The other morning I received a call from a hurting spouse pleading “She won’t forgive me!” His dilemma begs the question’ ‘What if your spouse doesn’t forgive you?’ There’s also a few other questions it leads to.
Let me start with a couple points for clarity. One is that forgiveness is NOT a requirement for the two of you to be in relationship.
Forgiveness certainly makes things go smoother, but it’s not required. Let me repeat that, your spouse is NOT required to forgive you. You can work on your relationship without forgiveness.
A second is assuming that she HAS to forgive you or that you HAVE to forgive her. This kind of thinking turns forgiveness into a control game. Like other monsters and freaks, when forgiveness becomes a way of controlling each other, it becomes destructive.
Hopefully the two of you don’t have ‘freakish forgiveness’, which is only forgiveness in name. In such cases, it becomes a ritual that is more about control than letting go.
If your spouse does forgive you, that’s great. In all likelihood, they’ve only forgiven a portion of things. Since forgiveness is a process, what forgiveness has occurred is not in its final stage.
Assuming your spouse has to forgive you BEFORE you work on recovery is unrealistic. I understand how you’d want things being forgiven ahead of time.
It’s akin to getting a school to give you a tenured position before they’ve seen you teach, or being pre-qualified before buying property. Being forgiven ahead of recovery gives you a safe, no-risk position for you and your spouse in your marital relationship.
Getting real in your marriage relationship involves taking risks. True forgiveness requires taking risks as well. Those risks include letting go of control, which is the opposite of freakish forgiveness.
When you ‘get real’ there is a risk of getting hurt, yet there’s also the risk of really touching your spouse’s heart. Anytime you can really touch them in a meaningful way, there’s the risk of hurting them as well.
This means that forgiveness involves vulnerability. This vulnerability is part of the price tag of forgiveness. When you’re talking ‘matters of the heart’ without vulnerability, someone is lying or hiding behind walls.
Having a good idea about what forgiveness ‘is’ and ‘is not’ is essential in recovery from an affair. In my video entitled “Forgiveness: Stop the Pain, Tear down walls and Remove the Roadblocks” I address what forgiveness is, along with the who, what, why and how’s of forgiveness.
This will help you and your spouse have a healthy type of forgiveness, rather than holding onto freakish forgiveness and thinking it’s the good kind.
Best Regards,
Jeff
2 Responses
But God says we are to forgive as He forgives us (Lord’s Prayer is one reference). Other references say that the unforgiving person suffers due to unforgiveness.
Rev. E. Dixon Murrah
The problem is never the problem.
You are correct. We are commanded to forgive.
I was addressing the issue of when people refuse working on their marriage because one spouse won’t forgive the other. Forgiveness like other acts is intended to bring freedom rather than bondage. When spouses with hold forgiveness as a control game, it’s not what was intended.
Because someone doesn’t forgive you shouldn’t be an excuse for not working on your relationship. Actually when they don’t forgive and you continue working, it becomes acts of love (see Matthew 5:11).
I’ve also seen problems when people forgive prematurely. They go through the motions, yet they are not fully connected to their hurts, pains, etc. Before you let go of something, you need to know what that something is. Otherwise it makes for a chaotic mess.
Although many of my readers are Christian, not all are. There are also many that are not Biblically literate.
Thank you for pointing that out. It’ll give me a chance to clarify it on the blog.
Best Regards,
Jeff