How to heal from damaging relationships.

by Bob Hostetler

Families are a gift from God. They can provide us with life and love, hope and happiness, strength and security, blessing and beauty. But families can also be the source of our greatest concerns and deepest hurts. Even the healthiest families can wound us in multiple ways.

It might be in the past: Someone ignored, neglected, or abused you. It may be more current: He can’t let you be right; she won’t let you forget. It could’ve been a single occurrence or something that happened repeatedly.

Whatever hurtful family experience you’ve been through, a careful look at a page in one family’s photo album — an account that followed multiple hurtful experiences — may offer comfort, wisdom, and hope today.

Awkward reunion

Jacob and Esau were brothers — twins, in fact. Even before they were born, they were fighting. Jacob was a mama’s boy; Esau was his dad’s favorite. Jacob tricked his father into giving him the inheritance that was supposed to go to Esau, simultaneously defrauding both. When Esau found out, he plotted to kill his brother, so Jacob ran, ending up at the home of a distant relative. There he met a girl, started a family, and prospered in business, until he had to get out of town quick — again.

Jacob and his family, servants, and flocks had nowhere to go but back home . . . where his brother Esau would be, the one he had betrayed and cheated. So Jacob devised an elaborate scheme and sent messengers to his brother with word that Jacob was coming home and that he hoped Esau would receive him. Those messengers returned with the news that Esau was coming to meet Jacob — with four hundred armed men!

Jacob responded by dividing his caravan into two groups, hoping if one was attacked, the other could get away. He sent a string of messengers ahead, each with gifts of goats, camels, cows, and donkeys to appease his brother. And Jacob prayed, wrestling with God all night long, hoping to survive the coming family reunion. When morning dawned, the showdown was imminent:

Jacob looked up and there was Esau, coming with his four hundred men; . . . But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept. Then Esau looked up and saw the women and children. “Who are these with you?” he asked. Jacob answered, “They are the children God has graciously given your servant.” Then the female servants and their children approached and bowed down. Next, Leah and her children came and bowed down. Last of all came Joseph and Rachel, and they too bowed down. Esau asked, “What’s the meaning of all these flocks and herds I met?” “To find favor in your eyes, my lord,” he said. But Esau said, “I already have plenty, my brother. Keep what you have for yourself” (Genesis 33:1, 4-9).

Biblical insights

This passage provides insight into how to heal from a hurtful family experience — not from Jacob, the man who wrestled with God, but from Esau. It suggests several things.

Give up your desire to get even. Jacob had never treated Esau right. He’d repeatedly gotten the better of him. So at their first meeting in twenty years, we might expect Esau to be thinking that Jacob was right where he wanted him. He could’ve been avenged with a wave of his hand, just a word to his armed men. But no. He said, “I already have plenty, my brother. Keep what you have for yourself” (v. 9).

That’s key to healing from a hurtful experience: You must give up on revenge. That may be hard. It doesn’t seem to make sense. We tell ourselves, If I could just make them suffer as I’ve suffered, I can get some closure.

But that’s a lie. You’ll never get “closure” that way. You won’t experience healing by getting even. The path to healing is giving up that urge and choosing forgiveness instead.

But forgiveness isn’t experiencing waves of warm feelings for that person. It’s not forgetting what was done to you and pretending it never happened. In fact, you can’t forgive without acknowledging the wrong that was done. If no one did anything wrong, it wouldn’t need to be forgiven. But forgiveness is releasing the desire to get that person back. That means not just refraining from killing or humiliating them. Forgiveness also means not talking about them, not reminding them constantly of what they did, not making them squirm, not making them sorry for what they did.

And, yes, sometimes people aren’t sorry. We tell ourselves if they would just be sorry, maybe we could forgive. But that attitude gives them power over your ability to forgive, as if they have the power to not only hurt you but also keep you from forgiving. In truth, no one has such power over you. No one can keep you from healing as long as you will give up your right to get even.

