Why Forgiveness Is So Hard for Men: Anger, Resentment and Self-Forgiveness

Why Forgiveness Is So Hard for Men: Key Takeaways

• Forgiveness is hard for a man when anger is the way he holds on to the fact that he was hurt. If he feels betrayed, the anger may protect his sense that what happened to him was wrong and that his dignity still deserves protection.
• When he caused harm, self-punishment may reassure him that he has not minimised the effect on the other person or walked away from responsibility. Blame can also preserve his sense of certainty when both people remember the same events differently. Self-punishment and blame both make forgiveness hard for men.
• Pressure to forgive can strengthen a man’s resistance to forgiveness because he hears the demand to surrender a boundary or accept an unfair account. A more helpful approach is to separate forgiveness from reconciliation.
• Self-forgiveness begins when he names what he did and accepts its impact. Remorse then directs him towards repair and changed behaviour.
• A man may fear that forgiveness makes him weak or leaves him open to further harm. Over time, this fear can shape how he approaches every new relationship.

A man may spend years angry at someone who hurt him. He may also spend those same years punishing himself for what he did to someone else. Both struggles can coexist, especially after family conflict, grief, or a major change in identity.

He may want relief from his anger while fearing the cost of forgiveness. Forgiving another person may feel like weakening a boundary or allowing the truth to be rewritten. Forgiving himself may feel like avoiding responsibility before the damage has been repaired.

That conflict sits at the centre of this article. Forgiveness becomes possible after a man understands what his anger or self-punishment is protecting him from.

Why Is Forgiveness So Hard for Men?

Forgiveness is hard for many men when anger protects dignity, resentment keeps the wrong from being dismissed, or self-punishment feels like proof of responsibility. The resistance often continues because forgiving appears unsafe, unfair or morally irresponsible.

In this article, forgiveness means reducing the control that resentment or self-punishment has over your present life. It does not require forgetting the harm, restoring trust or returning to an unsafe relationship.

Forgiveness is often spoken of as if it were simple: stop carrying the pain and move on. Friends may remind you that the past cannot be changed, while family may say it is time to let go. Their advice often overlooks what forgiveness seems to demand of the injured person. After betrayal, forgiveness may feel like lowering the boundary that now protects you. The person responsible may still deny the harm, leaving anger as your only proof it was real.

The pressure can be equally strong when you caused the harm. You may fear that forgiving yourself would make light of what you did. Suffering then becomes private penance, proving that you acknowledge you did something wrong.

The betrayed man may hold onto anger because he believes the wrong has never been acknowledged or repaired. The man who caused harm may continue to punish himself because he believes ongoing guilt proves he still accepts responsibility.

Forgiveness can feel dangerous when anger protects your dignity or prevents others from dismissing the harm. Expectations about masculinity can deepen that fear. Haselhuhn and Ormiston (2024) found that masculinity concerns reduced men’s willingness to forgive after interpersonal harm. Their research also found that others might view forgiving men as less masculine. This research helps explain why softening resentment can feel exposing or weak, although every man responds differently.

The fear of appearing weak often intensifies after betrayal has already left you powerless. Self-forgiveness carries a different danger because punishing yourself can look like accountability. A father who hurt his child may believe that staying miserable proves he still cares. However, years of self-attack do not automatically lead to a better apology or more reliable behaviour towards his child.

Both forms of resistance stem from a painful lack of control. After betrayal, you cannot force the other person to understand what they did. When you caused the harm, remorse cannot guarantee that the relationship will be repaired.

Anger gives you someone to blame, while shame turns that blame on yourself. Grief asks you to accept what cannot be changed.

Q: Why can forgiveness feel like surrender after betrayal?

A: Forgiveness can feel like surrender when a man believes his anger is the only thing preventing the wrong from being ignored. He may fear that if the anger eases, the other person will avoid responsibility or that his boundary will weaken.

Forgiveness does not require renewed contact or a change to that boundary. It means the betrayal no longer keeps him awake or shapes his approach to future relationships.

Reflection Point:

What do you believe others would dismiss if your anger softened? Name the boundary or fact you still need to protect.

Does Forgiveness Mean Reconciliation or Renewed Trust?

Some men hear a demand for reconciliation, while others assume forgiveness requires renewed trust. Men whose pain was minimised by family or religion may hear another instruction to stay silent.

