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One of the things that I’ve struggled with for many years is the idea of forgiveness. Over much of my life, I have been unable to let go of past hurts. They will often times come unbidden to the forefront of my consciousness; sometimes no more than a mere annoyance, while others it can actually cause me great physical and emotional pain. I ponder why I cannot let these things go, what good does it do to hang on to them?

Some people (like myself) view forgiveness as a sign of weakness. When someone does you wrong, regardless of the severity, they deserve to be punished! Those who choose not to forgive but put the whole thing in their rear view, are lauded as being strong. They are heralded and admired for taking strong, decisive action.

I have been pondering this for quite some time and, at least at an intellectual level, I can see how flawed my thinking is. It’s oftentimes easier to give someone the middle finger. It’s much simpler to get angry at those who have wronged you and walk away. Put them out of your life as fast as possible and never look back.

Of course, I am speaking specifically of BS; I have read countless stories in JFO about BS who choose to forgive their WS instead of kicking them to the curb. I actually find myself triggering and getting angry when I see a BS consider taking their WS back. (To be clear, I am referring to truly remorseful WS). I say to myself, they’ve committed the ultimate betrayal, how could you even consider giving them another shot?

Then it hit me; those who offer the gift of R are the truly strong ones. A BS who offers the gift of R is making a TREMENDOUS leap of faith. Here they are, having been betrayed by the one that is supposed to love and protect them above all else, deciding to give them another chance. The BS is choosing to put their heart on the chopping block again, hoping against hope that the knife doesn’t fall once more.

As I continue through this journey, I hope I can reach a state where I have the emotional wherewithal to forgive. To let go of past hurts and all of this extraneous baggage I’ve carried around for many, many years. I think it would be quite liberating to put down all of this emotional baggage.

Most importantly, to learn how to better love others and myself.

I have done a huge amount of work on forgiveness. A great book to really explore the concept is by Desmond Tutu and his daughter. It has a workbook and is amazingly well done. I hope this book recommendation is okay. (I still feel fuzzy on that rule).

Forgiveness does not mean you are no longer hurt. It doesn't mean putting the whole thing in the rear view.

And forgiveness doesn't mean you stay.

It means to offer grace, forgiveness.

There is still work to be done. There is still the need for remorse and contrition. It is a gift you give yourself AND the injuring party.

People are still responsible for their actions. People may or may not be given the gift of R.

But R is not necessary for forgiveness to take place.

But forgiveness is necessary for R to take place.

And is necessary for both parties to heal.

JMHO

[This message edited by WhatsRight at 4:44 PM, May 26th (Friday)]

Thanks for the eloquent words.

I too have been spending time thinking and reflecting on forgiveness for my WW. I respect the strength that BS's must have had to offer the gift of R though I did not offer to R in my situation. I do however want to forgive WW for my own health and well being even though she didn't ask.

FF4152, I applaud your self reflection and changing views towards forgiveness in grudges you have from your past. It shows a change in your character in a positive, constructive for you...and your spouse if you are in R.

It can be both.

Never forgiving is definitely a weakness but so is forgiving anything Everytime.

There has to be some balance.

Harriet Lerner summed it up best for me in her book "Why Won't You Apologize: Healing Big Betrayals and Everyday Hurts"

...many are not actually talking about forgiveness, although they may use that word. Instead they are talking about their desire to rid themselves of anger, bitterness, resentment, and pain.

...many people just want the burden of their anger and resentment to go away. Words or phrases like resolution, detachment, moving on, or letting go may better describe what they seek.

My FWH and I are just over 2.5 yrs out from dday. He is contrite, has a deep level of self-awareness, and has grown into an emotionally mature and resilient man that I am proud to call my husband. He is loving, compassionate and empathetic.

I have not forgiven him, nor will I. I am not religious, so I don't feel it is necessary. I have, however, let go of the desire to punish him and make him suffer. I have let go of the anger, pain and resentment. It took me over 2 years to get there, but it is very freeing to have allowed myself to heal.

[This message edited by onlytime at 6:27 PM, May 26th (Friday)]

A few of the definitions of "forgiveness":

To cease anger and resentment

To no longer desire revenge

To no longer require payment

I feel many of us have the feeling forgiveness and condone and excuse are the same thing. And I think it is widely thought that forgiveness is an indication of weakness. So we don't "forgive".

But many, using the definitions above, do actually forgive, by some definitions.

[This message edited by WhatsRight at 6:45 PM, May 26th (Friday)]

I could never forgive what my husband forgave. I do see him as a much stronger and more gracious person than I could ever be.

I hold grudges. He lets things go.

I have struggled with this since the beginning. I do think it is a strength, but one that I just haven't been able to achieve. I read on here of all of the men with remorseful WS and they seem to make it where I can't. I swear that sometimes i feel like an alcoholic who promises that he will never drink again and boom, on the bottle.