Accept what they’re able to give. Notice what happened after Esau said, “I already have plenty, my brother. Keep what you have for yourself”: 

“No, please!” said Jacob. “If I have found favor in your eyes, accept this gift from me. For to see your face is like seeing the face of God, now that you have received me favorably. Please accept the present that was brought to you, for God has been gracious to me and I have all I need.” And because Jacob insisted, Esau accepted it (vv. 10, 11).

Many of our hurts come from people who should have been something to us or done something for us, but they weren’t or they didn’t. “She should’ve protected me.” “They should’ve been there for me.” “They could’ve at least called.” So many of our hurts spring from a need that wasn’t met.

But in Genesis 33, Esau doesn’t seem to want anything Jacob offered. Perhaps the one thing he wanted had been taken from him years earlier — but Jacob could never give that back. So Esau accepted what Jacob could give. It was the best Jacob could do.

A major step to healing is accepting what the person who hurt you is able to give, accepting who they’re able to be. It may not be what you want, it may not make up for anything, but it may be the best that person can do, being who they are. It’s a step toward healing to accept what they’re able to give.

Give what you’re able to give. Notice what happens next:

Then Esau said, “Let us be on our way; I’ll accompany you.”

But Jacob said to him, “My lord knows that the children are tender and that I must care for the ewes and cows that are nursing their young. If they are driven hard just one day, all the animals will die. So let my lord go on ahead of his servant, while I move along slowly at the pace of the flocks and herds before me and the pace of the children, until I come to my lord in Seir.”

Esau said, “Then let me leave some of my men with you.”

“But why do that?” Jacob asked. “Just let me find favor in the eyes of my lord” (vv. 12-15).

Neither brother could erase what had been done. Neither could change the course of the previous twenty years. And while Esau seems to be the picture of kindness and grace, who could blame him if he were thinking, Has Jacob really changed? Is he playing me again?

Maybe that’s why Esau didn’t give Jacob the keys to his camel but offered instead to escort his brother back to their ancestral home — perhaps thinking it was a good idea to keep him under surveillance. But Jacob resisted, so Esau said he could at least leave some of his armed men with Jacob’s party. Again, however, Jacob resisted, and asked only for his brother not to make trouble as Jacob continued his journey.

So Esau gave him that.

Another key to healing from a hurtful family experience is giving what you’re able to give to the person or persons who hurt you. You may be able to forgive, but you may not be able to give that person the keys to your camel. You may not be inclined to join that person for holidays. You may not want to go back to the way things were. And that’s okay.

Just give what you’re able to give, not withholding anything out of spite, not trying to make them suffer, but as kindly as you can, giving to that person and that relationship what you’re able to give: a birthday card, a dinner invitation, something you enjoyed together before the hurt, or something else entirely. Be generous and kind, but don’t feel guilty because your relationship has changed. Simply give what you’re able to give.

Define healthy boundaries for a new relationship. Look once more at Genesis 33:

So that day Esau started on his way back to Seir. Jacob, however, went to Sukkoth, where he built a place for himself and made shelters for his livestock. That is why the place is called Sukkoth (vv. 16, 17).

So Esau went one way and Jacob went another? That’s not exactly a Hallmark Channel ending. And Jacob still seems to have only a casual acquaintance with the truth because after saying he would join his brother in Seir, he goes west after they part. But there’s a lesson even in that.

If you would heal from a hurtful family relationship, it’s OK — even wise — to define healthy boundaries for a new relationship. Too often when we’ve been hurt, we think that forgiveness and healing mean going back to the way things were, when that might be the worst thing we could do and a thing not at all pleasing to God. Moving forward by defining the healthy boundaries of a new relationship — exercising your freedom to make grown-up decisions, perhaps taking the initiative, finding a way to be loving but firm with the person who hurt you — is also a loving thing to do. It may even be the most loving thing you can do, not only for yourself but also for the person who hurt you, and for others in the family. It’s not easy to heal from a hurtful family relationship. It can be challenging to give up our urge to get even. It can be tough to accept what the other person is able to give, and often tougher to give what we can. If we can do that, however, and define the healthy boundaries of a new relationship, we may, as Esau did, find our way “home” again.