When it comes time for cleaning up the relationship damage from the affair, an issue that trips of many of you is half-hearted repentance. When repentance is half-hearted, you have some decisions to make.
One decision is whether to accept their half-hearted repentance. You know that it’s not heart-felt or ‘authentic’. These days, being authentic is important.
When the half-hearted repentance happens at a time when you’re emotionally vulnerable, you want them to repent so badly that you’re tempted in accepting it.
You may even take on the attitude that a half-hearted repentance is better than no repentance. When you accept their half-hearted gestures, you end up lowering expectations and standards.
Once you start accepting the insincere, half-hearted gestures, it opens the door to more of the same. All they have to do is go through the motions and you’re face with the same choice over and over again.
I’m well aware of how ‘love’ motivates you to think the best of your spouse and give them the benefit of the doubt. I also know they need accountability.
It’s still possible to accept them even with half-hearted repentance and hold them accountable. Recall that you’re accepting them, NOT what they did.
It’s one thing if they don’t understand or are capable of repentance. When they’re fully capable of understanding repentance, their gesture amounts to another manipulation.
There are also some spouses that have been so caught up in themselves that they don’t have a clue about the damage they’ve done to you. They continue hoping that their show of contrition will patch things up.
They’ve likely replayed their words and routine in their heads prior to their display with you. They already have a mental script that they’re following and expecting you to follow as well.
Navigating half-hearted repentance challenges you. If you’re not sure how to handle it, consider downloading my video on forgiveness entitled “Forgiveness: Stop the Pain, Tear down the Walls and Remove the Roadblocks”.
In the video, I deep dive into forgiveness along with repentance and what the differences are between them. It also gives you tells to look for alerting you to insincere repentance.
Rather than being blind-sided by half-hearted efforts, you can know what is sincere and what’s not.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
