Empathy Means Accepting the Harm You've Caused
Especially when you're sure they should be over it by now.
I spent the first five years after my wife’s suicide drinking away a pain I didn’t know I was avoiding. I was an addict, and I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, see it, despite the mountains of evidence all around me. I still find it shocking to look back and reflect on the depth of my denial.
I did all the things addicts do. I lied to myself, and by extension I lied to the people who love me most. I lied about how much I was drinking. I lied about when I was drinking. I lied about quitting. I lied about wanting to quit. I lied about not feeling shame and embarrassment for all the stupid shit I did while I was drunk. I lied about having everything under control. I lied about lying. I lied to myself about being a liar.
It’s no surprise this had a profound impact on the woman who, by the grace of God, decided to marry me in the middle of all of it. I joke with her now about how questionable her decision making was at the time. The red flags couldn’t have been redder. To be fair to her, my lying hid how bad the problem really was for the first few years.
I finally stopped twelve years ago. It’s the best decision I’ve ever made.
The part I didn’t expect was that years into being sober, my wife would still remind me not to drink when we went out. At first it was easy to understand why she felt the need to say it. After two or three years, I started to find it annoying. What the hell? Couldn’t she see all the progress I’d made? Why was she so insistent on punishing me for the guy I used to be?
It took me a long time - too long - to understand and accept the harm I’d caused her. The lesson I kept refusing to learn is what this piece is about.
Feeling Their Pain Is the Easy Part
Empathy gets talked about as feeling what someone else feels. You’re told to imagine yourself in their situation, look at the world through their eyes, or to walk a mile in their shoes. Despite the fact that it can be challenging, this is still the easy version.
The hard version where you’re the one who’s caused someone else pain, and then letting the person you hurt decide what they need to heal and how long they need it. You don’t get a vote on their recovery. You gave up that right by being the one who caused the damage in the first place.
It can be hard as hell when the person you’ve hurt keeps bringing it up. When they keep reminding you of the thing you’d rather leave in the past, the last thing you want to do is sit there and take it. You’ll want to argue the size of it down so it’s clear that they’re overreacting. You might tell them they should be over it by now and remind them how much you’ve changed. You’ll go on the offense and accuse them of holding the past against you.
They’re all a different version of the same pattern. You’ve not only committed the crime, you’re the defense lawyer arguing for leniency and the self-appointed judge granting it, without once asking the victim.
Their Truth Doesn’t Have to Match Yours
Two people can live through the same period of time and walk away with completely different versions of what happened. To me, getting sober was a before and after moment. To her, those same years left an unease she still carries. Both of those were true.
The mistake is treating your version as the right one and continually trying to argue your case. You lay out your evidence, they lay out theirs, and you try to win when there’s nothing to win. Their perception was never going to be the same as yours, because we’re all having our own unique experience all the time. You were being you, and they were on the receiving end of you.
Empathy is one of the most powerful disciplines a person can develop. It’s a discipline and because it requires making a choice to believe what someone else is telling you. It’s especially hard to do when you’re feeling defensive and attacked.
It’s so important because it lets you stay connected to someone when your two versions of reality don’t line up. Without it, every difference turns into a standoff about who’s right. With it, you can hold that their reality is as legitimate to them as yours is to you. You’ll stop fighting for agreement and start working towards understanding.
Most people will defend their own version of events with their lives, because it’s the version where they look the best. Empathy requires that you deal with the fact that someone else doesn’t see you the way you wish they would.
Changing Doesn’t Erase the Record
I’d made a huge change in my life when I stopped drinking. I knew I’d never drink again. My mistake was thinking my certainty was the only thing that counted and her fear was just a failure to keep up with my transformation.
It wasn’t. Changing means you stop adding to the harm. It doesn’t magically rewind the clock and undo what’s been done. The person you hurt isn’t being unfair when they stay vigilant around you. They’re doing exactly what anyone would do after learning, the hard way, what you were capable of.
When you decide someone is making too big a deal of it, what you’re saying is that their pain has become an inconvenience to the story you’d rather tell about yourself. That’s the opposite of empathy. Empathy starts when you take that story out behind the woodshed and put it down for good.
You Don’t Get to Set the Clock
Even now, after all these years, my wife wouldn’t say she’s a hundred percent sure I’ll never drink again. I think she’d say she’s ninety-nine point nine nine percent sure. That’s a hell of a long way from a hundred.
She might carry that kernel of doubt for the rest of our lives. I did that. I put that burden on her, and we both have to live with it. I caused something I can’t take back, and the only thing still in my control is whether I acknowledge it, accept it and keep not drinking.
If you caused the harm, they set the timeline. Empathy is finally having the character to let both of those things be true at once.
I’ve lost my wife and daughter and I write about grief for men, the people who love them.
I’ve put together a free guide called 10 Realities Men Run Into After Loss (and No One Warns Them About).
Thank you for this