Forgiveness begins when a man no longer needs anger or self-punishment to keep the wrong in focus. He can still remember what happened, maintain a boundary, seek accountability, or make amends. The change is that the injury no longer dictates every thought, reaction, or future relationship.

Reconciliation is a separate choice. Renewed contact requires safety and evidence of changed behaviour. You may reduce resentment while still keeping a former partner out of your life. Protecting your children does not require pretending the past no longer matters. Legal action or formal accountability may also remain necessary. Reducing resentment cannot replace protection when violence or coercive control persists.

Forgiveness does not erase memory. A place or a conversation may bring the pain back years later, and that return does not mean you failed. Self-forgiveness requires the same honesty. You cannot achieve it by minimising your actions or rewriting what happened. Responsibility cannot be placed entirely on someone else.

True self-forgiveness begins with a truthful account of your behaviour and its impact. Cornish and colleagues (2018) distinguished self-forgiveness from self-exoneration and self-condemnation.

Self-forgiveness acknowledges the harm and moves towards repair. Self-exoneration avoids responsibility. Self-condemnation accepts responsibility and turns it into permanent self-punishment.

This distinction prevents relief from becoming an excuse and stops punishment from replacing repair. Relief without responsibility can allow harmful behaviour to continue. Endless punishment can also block repair by fixating your attention on your own suffering. Useful remorse identifies the behaviour that must change.

You may still need to apologise or accept consequences, and the injured person may never forgive you. Forgiveness reduces how often the injury disturbs your sleep or influences decisions with other people. The moral meaning of what happened remains. You can remember the harm without letting it organise every later relationship. Boundaries can remain while resentment loses influence over daily life.

Q: Does forgiving someone mean I have to trust them or restore the relationship?

A: Forgiveness does not require renewed trust or contact. Trust depends on evidence, while reconciliation requires safety and changed behaviour from both parties. You may forgive someone and still decide that distance remains necessary. Forgiveness changes how often resentment controls your sleep and current relationships without restoring the other person’s access.

How Anger, Blame and Self-Punishment Make Forgiveness Harder

Anger often arrives before you can name the humiliation or loss of trust beneath it. These feelings can feel too vulnerable, so anger becomes the emotion you can safely recognise. Anger can feel safer because it names a boundary crossed and records that your loyalty was treated as disposable. When nobody acknowledges the betrayal or the harm it caused, anger may feel like the only response, stopping the wrong from being dismissed.

The problem begins when anger keeps your body primed for a fight that now occurs mostly in memory.

Blame can make a confusing relationship easier to explain by placing all responsibility on one person. When two people remember the same events differently, a man may feel unsure about what happened and what part he played. Deciding that the other person caused everything gives him a clear answer.

That clarity can feel reassuring for a while, but it can also leave him stuck. His recovery then depends on the other person admitting what they did or apologising. If that never happens, he may keep replaying the relationship or situation.

The mind returns to old conversations, searching for the moment when everything might have changed. Each replay feels active, even though nothing outside your head is moving. Replaying the grievance can keep the former relationship psychologically active. The replay delays acceptance of the shared future’s end.

Self-punishment serves a similar purpose when you have caused the harm. Suffering may reassure you that you have not become careless or morally numb. You keep punishing yourself because relief can feel like another way of avoiding responsibility. Private shame then saps the energy needed to apologise and change your behaviour. You feel worse while the person you hurt sees little evidence that anything has changed.

Q: Why do I keep replaying what happened when I know the past cannot change?

A: Replaying the event can create a temporary sense of control because your mind keeps searching for the missing explanation. Each review promises you might find the moment when everything could have changed. The replay can also delay grief by keeping an imagined conversation with the former partner alive. Tracking the trigger shows whether the memory prompts a boundary or a necessary conversation. If neither follows, the replay may simply repeat the injury.

Reflection Point:

When the memory returns, which answer are you still trying to find? Ask whether the person involved can still provide it.

Why Masculine Rules Make Forgiveness Hard for Men

Many men grow up with strict rules about hurt. A man should stay in control and deal with problems alone. He should never let another person see how deeply he was affected. Those rules can make forgiveness feel risky because it requires him to admit that the harm had power.

Another rule holds that a capable man should recognise harm before anyone points it out. When he realises he has underestimated the impact of his behaviour, he may feel exposed as a partner or father. Schumann and Ross (2010) found that men often set a higher threshold for deciding whether behaviour was offensive. This partly explains why men apologise less often. By the time some men recognise the damage, several incidents may already have accumulated.

