Answer

How Do I Make Things Right With Someone I Love?

There is someone in your family you have hurt, or who has hurt you, and the distance has lasted longer than you meant it to. You may have already apologised and found that it did not fix anything. That is a discouraging place to be, particularly with someone you cannot simply walk away from.

Repent to God and to them, and expect the second part to take longer. Most family repair stalls because someone has done the first and assumed it settles the second. Asking God’s forgiveness deals with your standing before Him. It does not, on its own, repair what the other person is still carrying.

Eternal Truths

Christ put reconciliation ahead of worship. If you come to the altar and remember that someone has something against you, He said, leave the gift and go be reconciled first (Matthew 5:23-24). He did not make it conditional on their being right or on your being mostly innocent.

Forgiving is required of you regardless of who moved first. “I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men” (Doctrine and Covenants 64:9-10). That commandment says nothing about waiting for an apology, which is exactly why it breaks a deadlock.

Repentance is good news, not a punishment. Elder Dale G. Renlund taught in “Repentance: A Joyful Choice” that the Savior is joyful when we choose to repent. That is easiest to believe at home, because at home you can watch the change working.

What Can Make This Confusing?

Two things keep families stuck. The first is an apology that is really a request to stop feeling bad, which the other person can always tell. The second is scorekeeping, where nobody moves first because moving first feels like conceding the whole argument. Trust rebuilds at the speed of the injured person’s experience, not at the speed of your sincerity, and treating their continued hurt as a failure to forgive properly turns an apology into a second injury.

Abuse is a different category and does not belong in this conversation. Reconciliation is not required for forgiveness, safety comes before repair, and nobody is under covenant obligation to stay within reach of someone dangerous. If that is your situation, talk to a bishop and, where needed, to the authorities.

Questions to Think About

• Am I apologising for what I did, or for how it has left me feeling?
• What would consistency look like here over six months rather than one conversation?
• What am I waiting for them to do first, and why does it have to be first?

What You Can Do

Name one specific thing this week, out loud, without a “but” attached to it, and then say what you are going to do differently. Then do that thing repeatedly and quietly for a few months, because consistency is the only evidence that counts. The essay behind this Answer covers repenting, forgiving and rebuilding trust in much more detail.

Jesus Christ went first for all of us, and He can give you the nerve to go first with the person you love.