Decisively Broken Relationships and the Meaning of Reconciliation — For Oneself, Not for the Other

Somewhere in life, one meets relationships that cannot be repaired. The one who deeply wounded us, or the one we deeply wounded. The memory that does not disappear even after talks have run their course and distance has been put. In the pharmaceutical field too, the same happens. Decisive opposition, a colleague whose trust is lost, a mentorship that will not return. This volume confronts the question: even when a relationship is unrepairable, is "reconciliation" within oneself possible? Buber, Nietzsche, the Buddhist "sorrow of meeting the resented," Laozi's "requiting enmity with virtue," Linehan's radical acceptance, Hoʻoponopono, and Frankl — let us visit the place to which seven traditions point.

01Relationships That Cannot Be Repaired

"If we talk it through, it will work out"; "with time"; "someday I will forgive" — these words support the hope of repair. But not every relationship is repaired this way. The other is no longer in this world; the other has decisively refused; the other's acts pass beyond what repair can tolerate. Such relationships actually exist.

Three paths then remain. One: continue to suffer, never giving up on repair. Two: cut the relationship and live carrying the resentment. Three: with the relationship closed, complete the reconciliation within oneself. This volume treats the third path.

"Even unrepairable relationships have a reconciliation. But that reconciliation is for oneself, not for the other." — the hypothesis of this series

02Three Stages of a Relationship — Repairable, Needing Distance, Severed

Begin by not treating broken relationships uniformly. In reality, the state of a relationship has stages.

This volume mainly treats Stage 3 and, within Stage 2, the parts where repair has been given up. The question is: where outward work cannot reach, how does one settle one's own heart?

03Buber's "I and Thou" — Has the Relationship Become "I–It"?

The Jewish-Austrian philosopher Martin Buber (1878–1965), in Ich und Du (I and Thou) (1923), divided human relationships into two: the relation of "I–Thou (Ich–Du)" and the relation of "I–It (Ich–Es)".

"All actual life is encounter." — Martin Buber, I and Thou (1923)

In the "I–Thou" relation, the other faces me as an irreplaceable other, as my equal. In the "I–It" relation, the other is objectified to me as function or means. Buber pointed out that most of our daily life runs in "I–It." The problem is the moment we, at some point, have begun to treat as "I–It" someone who should have been "I–Thou."

When a relationship has broken, the first to ask is: from when did I begin to treat this other as "It"? The moment one begins processing the other by function and label — "that supervisor," "that department," "that troublesome person" — the relationship may already have been broken on one side. The reflection on a broken relationship begins with seeing when oneself turned "Thou" into "It." This is not a discussion of blame but of seeing one's own cognitive habits.

04Nietzsche, "Ressentiment" — What Is Resentment Rotting Within Me?

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), in On the Genealogy of Morals (1887), put forward the concept of ressentiment. A poisonous antipathy the weak, unable to act directly, continues to hold within against the strong who can.

"The man of ressentiment cannot help making enemies. Within his heart, he keeps producing, regenerating, and preserving the one who hurt him. Because that enemy supports the very meaning of his existence." — paraphrase of Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals (1887)

Nietzsche's observation strikes a painful place. When we continue to resent over a broken relationship, the resentment itself often comes to be material that supports our existence. The story "I became this way because that person was terrible" is also a convenient device that explains our hardship. As long as the device functions, we unconsciously do not want to let go of the resentment.

In the pharmaceutical field too, while replaying within the heart past unfair treatment, unfair evaluation, betrayal of trust, that memory can become a certificate of one's own legitimacy. "I suffer because of that person" — this may be a fact. But the longer this story continues, the more I, with my own hands, whittle away the possibility of moving forward by my own force. What Nietzsche points to is that to let go of resentment is not to forgive the other but to place the support of one's existence in another place.

05Buddhist "Sorrow of Meeting the Resented" and Laozi's "Requite Enmity with Virtue" — Two Eastern Responses

The Eastern lineage left two distinct perspectives on broken relationships.

Among the eight sufferings of Buddhism is the sorrow of meeting the resented (onzō-e-ku, 怨憎会苦). "The suffering of having to meet the one one resents and hates." The suffering of being repeatedly required to face the one one does not wish to meet was counted in Buddhism as a basic human suffering alongside birth, ageing, illness, and death. This applies as it stands to the contemporary workplace.

"Birth, ageing, illness, death, the sorrow of parting from the loved, the sorrow of meeting the resented, the sorrow of not getting what one seeks, the sorrow of the five aggregates of clinging — these are called the eight sufferings." — basic Buddhist teaching, transmitted in the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra

What Buddhism shows is that the sorrow of meeting the resented is built into the structure of life. No one can avoid it. To try to avoid and yet fail and suffer comes from not understanding the structure — this is Buddhism's coldly precise observation. Having understood, then what can one do?

The other Eastern response is in Chapter 63 of Laozi's Tao Te Ching:

bao yuan yi de — Requite enmity with virtue.
— Repay resentment with virtue (報怨以徳).