Many men also learn that an apology may lower their status. Saying “I was wrong” can feel like giving the other person an advantage. That fear may lead him to defend his intentions when the relationship needs a clear acknowledgement of the impact.

Forgiveness can evoke similar fears. A man may believe that forgiving means losing the argument or surrendering his rights. Self-forgiveness can feel equally unsafe, as ending self-punishment may seem like avoiding consequences. These beliefs cast forgiveness as a test of masculinity and character.

Empathy can challenge those rules by helping a man understand what may have shaped another person’s behaviour. Toussaint and Webb (2005) found that men who reported higher empathy were also more forgiving. For some men, understanding another person’s fears or limitations may reduce the need to see them only as the source of harm. Understanding their behaviour does not excuse it or remove the need for accountability.

Empathy can also lead a man to recognise that he could hurt someone under sufficient pressure. He may recall times when fear, anger, or shame shaped his behaviour. This recognition can challenge his belief that a decent man would never act that way. He may then become defensive or self-critical, which makes apology and repair harder.

The challenge is that these inherited rules have become part of how he judges himself as a man. He may still believe that respect depends on staying in control and hiding how deeply he has been affected.

Forgiveness becomes more possible when he asks whether those rules still align with the man he wants to be. He may find they belong to an older version of masculinity that no longer reflects his values.

Q: Why can apologising or forgiving feel weak for some men?

A: Many men learn that visible hurt lowers status and gives another person power. Apologising can then feel like admitting incompetence, while forgiveness can seem to remove useful protection. These reactions often stem from inherited rules rather than the current relationship’s requirements. A man regains control when he names the harm and bases a boundary on the other person’s current behaviour.

Reflection Point:

Which rule did you learn about when you were hurt? Write the sentence you still follow when trust is broken.

How Resentment and Unforgiveness Affect Future Relationships

Unforgiveness rarely stays confined to one person or one part of life. Resentment keeps your attention fixed on the person who caused the harm. Each memory becomes fresh evidence in a case that lingers long after it has ended. You may still argue with a former partner while sitting alone. A religious leader may also continue to shame you years after you leave the community.

You continue answering the offender in your head even after contact has ended. Physical distance may end the conversation, while imagined arguments keep the relationship psychologically active.

McAdams and McLean (2013) describe identity as the story a person uses to make sense of the past and imagine the future. After a betrayal or serious failure, a man may begin to use that event as evidence about himself and others.

He may expect future partners to betray him, avoid choices that require trust, or treat ordinary conflict as evidence that the same harm is recurring. Over time, the injury ceases to be a single event in his life and becomes the lens through which he understands later relationships and decisions.

A man may come to describe himself only as the betrayed husband or the father who failed. Unforgiveness also turns inward when shame transforms a single action into a judgement of your entire character. The language shifts from what you did to who you are. A failed marriage becomes proof that you ruin relationships. Guilt can guide responsibility because it remains tied to behaviour. Shame removes that distinction and condemns the whole man.

When your whole character feels damaged, repair seems pointless because no apology feels large enough. Many men move between resentment and shame in the same day. You may blame your former partner while driving home, then condemn yourself when the house falls silent.

Both reactions simplify the story by placing all responsibility on one person, either them or you. A fuller account recognises the harm they caused and the choices that remain yours. That account can feel less secure because nobody is completely innocent or guilty. Accepting both sides reveals decisions that blame and shame had hidden, including a necessary boundary or a possible repair.

Q: How does unforgiveness become part of a man’s identity?

A: Unforgiveness becomes part of identity when the injury starts to explain every later event. The betrayed man expects new partners to repeat the old betrayal. A guilty father treats each mistake as further evidence against himself. The original event becomes the primary lens through which he judges every future relationship. A fuller account recognises the harm without treating it as proof that every future relationship will end the same way.

Reflection Point:

What name have you given yourself because of what happened? Ask whether that name leaves room for a new relationship or for changed behaviour.

Five Areas Where Forgiveness Becomes Personal for Men

This is the first article in a six-part series on forgiveness and men. The five articles that follow will explore how anger, blame, and self-punishment manifest across different areas of a man’s life. They will examine self-forgiveness, father wounds, repairing harm to children, the roles men adopted to survive, and forgiveness after religious coercion. A brief description of each article appears below.

