Everett L. Worthington, Jr., in his book Forgiving and Reconciling:
Bridges to Wholeness and Hope, shares four "planks" that he believes
should be used to build the bridge to reconciliation within a relationship:
Plank 1: Decisions
Do you want to reconcile? There are times when a person
either doesn't want to further invest in the relationship, or believes it would
be unsafe to do so.
How to reconcile? Some choose to reconcile more implicitly than explicitly.
However, the implicit approach is more often misunderstood than the explicit
approach.
When to reconcile? Two warning signs that should signal you to wait before
you attempt to initiate reconciliation are (1) if you're extremely stressed,
and (2) if you're fused for a fight!
Plank 2: Discussion
This is one of the hardest planks. And a hard attitude spells
disaster for reconciliation. To reconcile, you must create a soft attitude.
Empathy and humility are important to creating that soft attitude that fosters
vulnerability.
Plank 3: Detoxification
"When a relationship has gone bad, usually increasing doses
of poison have been injected through toxic interactions. Finally, toxins make
the relationship sick. To reconcile, we must reverse the buildup of relationship
poison."
One way to do this is to move forward on the emotional stairway
from contempt to defensiveness to criticism to normalcy.
Plank 4: Devotion
Devotion in a reconciled relationship is built through (1) resolving
our grief over what we lost (trust), (2) building love through empathy, (3)
decreasing the negative, and 4) increasing the positive.
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*For a more detailed explanation of the bridge to reconciliation, see Part
3: How to Reconcile, in Everett Worthington's book, Forgiving and Reconciling:
Bridges to Wholeness and Hope (InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL: 2003).
