One thing I read recently is that you know when you have arrived at forgiveness when you see the offending person (WS) and your reaction is one of compassion and pity.
Funny, up until me actually feeling like that (felt it for the first time 2 weeks ago, but too nervous to trust what I was feeling)...I kinda thought forgiving my wife would be this triumphant victory.....
I felt this feeling...then two weeks later read this definition of what forgiveness "felt like"...and it appears to make sense to me.
....for me, forgiveness came in as quietly as someone taking their last breath.
Forgiveness as a "whisper"....it seems almost anticlimatic compared the the INSANE turmoil I felt along the path to it.
God be with us all.
p.s. I am still a bit nervous about this...but I have faith that this is forgiveness.
[This message edited by blakesteele at 2:48 PM, September 4th (Wednesday)]
Wonder if it ties into the whole "You must love yourself before you can love another" philosophy?
Not sure....
It is a peaceful feeling.
I almost feel courageous enough to ask to come into work late so that I may walk my girls to school one day soon....something I have not been able to do since the A as I inevitably pass my wifes AP during this walk...and I have shown an inability to control my emotions when I do....
Maybe on Sept 10th....my 1 year antiversary?
God be with me.
[This message edited by blakesteele at 2:49 PM, September 4th (Wednesday)]
Last nights Love Dare was to "Forgive your spouse".
We read the dare at night, then do the dare during the next day. Most dares we have done, a few we have failed to do but kept moving forward.
This is a big one for me...to forgive adultery...but I have done it! I will profess this to my wife tonight as we do our "dare".
I don't think many things in this world are coincidences...
T
Through thick and thin we will survive but he gets only one shot at it!
Again, we seem to be at about the same stage.
H and I were reading from "How Can I Forgive You?" on Sunday night.
As we were reading about forgiveness, her definition of forgiveness as being a slow process, earned forgiveness.
I think I too am on the road to forgiveness, not complete, but more than not.
I still want from him the expressions of remorse. The words that let me know that he appreciates the magnitude of the hurt and the gift that I am offering.
I love him. I find myself feeling compassion as he starts to express his emotions. I definitely do not wish for revenge or to see him suffer.
I do still hate what he did. I still feel pain. I still cry. I still need to talk about so many things. I still need him to comfort me.
It was such a strange feeling, as he started to express his shame, and I saw the physical reaction from him, it made me want to comfort him.
I hate to see him in pain but if he doesn't face himself, this will just be buried and possibly rise up again.
I found myself grateful that I do not have to live with the feelings that he has to live with now.
I don't think that I am ready for total forgiveness, but I really believe that it is possible now. I have hope.
What is the Love Dare???
You seem to be such a deep thinker. Please do find some thing frivolous to do that makes you smile.
It seems to be so easy to become so completely consumed by this. I am guilty of this. Sometimes it seems that nothing else can hold my attention.
My son tells me that I am much better at giving advice than implementing it. He has been in a very similar situation over the past 6 months and I have been able to help him from all I have read more than I seem to absorb it myself.
I just find myself worrying about you. You sound so sad. It must be the mother in me.
Wishing you peace.
I would now like to be known as Can!
dday October 21,2012 dday December 20, 2013 wh deleted I attempted R, he was a lie
Divorced!
Hugs to you. 5 year R here so more power to you.
True love is harder to come by than soul mates. True love requires work.
Ignorance can be cured with knowledge. There is no cure for being an idiot.
I am NERVOUS...but I am there...in a forgiveness state. Thank you for your concern. There are kind people indeed on here...you are one of them.
(((tiredgirl)))
It is comforting to hear that this is what it felt like to you as well. Did it surprise you as it is surprising me? I really, really thought it would be a conscious decision, not a calm....almost creep into me....feeling.
The Love Dare is a book where a couple goes through daily DARES....40 all together.
They range from simple, such as
THINK OF A SPECIFIC WAY YOU WOULD LIKE TO GREET YOUR SPOUSE TODAY. DO IT WITH A SMILE AND ENTHUSIASM. THEN DETERMINE TO CHANGE YOUR GREETING TO REFLECT YOUR LOVE FOR THEM.
then it has a place to put a CHECK when you have completed this dare.
Then, and this is where the growth can be had, it gives you very specific questions to guide a discussion with your spouse revolving around that days love dare.
In this case the questions were...
WHEN AND WHERE DID YOU CHOOSE TO DO YOUR SPECIAL GREETING? HOW WILL YOU CHANGE YOUR GREETING FROM THIS POINT ON?
The dares are sometimes very challenging....and at times one of us has not done the dare. When this happens we lightly discuss it and move to the next.
It is NOT a competition and we don't treat it like it is.
The reason we are doing this is that our MC had reached her usefulness with us...we both decided it was time to find a new MC....but that is not an easy chore. I suggested that in the mean time we do the Love Dare. My wife lightly agreed to it.
It is proving to be very worthwhile.