Why Self-Forgiveness Is So Hard for Men

Self-forgiveness is difficult when punishment feels more honest than relief. An affair or a serious parenting failure can become permanent evidence against your character. The real question is whether a man can stop punishing himself while still taking responsibility for the harm he caused and making whatever repair remains possible.

Telling a man that he is still a good person will not repair the harm he caused. He may still need to apologise and demonstrate through changed behaviour that he accepts responsibility.

How to Forgive Your Father Without Excusing the Harm

Most fathers have been shaped by their childhoods and the way they learned to cope with pain. That history can help explain why he became distant, controlling, or angry. It does not remove the impact his behaviour had on his son.

Many sons have already been told to understand their father in ways that push their own hurt aside. As a result, compassion can feel like another demand to excuse what happened.

The more useful question is what the son wants to carry forward. He may retain his father’s persistence while rejecting the anger that damaged the family. He may also decide that some patterns will end with him.

A later article will examine how a man can forgive his father without pretending the childhood was harmless or attempting to rebuild a relationship that still feels unsafe.

How to Ask Your Children for Forgiveness

As a father, you may recognise patterns from your childhood in how you parent. This realisation can bring remorse and an urgent need for reassurance. You may rush to apologise because you need proof that you remain a good father.

Your child may need time or space before trust can return. Repair means respecting that response rather than asking your child to relieve your shame. Another article will examine responsibility when your child decides whether to forgive or to trust again.

How to Forgive the Roles You Played to Survive

Some men played roles that fostered a sense of belonging while concealing important parts of themselves. One man may have built a marriage around religious expectations before confronting his sexuality. Another may have performed toughness because tenderness invited ridicule.

Looking back can bring anger towards the younger man who complied. Those choices may have been made when no other life seemed possible. This article will examine responsibility without disparaging the younger man who believed those roles were necessary for belonging.

When Forgiveness Was Used to Silence You

Forgiveness can compound the injury when an institution demands it before anyone acknowledges the harm. A church may condemn anger while protecting the person responsible. Within a family, preserving appearances may matter more than the injured person’s experience.

Later invitations to forgive can reopen the betrayal because the same words once forced him to stay silent. This final article will examine how a man can trust his own judgement after forgiveness was used against him.

Reflection Point:

Which form of forgiveness feels most personal now? Decide whether the harder task concerns another person’s harm or your own past behaviour.

What Is the Long-Term Cost of Resentment and Unforgiveness?

The cost of unforgiveness rarely stays confined to the event that caused it. Unanswered questions follow you into the middle of the night, disturbing your sleep. Irritation spills over onto people who had no part in the original injury. New relationships and friendships become tests of an old betrayal.

Vigilance may protect you from surprise, but it also limits the closeness you seek. Self-punishment carries a similar cost, replacing apology or changed behaviour with nightly self-attacks. Shame drains the energy needed for repair, while the person you harmed sees little evidence of change.

Vismaya and colleagues (2024) found that structured self-forgiveness approaches could improve self-forgiveness and reduce distress. Their review also emphasised that genuine self-forgiveness must include a sense of responsibility.

The deeper cost becomes apparent when avoiding another injury begins to shape your relationships and major decisions. You may continue meeting responsibilities while choosing whatever seems least likely to reopen the wound. Over time, the grievance narrows the relationships you trust and the choices that feel safe.

A betrayed man may anticipate betrayal before another person has earned his distrust. Guilt may also prompt a father to avoid closeness, as affection reminds him of what he failed to give.

Forgiveness matters when a man can recognise the old wound without making people in his present life pay for what someone else did.

Q: What does carrying resentment cost over time?

A: Resentment can narrow a man’s life by keeping his attention fixed on an event he cannot change. Sleep becomes lighter, and irritation spreads to relationships unconnected to the original injury. New partners are judged by evidence from the former relationship. The cost grows when avoiding another wound becomes the main reason for his decisions. He may keep functioning while fear prevents closeness or new commitments.

Reflection Point:

Where has the original injury begun to influence a later relationship or decision? Name one current cost you can clearly see.

