love. The general belief is that no matter how much support or rehabilitation they receive, they can or will not change.­

Unfortunately having parents who are in a pathological love relationship is not that rare. It’s estimated that 1%-6% of the general population has a Cluster B personality disorder.^[2] While there are cases where the mother, or both parents have a dark disorder, I use the term “him” for the disordered person and “her” for his partner as this is the most common dynamic.

There’s a multitude of books and blogs devoted to helping women avoid getting into a relationship with a “Dark” person or to heal from the complicated aftermath symptoms if she was unlucky enough to do so. Sometimes we (the children of parents in a pathological relationship) get a mention. But this is usually in passing; as in the fact that they had children. There’s little recognition or insight, into how these relationships impacted on us.   

One of the most enlightening books I’ve come across is Sandra L. Brown’s Women Who Love Psychopaths, Inside the Relationships of Inevitable Harm with Psychopaths, Sociopaths and Narcissists. Brown explains the mind control techniques he uses that sees the relationship full of paradoxes. For example, he buys her flowers and says he loves her, yet he cheats and lies.  In essence, he messes with her mind which sees her develop cognitive dissonance; the holding of inconsistent thoughts and beliefs. She’s likely to feel an intense love for him and yet loathe him at the same time. According to Brown, it is this cognitive dissonance that is the most distressing of her trauma symptoms. Often her problem is not flashbacks about his abuse. It’s doubting her own reality when bombarded with memories of his “kindness”.

Brown also discusses how she “normalises” his behaviours. In doing so, she takes on his values and begins to see the world from his point of view. In essence, she becomes his enabler. Giving her children to her ex-partner is provided as an example. One of the key points she makes is, even if she’s no longer in the relationship, she needs professional help. This is to support her recovery, in particular to address her high levels of stress and “disordered” thinking. If she doesn’t receive this help, then she is at risk of returning to him. She is also at risk of getting into another unhealthy relationship.

Like Brown, Hennessey (in his book The Mind of the Intimate Male Abuser; How he gets inside her head), discusses his ability to“play” her, as well as the system. He refers to repeat intimate partner abusers (as opposed to situational abusers) as conmen and psychephiles. As do paedophiles, they use tactics to groom and get inside the head of their “target”. Through his years of work in the field of domestic violence, he’s come to conclude that the intention of the repeat abuser is always to pull the wool over other’s eyes. He never wants to be exposed. Her wants her to seem irrational.

Hennessy believes that, contrary to popular belief, anger management courses are completely ineffective. That’s because his problem isn’t losing control. It’s having too much control and a sense of entitlement. While he may sometimes fly into fits of rage, he’s always aware of himself and his impact on her. In fact, any type of rehabilitation programme is pointless as he’s not interested in changing and has little or no conscience. Instead, the focus needs to shift to protecting her (both physically and mentally) and sanctioning him. At a societal level, he advocates for raising awareness about the underlying tactics of the psychephile. He also advocates for increasingly challenging the tolerance of male priority.

Brown explains that while those with a “Dark” disorder come from all walks of life, they often exist within the higher echelons. Along with having the gift of the gab, they often also have the money to “play’ the system.  While some with a “Dark Triad” disorder get caught, and the high profile and extreme characters such as Harvey Weinstein make the news and grab our attention, most go undetected. Those with “Dark” disorder have a specific skill – pretending they are what they’re not. While sexual deviance may be one of the array of their risk taking behaviours, they’re likely to be up to a wide range of dodginess such as white collar crime and other forms of fraud. In relationships, while their tactics may involve hands-on physical violence, their prowess with psychological warfare is enough to undermine their partners sense of self.

While I agree with Brown and Hennessey about the trickiness and destructiveness of his character, I am uncomfortable with their black and white stance that he is bad and that she is good. It’s convenient and simplistic to believe that he is ‘other worldly’. It’s a way of separating ourselves from him and from the idea that he’s been shaped by societal forces. When I hear statements like he turned out “bad” even though he came from a normal family and had a happy childhood, I always wonder what else might have gone on. On all accounts, unless you had an insider’s view, you would have thought mine was a “normal” family.

In terms of my father, you could say that societal attitudes to women, along with being raised by a single mother who was religious, righteous, and overbearing to the point of being abusive, was the breeding ground for a budding sociopath misogynist.  Given my father’s past I doubt he could ever be ‘cured’. But if he had of been checked and sanctioned, and had received some form of support, he may not have evolved into the tyrant he became.

My mother too was shaped by forces. The most notable being married to a controlling and abusive man who tightly controlled her access to finances, and by societal norms. This included the views of her church that saw her stick with her man, and take the submissive and deferential role of women to the extreme. She became indifferent to his physical, psychological and sexual abuse of her own children.

The amount of pathology and intensity in the relationship, I believe, results in less focus on the children’s needs.  The lack of awareness about this type of relationship means our stories remain unheard and unvalidated, both by our parents and by society. If more light is shed onto the profound impacts on her children, it might give her more impetus to leave. Hopefully, it will also highlight the importance or providing her with the education and psychological support that she needs.

Further note: An Aug 2024 news article about a marriage with all the hallmarks of a pathological relationship that ended in tragedy.

Philip Polkinghorne murder trial: Jury hears voice of Pauline Hanna as she contemplated ending marriage

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[1] Larsen, Rasmus. (2019). Psychopathy Treatment and the Stigma of Yesterday’s Research. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal. 29. 243-272. 10.1353/ken.2019.0024.

