Loving People Who Devastate You

On the morning of my grandmother’s funeral, I walked into a relative’s house and asked how she was doing. “Terrible,” she said. I assumed it was the grief of losing my grandmother, but it was much worse. Two other family members had gotten angry with her about something right after Grammy’s death. They told her they’d disowned her and not to contact her again.

This woman is a Type Two on the Enneagram. Imagine the devastation for a Heart Type of losing a loved one. Then imagine this kind of heart-rending rejection on top of it.

I was horribly disappointed in and angry with one of the people who did this, someone very close to me. It’s standard operating procedure for the other, but not this person. I was shocked. I felt gutted. This seems like a second death – the death of our family as we know it. Because t­­­­­­­­his is the sort of thing that, apart from a miracle, can never be repaired.

So, what is there to do when someone you love hurts someone else you love? My first impulse was to take my assertive self over to the disowners and slap some sense into them. But that’s not helpful, and of course I wouldn’t actually do it.

Instead, I thought about the Enneagram types of the disowners, and I thought about family history. I thought about the mistreatment—both real and perceived—and resulting unforgiveness that have built up over decades. I thought about my Grandpa Frank’s famous line, “People are no damned good,” and I also remembered that if people could be better, they would be.

Humans are brokenhearted. We come from a long line of brokenness. Hurt people hurt people. And my family is no different.

But for those in my family who aren’t quite as broken, we can choose a better way. The ceiling of the generation that came before can be our floor. We can choose to build a healthier emotional future by doing the work of knowing our selves and knowing God. That’s one of the reasons that doing this sometimes-difficult work is so critical; it helps stop the perpetuation of unnecessary pain and suffering.

We’ll hurt less, and we’ll hurt people less.

As I was mulling this conflict over the other day, I was thinking that people do hurtful things because they don’t understand the love of God. And God spoke to my heart in that moment, telling me not to add to their ignorance by failing to show his love to them.

So, that’s what I’m going to do when someone I love devastates me. I am going to use everything I have learned and experienced about my self and my God to love them without condition and without restraint.

How about you? What have you done in the past in situations like this? How would it be different in light of what you know about personality? Let’s share our experiences in the comments section.

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