How to Forgive Without Losing Dignity or Responsibility

A grounded approach to forgiveness begins with an honest account of what happened. You name the injury without minimising its cost, and you avoid exaggerating it to preserve moral certainty. If you played a part, you name it clearly. Vague regret does not create responsibility. Naming the behaviour and its impact shows what repair is still possible. Repair may require an apology, or it may mean changed behaviour without renewed contact.

Boundaries remain because forgiveness does not restore access or trust. You decide what level of contact suits the other person’s current behaviour. Distance may persist even as resentment begins to soften. A breach of loyalty may require firmer boundaries, while dishonesty may require a clearer conversation.

Self-forgiveness also requires responsibility and changed behaviour. Remorse is useful when it leads you to apologise, repair what you can, and change your behaviour. If your actions have changed, continuing to punish yourself does not help the person you hurt. Forgiveness means learning from what happened without letting the guilt control every decision you make now.

What happened remains part of your history without dictating how you approach every relationship. You can carry the lesson without rehashing the same argument every day. Forgiveness does not ask you to give up your dignity. The harder task is to end an identity built around the wound. Responsibility remains through apology and changed behaviour. You regain the right to make choices based on your present life rather than the old injury.

Q: Can I forgive myself and still take full responsibility?

A: Self-forgiveness requires responsibility because relief without honesty can allow harmful behaviour to continue. He needs to name what he did and accept its impact. Repair should follow where possible. Changed behaviour then becomes stronger evidence than permanent self-condemnation. Forgiving yourself allows punishment to stop once you have accepted the consequences and changed your behaviour. Self-forgiveness does not erase consequences or require the injured person to forgive you.

Reflection Point:

What repair still needs action, and what self-punishment has ceased to produce change? Keep those questions separate.

Where to Begin When You Are Not Ready to Forgive

Forgiveness begins with an honest decision about what still needs attention. You may need to protect a boundary or seek accountability for what happened. If you caused harm, you may still need to apologise and demonstrate through your behaviour that you understand the impact.

Anger cannot make those decisions for you forever. Self-punishment cannot repair a relationship or prove you have changed. Both may have helped you survive the initial shock, yet they can keep you tied to the same event long after the immediate danger has passed.

What happened mattered. The harm was real. The question now is whether that injury will continue to shape whom you trust and what you decide next.

How Mentoring Can Help When Forgiveness Feels Stuck

Mentoring can help you identify what your anger or self-punishment is protecting you from, without pressuring you to forgive before you are ready. The work may involve clarifying a boundary, separating guilt from shame, or deciding what repair remains possible.

Mentoring Through the Maze® provides reflective, structured and non-clinical mentoring for men navigating grief, relationship breakdown, identity disruption and major life change. Sessions are available online across Australia, with in-person mentoring in Perth.

Explore Mentoring Services for Men in Perth to see whether a mapping call, reset session or ongoing mentoring fits what you are facing.

Key Points About Why Forgiveness Is So Hard for Men

Forgiveness becomes harder when anger is the only way a man knows to show he was wronged. After the betrayal, he may fear others will dismiss what happened once his anger eases. When he caused harm, he may keep punishing himself to prove he understands the damage. Neither anger nor self-punishment guarantees acknowledgement or repair.

Forgiving someone does not mean resuming the relationship or trusting them again. Future contact should depend on safety and clear evidence that the other person has changed. A man can reduce his resentment while maintaining distance and protecting an important boundary.

Replaying the past can feel useful because the mind is still seeking an explanation. A man may keep reviewing conversations in hopes of finding the moment everything went wrong. The review cannot change what happened. It can delay accepting that the relationship ended or that the future he expected is gone.

Many men learn that showing hurt makes them appear weak and that admitting fault lowers their status. These beliefs can make forgiveness and apology feel dangerous. Once a man names those rules, he can decide whether they still reflect the man he wants to be.

One betrayal can begin to shape how a man responds to people who did not cause it. He may expect a new partner to behave like the person who hurt him. When he has caused harm, he may treat one serious mistake as proof that his whole character is damaged. In both cases, one event begins to shape later relationships.

Self-forgiveness requires a clear account of what happened and of what responsibility remains. A man may need to apologise or demonstrate through changed behaviour that he understands the harm. Feeling better without taking responsibility can allow the same behaviour to continue. Continuing to punish himself after he has changed does not help the person he hurt.

The first step is to identify what the anger or self-punishment is doing. Anger may be protecting a boundary that still matters. Self-punishment may be used to replace an apology or another form of repair.