[2] Cailhol, Lionel et al. “Prevalence, Mortality, and Health Care Use among Patients with Cluster B Personality Disorders Clinically Diagnosed in Quebec: A Provincial Cohort Study, 2001-2012.” Canadian journal of psychiatry

Thanks to Spiderman, even though the adage “with great powers comes great responsibility” has become a cliché there’s still wisdom in those words. Just as this phrase was uttered by Winston Churchill and others who have held positions of power, our examination of history tends to focus on those at the top. After all people who hold power make for interesting subject matter. Yet behind every great man or woman is an army of supporters and much less, if anything, is written about them.  And examining their role in shaping events becomes more important when power is used in harmful ways. In applying the moral code of the phrase now known as the Peter Parker Principle, I’m sure Peter would agree, that with any level of power comes responsibility.

The term enabler is used to describe someone who supports or encourages another’s dysfunctional or bad behaviour. It was bandied around during the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell as media and lawyers debated whether she was an ‘enabler’ or a ‘pawn’ to Jeffrey Epstein. Fortunately, in my view, the jury decided she was neither as society tends to view a person who is labelled an enabler (or a pawn) as weak, rather than responsible. Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking and other related crimes. She was therefore deemed to have taken an ‘active’ and ‘coercive’ role with Epstein. This is opposed to being an enabler, which often happens through omission.

Through examining the wider context in cases where historical figures have been particularly divisive and destructive, we have come to learn more about the important role of supporters in seeing the misuse of power go unchecked.  For example. Barbara Kellerman in her book the Enablers: How Team Trump Flunked the Pandemic and Failed America, discusses how members of Trump’s inner circle, as well as law makers and media hold some responsibility for the high death toll that resulted from the mismanagement of the pandemic.

While power often motivates those who act ‘badly’, fear is often the reason we don’t stand up to someone. Sometimes this fear is real and justified. For example, in countries with tyrannical leaders or in relationships with physical violence, people often fear for their lives. Their actions aren’t based around voluntary transactions. They’re doing what needs to be done to survive.

However it’s often fear of less ‘dramatic’ things that lead people to stay silent or support someone when they don’t agree with their actions.  In a workplace this might be fear of losing a job, not getting a promotion, or of being out of favour. This is what Barbara Kellerman says about those in Trump’s inner circle; “(they) were afraid that if they contradicted him, not to speak of crossed or countermanded him, he would fire them, demote, humiliate or exile them.”  

I’m sure many of these people came to their roles wanting to help make the lives of everyday Americans better. But in succumbing to their fear they often had to ignore their own values. In supporting Trump throughout his mismanagement of the pandemic which caused thousands of unnecessary deaths, they ended up standing for nothing other than their own survival. In doing so they helped cause great harm.

While the Trump example is extreme and high profile, the dynamic where middle managers don’t stand up to someone at the top is common.  This wouldn’t be such a problem if so many others weren’t affected by it. Staff can become increasingly stressed and unhappy if, for example, their leader doesn’t push back on unreasonable demands. While meanness or control may never be the intention of the middle manager, through focussing on their own survival they end up being a portal for the demands of their boss. And they often have no idea of their role in causing harm as they aren’t paying attention to it.

In a previous contract position, as we moved into lockdown, those at the top reiterated the words of Jacinda Ardern; that we needed to be “kind” to each other in order to get through. Yet as we began working from our homes, the demands increased. There was twice daily team zoom check-ins and constantly changing deadlines (always tighter), which we started to call “fake deadlines”. One day on a Zoom call with a teammate, out of the blue she said “OMG I feel like I’m in a Doctor Phil show”. I asked her if she was Dr Phil or a guest on the show. Without hesitation she said, ” nah  I’m in the audience. It’s like I’m sitting back and watching all this drama. It’s the story of my life.”

In our team meeting that morning someone had burst into tears. When it was her turn to give an update she was expected to report she was on track with deadlines. But she was struggling to keep up, having to juggle work demands with her young children at home also. The manager wasn’t an unkind person. She was just running scared of those at the top and therefore ineffective. The result was a culture that was frayed and fractious.

Those at the top (or overseeing and supposedly independent organisations) can also take on the role of enabler through failing to address “issues”. During another contract, a relatively new manager was clearly toxic, but also very good at smooching up. When a number of staff complained about her behaviour, which was clearly in the ilk of bullying, she was never called to task. Relationships and motivation got to an all-time low. But rather than deal with the situation himself, the CEO put the whole staff through mediation. An expensive undertaking that resulted in clear finding that she was the problem and needed to go “urgently”. Hence, when she left, she took a pay-out with her.

The ‘good managers’ I’ve come across are the ones who remain discreet, professional and resolute when they come up against a challenging boss or staff member(s) in order to support their teams to remain productive and positive. They’re also willing to address the ‘bad’ behaviour. After all, that’s why the word manager or leader is in their job title.  Standing up to someone will have risks. It also requires skill in knowing the best ways to push back as it’s well possible they’ll end up being out of favour in some way if they do.

If a ‘toxic’ culture is entrenched, a good manager will also likely end up leaving to find a workplace with a culture more aligned to their values. At least, during their time, they will have done their best for those in their team. They will have also taken a stance on what they believe to be right. And those are the people we think of with respect when they come to mind in the years to come.

Sometimes I can be like my colleague who felt like an audience member. But I’m not watching Dr Phil. I’m watching Coronation Street. That’s because I’m a Gen X (she’s a Millennial) and much more jaded. At first it’s alluring and interesting and then after a long while the constant drama gets to be really tiring. All the characters have constant misfortune and, in one form or another, engage in petty squabbles.  (BTW, when I last watched Coro Street about 20years ago, Hayley was the only female portrayed as being ‘nice’ and she was actually transgender). Just like the show that still goes on some 60 years after it was first aired, many workplaces remain a place of constant unhappiness and drama.  Give me a Spiderman movie any day.