“No way,” She looked at me with angry eyes. We had talked about her anger toward her mother several times. She had no solutions. When I suggested the idea of forgiveness, without demanding it or putting any pressure on her at all to forgive, she did not even want to hear the word “forgiveness.” This is not an isolated case. Many people hold out the idea of forgiving until the other person uses those three little words: I am sorry. Yet, those words sometimes never come.

What is a person to do if the other never apologizes or refuses to do so? We will consider six ideas here if you have ever faced the dilemma of moving forward or not with forgiveness in the face of the other person’s resistance to apologizing to you.

When a person apologizes, there is an admission of wrongdoing. This can open the door to a change in the other, to recompense for what was taken away, if anything was, and to increase hope that the relationship may improve. Thus, an apology is good in the moral sense because it opens the door for fairness to enter. Therefore, those who want an apology are doing something moral because they are hoping for a positive change in the other person. When the apology does not come, the forgiver may think that justice is thwarted, which might be another forgivable offense in the eyes of the one wronged.

There is sometimes a tension in the forgiving person between offering mercy to those who acted unfairly and waiting for justice. Mercy can seem so weak because it does not confront, demand, or even ask for fairness. Therefore, there is a tendency to set forgiveness aside as inappropriate in the situation of the other’s refusal to........

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