FAQs About Forgiveness, Anger and Self-Forgiveness

Q: Why is forgiveness so hard for many men?

A: Forgiveness can feel dangerous when anger protects dignity or self-punishment protects a man’s belief that he remains responsible. Many men learned that visible hurt exposes weakness and apology lowers status. Letting go may feel like allowing others to dismiss the betrayal or his own wrongdoing. Resistance, therefore, remains because it still appears to protect dignity or to serve as a necessary boundary. Self-punishment may also reassure him that responsibility remains.

Q: What does forgiveness actually mean?

A: Forgiveness means reducing how often resentment disturbs your sleep or shapes current relationships. The harm remains real, and responsibility does not disappear. You may remember what happened while keeping a firm boundary. Forgiveness concerns whether anger or punishment continues directing daily life without requiring you to declare the behaviour acceptable.

Q: Can I forgive someone who has never apologised?

A: You can reduce how often another person’s refusal affects your sleep and later relationships without receiving an apology. Their refusal still influences whether trust or contact can return. Forgiveness cannot force accountability from someone who denies the harm. Their denial does not have to shape every later relationship. Justice and firm boundaries can continue where necessary.

Q: Do I have to reconcile with someone after forgiving them?

A: Reconciliation is a separate relational decision that depends on safety and changed behaviour. Forgiveness does not require renewed contact with someone who remains unsafe. You may decide that distance protects you from further harm. Trust should follow evidence rather than pressure from family or religion. Reducing resentment does not grant another person access to your life.

Q: Why do I keep replaying a betrayal?

A: Your mind may be searching for an explanation that restores some sense of control. Each replay promises that you might find the missed warning or sentence that changed everything. The review can also keep an imagined conversation with your former partner alive. Over time, the habit may disturb sleep and affect unrelated relationships. Tracking when the memory returns can reveal what keeps triggering the replay.

Q: Why can’t I forgive myself for what I did?

A: Self-forgiveness feels difficult when punishment has become proof that you still care about the harm. You may fear that relief would excuse your behaviour or weaken your commitment to change. Genuine self-forgiveness begins by naming what happened and accepting its impact. Repair and changed behaviour turn remorse into evidence that you have learned. Permanent condemnation adds to the suffering after you have accepted the consequences and changed your behaviour.

Q: What is the difference between guilt and shame?

A: Guilt stays connected to a behaviour and can guide responsibility. Shame turns the behaviour into a judgement about your whole identity. A guilty man can ask what he must repair. Shame may convince him that no repair could ever be enough. Because a specific behaviour can change, separating it from your whole identity makes accountability more practical.

About David Kernohan and Mentoring Through the Maze®

David Kernohan is the founder of Mentoring Through the Maze®, a Perth-based mentoring service for men navigating grief, identity disruption, relationship breakdown and major life change. He draws on more than 30 years of leadership and support experience across mental health, legal and community sectors.

His work combines professional experience, lived understanding and reflective mentoring to help men understand what has changed and decide what needs to happen next.

This article provides general educational information. Mentoring is non-clinical and does not diagnose or treat mental illness, replace psychological therapy or medical care, or provide crisis support.

References

Cornish, M. A., Woodyatt, L., Morris, G., Conroy, A., & Townsdin, J. (2018). Self-forgiveness, self-exoneration, and self-condemnation: Individual differences associated with three patterns of responding to interpersonal offenses. Personality and Individual Differences, 129, 43–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.03.003

Haselhuhn, M. P., & Ormiston, M. E. (2024). Fragility and forgiveness: Masculinity concerns affect men’s willingness to forgive. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 114, 104626. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2024.104626

McAdams, D. P., & McLean, K. C. (2013). Narrative identity. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 22(3), 233–238. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721413475622

Schumann, K., & Ross, M. (2010). Why women apologise more than men: Gender differences in thresholds for perceiving offensive behaviour. Psychological Science, 21(11), 1649–1655. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610384150

Toussaint, L., & Webb, J. R. (2005). Gender differences in the relationship between empathy and forgiveness. The Journal of Social Psychology, 145(6), 673–686. https://doi.org/10.3200/SOCP.145.6.673-686

Vismaya, A., Gopi, A., Romate, J., & Rajkumar, E. (2024). Psychological interventions to promote self-forgiveness: A systematic review. BMC Psychology, 12, 258.