I make the same promises to myself that this time I will forgive her and we can put this mess behind us, and boom I fall short. We are working on the reasons in IC, but it doesn't seem to take. In the scheme of things these other guys in many cases are forgiving LTA and affairs that were pretty bad too. It is disheartening frankly for both of us. I question my strength all of the time.

I will also say that some of the forgiveness that does go on here I don't think comes from a place of strength These are the ones that you read that a spouse has an affair, and a week after Day you get the I have forgiven them. this feels to me more of fear of a marriage ending, kids getting lost, or something else. It just seems too soon to me to be coming from a place of strength.

I still haven't "forgiven" my wife, at least not explicitly. Working towards R and while I have some lingering issues, mainly pertaining to unasked questions, it's going about as well as can be expected. And even though I haven't come out and said "I forgive you", I have no desire for revenge or punishment, never called her names and for the most part kept my temper in check.

I had considered writing a long letter to her, an affirmation of my love in the form a written statement of forgiveness, and came pretty close to starting a thread in the Reconciliation forum about what forgiveness means to see what others thought. My starting point:

In any relationship, "forgiveness" means...

...given the full knowledge of a transgression, the betrayed party chooses to willingly release the transgressor from threat of retaliation, at the sacrifice of great pain and sense of what was, in the hopes of reconciling and growing the relationship beyond what it used to be.

The intention from there is to explain that, I can only forgive what I know. I am going to state exactly what I thought my life was during the A, how I felt upon discovery, and what I went through in the last year as a result of what I know now. This isn't a substitute for open discussion (we talked a lot about the A), but something I want her to be able to absorb without trying to make excuses, or interject her own thoughts. My idea is to give this to her on July 3rd, our first anti-versary. I am done making her affair about me, because it isn't about what I did or didn't do. I was and still am a damned good husband and her poor decisions are no reason to keep myself stuck in the past.

I was never forgiven by my wife.

Even I consider my infidelity unforgivable. My wife is a strong, independent, smart, beautiful woman. Nonetheless, 30 years later we are in the "sweet spot" of life and are happily still married. Neither of us got hung up on forgiveness. I was just thrilled she gave me a second chance.

As for me, this is where I land on betrayal forgiveness.

I can only offer a semblance of forgiveness- so it's really more of a faux one.

That said, I don't seek to necessarily punish if the WS seems truly repentant. I just deal with my ability to cope and move on for better or for worse.

So I go inbetween....

I say to a WS to first learn to forgive yourself. Forgive yourself for betraying those who placed blind faith and trust in you that you have permanently scarred. Forgive yourself for betraying yourself and any sense of morality, ethics, ability to not destroy others.... It's actually not an easy process. The ore we see ourselves as we really are, the harder it is to forgive us. It leads to a genuine remorse and contriteness and we fully turn from who we were to something much better. Very very few accomplish that.

Second, it one is religious, I tell them to seek and accept God's forgiveness. That is equally as hard when one truly understands what it entails.

ff4152

During reconnecting with my WH, I heard the same from him. He was in the midst of his affair, between DDay1 and Dday2.

We sat down to discuss our marriage and he had after Dday1, gone to church and MC and had some IC.

We were given the book on forgiveness by Janis Spring as homework. To his credit, he did read it. What he got from it was this:

" I am going to look up all the people who have wronged me, treated me bad etc and look them in the eye and tell them I forgive them. See how they feel then, I want to see the look on their faces when I do that."

Up to that point, I hadn't realised what a burden of resentment he carried throughout his life. His persona was the "Nice easy-going guy" , ready to lend a hand and sometimes taking on negative responsibility ( raising his hand for blame while not actually doing the deed, defending the "weak/underdog" (but not checking whether they were really in need of help or defending! And refusing to see manipulation or selfishness in the "weak") quite a KISA.

WH then went on a course of "crash and burn" which resulted in Dday2. He believed that there could never be and would never be forgiveness for what he had done. Because of his personal (as in FOO) toxic belief that by forgiving "you let them get away with it". That by being the recipient of Forgiveness it showed him as weak.

I don't see Forgiveness as strength nor weakness. It is a process and a verb just like Love. It is something you do to continue living a healthy life. It does not mean you have to associate with those you have forgiven. It means to rid yourself of the burden of resentment, of keeping score, of keeping shame.

It does also means keeping your eyes open on this journey of life.

Peace and strength.

I can only speak of my life experience. I have frequently felt like the poster child of forgiveness which sounds like hey throw me a big pity party, but no. LOL. I have forgiven the “unforgivable” so many times over, you don't even know. For me it is a weakness because I know I CAN do it and too often that comes with second and third chances. Everyone deserves ONE second chance, but never a third.

Anyway....

