Forget and Forgive: How Forgetting Sustains Relationships

Friedrich Nietzsche said that the happiness of individuals depends on forgetting at the right time and remembering at the right time. The same applies to the happiness of relationships.

In an earlier post, I discussed how remembering supports a relationship. But we also need to forget. To provide the necessary balance, this post focuses on what we should forget and how we should forget it.

3 kinds of interactions to forget

Source: Keira Burton/Pexels

1. Resolved conflicts. Remembering an unresolved disagreement is necessary for successful conflict resolution later, but once resolved, the disagreement should be set aside and not recalled. Similarly, if an insult is retracted or apologized for, it’s beneficial not to remember that insulting interaction. With resolved conflicts, forgetting becomes a form of forgiving.
2. The atypical. Atypical behavior is often overemphasized due to our tendency to commit the fundamental attribution error. We place too much weight on individual choice and not enough on the influence of the situation. During interactions, when someone speaks or behaves out of character, chances are the stresses and influences of the situation are supporting the atypical responses. Recognizing the power of the situation encourages us to lower the salience of these atypical responses, decreasing their prominence in memory.
3. Forgetting. Every so often, forgetting creates conflict—for example, if our partner doesn’t remember our dinner plans with friends or our late meeting at work. In such cases, it’s helpful to acknowledge the forgetting and put it away as something not worth remembering. We forget a lot, naturally. To forget is not a moral failing or a personal slight. It’s a necessary process that focuses on retaining what’s important. In general, everyday forgetting should be forgotten and forgiven–even if it seems inconsiderate or uncaring.

Forgetting after infidelity

The aftermath of infidelity is complex subject unto itself, and more detailed analyses are linked below. But there are worthwhile generalizations.

For couples committed to fidelity, the infidelity must be discussed and worked through cooperatively. Coming to a mutual understanding regarding the infidelity can strengthen the connection between two people, allowing couples to move ahead in a redefined relationship.

In addition, the vivid memories of the difficult discussions can be worked into a narrative memory of constructive conflict resolution.

Once a mutual understanding is reached and the recovery process is underway, an active effort not to recall the infidelity supports the redefined relationship. (Deciding to separate or to incorporate polyamory are subjects for another post.)

In general, the intention to work through serious transgressions requires a belief in the potential for people to change–a belief that can provide considerable sustenance over the course of a long-term relationship.

Source: Maria Orlova/Pexels

What we should not forget

Forgetting is not appropriate with abusive behavior, recurring actions, and insults that become destructive patterns. This post is not about suppressing harmful events or ignoring repeated versions of the same distressing interactions. Rather, it focuses on forgetting those events that fall within the wide range of normal circumscribed unpleasantness in our interpersonal lives: hurtful comments, inconsiderate behavior, heated conflicts, and transgressions.

Ways of forgetting

• Deciding not to encode. We can choose to deemphasize a potentially divisive interaction immediately after its occurrence. If we realize our partner has made a mistake not worth retaining, we can abstain from encoding the interaction in the first place. We do this by not mentally rehearsing the interaction, thereby attenuating its representation in memory. Studying for exams requires a willful commitment to memory. This is the opposite: A considered decision not to remember by not selectively attending and not mentally rehearsing.
• Cooperatively forgetting. Couples can decide not to refer to a distressing interaction and not to emphasize it. In this case, the event may be remembered, but it will be represented in memory as inconsequential. More generally, the process of coming to an agreement about an unpleasant memory actually strengthens the connection between two people.
• Allowing do-overs and overlaying troublesome memories. Do-overs are beneficial in a variety of endeavors. Allowing students to redo a failed exam improves overall learning of the designated material. After failing a driving test, people can retake it.¹ Retirees who file for Social Security and change their minds can withdraw their applications for up to a year. The same principle can be applied successfully to transgressions in relationships. By allowing do-overs, a memory of a distressing event can be overlaid with similar, more positive memories, weakening the retrieval of the original unpleasantness. It’s true that those with expertise don’t usually receive second and third chances–PGA golfers don’t get mulligans. But few of us are experts at relationships
• Letting retrieval pathways decay. If an unpleasant interaction is vividly represented in memory, it’s possible to let the retrieval pathways to that memory decay with disuse. This happens by not discussing the interaction and by not mentally rehearsing it individually. Discussing or thinking about a painful memory only strengthens the retrieval of that memory. By not actively retrieving the memory, the retrieval pathways become less accessible, and the memory becomes more difficult to find and less likely to be recalled.

Forgetting and forgiving

Deciding not to remember is a self-regulating behavior that rejects an impulsive default response to achieve a long-term goal. In this case, the goal of maintaining a relationship. Such self-regulating behavior is correlated with healthy and sustaining relationships.

We may think of forgetting as a failure of memory, but forgetting is its own system, designed to allow memory to maintain what’s important while preventing us from dwelling on the many small irritations and disappointments in our lives. Discord in a relationship can arise from not forgetting the inevitable miscommunications, insults, and slights when two people strive to make a life together. Often, we need to remind ourselves to forget.

We are not obligated to remember our unpleasant interactions. There is no requirement to build memorials for them. Ultimately, not remembering a transgression is the most direct form of forgiveness.