I have not looked ahead to see all the dares...my wife has. I want to just know one at a time and concentrate on it.
Like I said...it is curious that todays dare is to FORGIVE....and for the past 2 weeks I have felt a shift inside me. I now believe it is that I have forgiven my wife for her adultery.
To date, she has not ever asked for my forgiveness.
Stephen and Alex Kendrick are the authors of the Love Dare.
Be careful when you order this book...they have several spin offs that are close to the same title. I have 2 Love Dare Devotionals to prove this! I buy most of my books online at Half.com....much cheaper. But if interested do try and find the actual Love Dare book.
God be with us all....but particularly with me tonight as I dare to express forgiveness to my wife!
God understands I am just jokingly selfish here....kind of anyway.
[This message edited by blakesteele at 3:13 AM, September 5th (Thursday)]
Hang in their brother. Find members on here who resonate with you and follow them....that is my only tip for you tonight.
It has been helpful for me....several of my mentors are posting to this thread...you might check them out. If you find stuff in my posts that resonates with you, chances are I plagiarized it from another member on here or read it in a book. Sometimes I am clever enough to spin it just right so as to appear to be blakesteele wisdom....but it rarely is.
God be with you.
[This message edited by blakesteele at 11:08 PM, September 4th (Wednesday)]
I found forgiveness quietly also. Just a couple of weeks before my 1st anti-versary. I shared with him, being sure to note that I wasn't done dealing, I just didn't hold it against him any more. Personally, I'm still struggling with forgiving the OW. Likely because I see no remorse or change in attitude or behavior from them (very recently 2 tried contacting my H). Every day I get a bit closer, but it is much harder for me to let go of that.
I am not sure where I am in the true forgiveness model. Believe it or not, "Forgiveness is a Choice" was one of the first books I read after Dday and it helped me tremendously. I seemed to have some pity and compassion for my WH from the very beginning (I know many SI posters will say this was only shock, etc. -- and perhaps they are right). I still think forgiveness is a process and I am still in it, not at the end. I still have too many unanswered questions to be able to move forward. Not questions about the A or details, but questions about his feelings/thoughts and how they are changing. I know they ARE changing, although not at the pace I would have preferred (which would have been instantly!), but he is moving in his own healing process. Sometimes I lie low and work on improving the M, and don't ask the questions whose answers I fear. Sometimes his choice of words is really poor and I end up obsessing over something he later says that he didn't state well. Ugh. I know he is trying. We just have a long way to go in the healing process.
I am just so very happy that you have found this bit of peace!
I am going to look at the Love Dare book... I am always looking for a new book to help us. This one may be just what the "doctor" is ordering! I, too, am concerned that our MC has reached her "usefulness" to us. We need some new talking points and perhaps this is a good way to go about it. I do always learn something on your threads.... thank you!
Courageous is a great movie...but it is about the role of a Dad and Husband inside the family unit...probably one of my favorite all time movies.
The Love Dare is based from the movie Fire Proof....it is an okay movie...I have watched it a couple of times. The acting is not great but the message is sound.
The Love Dare is better then the movie it is tied to.
(((StillStanding1))) good to hear from you again. I am in total agreement that true, meaningful forgiveness is a process. For 2 weeks I sat on my forgiveness of my wife....just to make sure it was where I had arrived at. It was so quiet and docile of a motion that I didn't recognize it at first.....
[This message edited by blakesteele at 11:06 PM, September 4th (Wednesday)]
Then she did something unexpected....she sincerely thanked me!
Unexpected because she is not the poster child remorseful spouse...never did ask me to forgive her or beg me to take her back. But she was sincere in her thanks....it meant something to her, meant something deeply to her. No tears from either of us...just a solid connection.
We had a good discussion on how some of the keystone movements within each other DO seem to have appeared or crept into us without a direct, traceable path.
God is good.
[This message edited by blakesteele at 11:05 PM, September 4th (Wednesday)]
But with it also released me from all the paperwork needed to store such weapons, and the fear that I would lose them, the fear of HAVING to use them, and all the upkeep with checking expiration dates and dealing with any that were defective. (can you tell I am in a career that deals with OSHA regs and Workmans Comp insurance?!?).
Truthfully, any power I thought I had by not forgiving was just me kidding myself...but I pity the fool who would have told me that even just 2 months ago.
Peace be with us all.
[This message edited by blakesteele at 11:13 PM, September 4th (Wednesday)]
Glad to hear things went well for the two of you tonight.
To answer your question, yes it did surprise me. I often found myself kind of checking in to see if I had forgiven him yet, and the answer was always a resounding no, then right around the one year mark, one day, it was just yes. Just like that. I don't know when or how, it just slid in there, and I was done with holding it against him.
Like others have said, doesn't mean my healing is complete, or over. Just means I no longer hold this against him no matter what happens between us.
Glad to hear this happened for you. I honestly believe we have to be well on our own healing road before this happens.