Forgiveness is the most diluted word in the english language, it really is. It's not a feeling AT ALL. It's origins refer to debt, it means to erase a debt, nothing more nothing less and it's not affiliated with emotions AT ALL.

Forgiveness is a choice you make. It can be made while blood is streaming down your back from where the knife has been plunged in. It typically does not, but it certainly could.

When you make the choice to forgive IMO, you say, I am going to let go of my need for my pound of flesh for such and such. I am not going to actively seek revenge. You can be angry as hell and still make that decision.

Then the funniest thing happens.

When you feel the anger, hurt etc that you described as coming up, you simply remind yourself, nope I choose to let that go and forgive that debt (be it an apology, money whatever). Eventually your feelings will line up with your brain. Some time after that, what happened will rarely cross your mind. Your life and every corner of your mind and heart is yours again. Choosing to not forgive allows that person to kick around in the rooms and knock things over, break things and live there. After more time, you never think about that person or that act. That person is no longer shackled to your thoughts and feelings.

Having said all that, I have found that forgiving one's self is much harder then forgiving someone else, tons harder. It's still a struggle for me, but writing this has given me great insight.

What have I forgiven? Well in case you were wondering.... horrific child abuse by multiple persons, rapes and assaults, a drunk driver who destroyed my life, the father of my children who was a chronic liar/cheater. There's probably more but that's enough. I do not allow any of those people one milimeter of my thoughts or energy, I will not do it. If there is someone in your life you would not allow in your home, why on earth would you let them in your head?

But these are my random friday night thoughts....

FF (and all)

FWIW, almost every culture has a fable or parable the moral of which is along the lines of the "tree that is able to bend can withstand all storms that knock over even the strongest and stoutest of their peers"

The physics of the world mirror this. In engineering, very strong materials often suffer little strain or give, and aren't ductile and able to bend much.

The reality, totally IMO, ... grace and true forgiveness (I read your comment WWTL!) come from a mixture of strength and the flexibility to change to meet the circumstances.

My 43.2p -- IDK

Strength or Weakness?

It depends on what the situation is and which definition of "forgiveness" you're using. I'm with onlytime, I prefer a more traditional definition, and like other posters I have not forgiven my WH, nor do I think it's likely that I will. I don't believe forgiveness is necessary for R, you do not need to pardon or absolve another in order to move on.

Are you talking about forgiving yourself, or just referring to forgiving others? Could you be a little more specific about the scenarios that you're still holding on to?

nme1

Are you talking about forgiving yourself, or just referring to forgiving others?

I was thinking the two were intertwined but upon reflection, I suppose you can't really forgive others until you learn how to forgive yourself. In my case, my issues of self forgiveness go way beyond my infidelity. I did many things in my younger days that I am not proud of. Call it a bad moral compass, the stupidity of youth or anything you like, I still cannot let go of it. I really thought I had left that person in the dust, yet here he is again. All of my past "transgressions" clearly pale in comparison to cheating on my wife.

The conodrum that I find myself in is I'm not the person I was 7 months ago so I must be a slightly better individual than before right? Well I also thought that about myself before I started the A. So it looks like that guy never left, just went into hibernation for a while.

I think for me, the meeting of intellect and emotions is essential on the road to forgiving myself. I am reading and doing a lot of self introspection. I am feeling a little bit better every day and am encouraged by that.

Thank you to everyone who has posted to this thread. Your replies have been very enlightening to me and I appreciate that.

We all have done stupid things in our youth that we regret. In our late teens/early twenties we lack judgement because our brains have not yet matured, and we don't have any life experience to help guide our actions. Now, of course, that does not excuse all actions, but for most instances you could apply the following thought process - " I was young, stupid, and lacked the ability to see how my poor choices would effect others and even myself, now that I know better, I'll do better."

You're hiccup in this process seems to be that you haven't learned from your previous mistakes. I don't know how these relate to infidelity (maybe poor judgement or lack of boundaries), but perhaps it would be a useful exercise for you to revisit these transgressions and identify what lesson you should have taken away from it. I think self-forgiveness will come when those lessons are learned.

I disagree, you don't need one to be able to do the other. Like I said, forgiving yourself is much harder then it is forgiving others. I think it's harder because there's no buffer, no bull shit, no denying. You know what you were thinking, feeling etc.

Interesting side note. I hurt a lot of people as a teen/young adult. Honestly? I know those people forgot and moved on ages ago and I've been the only one still cringing. I've taken the opportunity to apologize and say I could have handled that better. Most of them, the majority, could barely recall what I did. While I'm oldish, I'm not so old they should be forgetting things.

My point is when you move on and erase the debt, you really do forget. My "stuff" was not the unforgiveable sort (no infidlity, physical attacks etc.) just emotionally not cool.

I don't see forgiveness as either strength or weakness. It is about self preservation. Keeping your own sanity. The old cliche is true. 'holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die'