Do not return resentment with resentment. Return it with virtue (gentle goodwill). This is often read as the moral teaching of the sage, but there is a more practical implication. The moment one returns resentment, oneself becomes a dweller of the world of resentment. To return with virtue is not for the other but so that oneself does not dwell in the world of resentment. In Laozian terms, "requiting enmity with virtue" is, alongside love toward the other, a technique for protecting one's own heart.

06Linehan's "Radical Acceptance" — Accepting What Happened as Having Happened

Contemporary psychotherapy has clinically systematised these classical intuitions. At the core of the Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) developed by the American psychologist Marsha M. Linehan (1943–) is the technique of Radical Acceptance.

"Radical Acceptance is to accept reality as it is, from the bottom of the heart, on every level. It is not agreement, nor permission. It is merely the acknowledgement that 'it is so.'" — paraphrase of Marsha Linehan, DBT Skills Training Manual

What Linehan's clinical experience shows is the fact that most of human suffering comes from the resistance "I want what happened not to have happened". The relationship broke. That is a fact. As long as one keeps resisting in the heart, "it should not have happened"; "it must not have been," the suffering endures. When one acknowledges from the gut "it happened, that is all," the suffering does not exactly end, but the energy that had been spent on suffering is released.

Radical Acceptance is not "resignation." It is the technique to cease the futile fight to change the fact and return one's force to the range one can change (one's own actions today). It is the form in which contemporary clinical psychology independently rediscovered nearly the same place as the Buddhist second arrow (treated last time).

07Hoʻoponopono — The Practice of Forgiveness Completed Within Oneself

In the indigenous culture of Hawaiʻi is a traditional healing practice called Hoʻoponopono. Originally a ritual within family or community for restoring relationships, it was reconstructed in the late twentieth century by figures including Morrnah Nalamaku Simeona and Ihaleakala Hew Len as a practice of forgiveness that can be completed by oneself alone.

"I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you." — the four words of Hoʻoponopono (modern reconstructed version)

These four words need not be conveyed to the other. Within one's own heart, chanted toward the other of a broken relationship — or chanted toward oneself who carries that relationship. In Simeona's and Hew Len's interpretation, the anger and wound within our heart are essentially directed at something within oneself, and the other is only the trigger. So the work of forgiveness is completed within oneself.

This is an interesting observation also psychologically. When we ruminate over a broken relationship, what we are truly dialoguing with is not the other but oneself who holds the image of the other. Forgiveness, while it appears to be directed at the other, is in fact a work in which oneself directs to oneself within oneself. Hoʻoponopono may be called a tool that compressed that structure into a minimum of words.

08Frankl — Meaning Within Unjust Suffering

Frankl, who appeared in the last volume, left one more perspective. The question of how to live "unjustly given suffering" — suffering for which one bears no responsibility but has certainly been afflicted.

"We should not think we can no longer expect anything from life. Rather, we must ask what life still expects from us." — paraphrase of Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning (1946)

The attitude Frankl found within the extreme injustice of the camps can be applied to scenes of unrepairable relationships too. "If that person had not done that, my life would have been better" — this is the posture of expecting of life. What Frankl shows is the inversion. "What is life now asking of me, who am carrying this broken relationship?" — ask again. From the same fact, an entirely different meaning rises.

Suppose in the pharmaceutical field a relationship with a certain colleague has been decisively broken. What to ask then is not "if that person were not there, I would have done well" but "through this experience, what kind of reviewer can I become? What is this experience teaching my work?" This is not self-deception but the technique of returning focus to the range within one's power.

09When Relationships Break in the Pharmaceutical Field

Let us bring the abstract one step further down to the field. In the reviewer's experience, there are several typical patterns of relationship breakage.

In every case, when restoring the relationship itself is not realistic, the tools of the seven traditions treated in this volume serve. Acknowledge the fact as the fact with radical acceptance. Chant the four words of Hoʻoponopono within oneself. With Nietzsche's question, observe what ressentiment is supporting. With Frankl's inversion, ask what this experience is asking of the present me. Even when the outer relationship is closed, the inner reconciliation can be completed. This is the core of the volume.

10Reconciliation for Oneself — Four Steps

To bring the same place to which the seven traditions pointed down into daily practice, four steps are set here. A long ritual is not required. Before sleep, in transit, at the desk, inwardly, one at a time.

There are relationships that cannot be repaired. This is not defeat but one of the facts of life. What is important is that — even when the outer relationship is unrepairable, the reconciliation within oneself can be completed. Buber, Nietzsche, the Buddhist sorrow of meeting the resented and Laozi's requiting enmity with virtue, Linehan's radical acceptance, Hoʻoponopono, Frankl — seven traditions pointed, in different words, to the same place.

Reconciliation is not for the other. So that I do not become a dweller of the world of resentment. So that I continue to be the subject of my own life. That is the last and greatest move we can make for ourselves before a broken relationship.