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When I asked a Catholic priest how do I forgive him? His response is you can not do it alone, you need the help of Jesus. For Catholics forgiveness is a commandment and reconciliation is an option. You can still forgive someone and decide not to reconcile. You can also forgive someone and they do not have to know that you did, it sets you free. Forgiveness is for yourself, it is not weak, not excusing and not forgetting.

Book suggestion: The power of praying Wife by Stormie Omartian.

Pray and you will get there one day!

[This message edited by beatmyheart at 5:19 PM, September 22nd (Friday)]

I have forgiven both fWH and OW because I deserve peace. I deserve for it to not be a part of every waking moment. I deserve to not live in bitterness. But mostly, my God forgives me each and every day for my sins and if He can do that, so can I. EASY? HELL NO! Does that negate what happened? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! My fWh and I have worked very hard on R. He was and remains remorseful for his actions. The OW?? I could care less. She and the A are the past. The present and future are ours.

Difficult...I recently saw a bumper sticker on forgiving and forgetting. It said, " I'm not Jesus and I don't have Alzheimer's.

I really did fit my life. I am 2 1/2 years from Dday and am trying to reconcile. I am moving forward, but not forgiving or forgetting. I have been in counseling and was told I need to forgive. I guess I am not ready to do that, but I can start over and try to improve my situation.

This is the question that gets folks hung up so much of the time. I would never, ever have thought I was one to forgive. Really I was the one who held a grudge forever and easily dispensed with someone who wronged me...until the A. It turned my world upside down.

But you know what? I learned that not forgiving was more of a burden on me and not my WS. I needed to forgive my WS not only because he did such an awful thing to me, but I was feeling so victimized and once I forgave him, I could move onto surviving and stop feeling like it was continuing.

What will happen if you forgive? What is the down side? Are you thinking that it means he is off the hook? I can tell you he is not. He never will be off the hook and that is something he knows he will live with for the rest of his life. While things may not be even per se, you can request of him that he have consequences as a result of his actions and take additional risk in the M since he made the poor choice to be unfaithful.

Forgiveness is not for the CS but it is for you.

To help you heal

To help you move away from the pain

To help you become a better person

To allow you to soar - and enjoy life.

If you cannot forgive (even a tiny bit) then chances are you will remain angry and bitter. And live like that too long and it is hard to turn down the path of happiness and acceptance.

I forgive my H for doing the worst possible thing by ruining our M and making the chouce to cheat. However day to day (after 4 long years) I don't allow myself to dwell on it. I decided allowing it to linger in our lives was giving away my happiness and power to him.

I hope this helps. And just b/c you forgive - no one says you must forget. You still protect yourself and all that. But you don't allow the CS to make the same bad choice and expect you will still R.

Thank you! All of your responses were written with so much thoughtfulness and insight.

I have been re-reading, thinking, and praying.

For each of you who spoke about wanting justice, revenge. You absolutely hit the nail on the head.

I hadn't been able to forgive because I do not feel I have had justice.

Which brings me to this...our priest gave the second part of the sermon this week at church.

I will try to do my best at explaining.

--the Bible verse was the parable of the the workers all receiving the same wage for different amounts of work.

--it's unfair. The priest spoke about someone who has lived their life right. And a person who accepts Jesus at the last minute. Both will go to heaven. Is that fair?

The end results isn't fairness. It's blessings. Living your life right has given you so many blessings. You made a decision to turn towards the blessings and received blessings so many times. The person who had rejected blessings in the past....how sad is it they haven't had a full life with God's blessings.

You know what. I have received so many blessings in my 15 years of marriage. I had a very nice life. In spite of the affair my marriage is better. It truly is. My husband is finally experiencing the blessings in our marriage and of us as a couple. I feel this with every fiber of my being.

I have never posted our "affair and D-day " story on SI before. Just bits and pieces.

During his five week affair my husband was horrible to me. During the 5 weeks before I got my backbone in line!! IE stopping pick me. He was horrible. Poor him. Losing his soulmate...blah blah blah. Anyway....I knew right away my husband was having an affair.

The night he had sex with his AP...it was not EA beforehand. I was cleaning out our closets. He traveled for work. I found a card from my mother written 20 years ago. She wrote about strength. I kept the card out. My husband came home that Friday. I put my hand on his shoulder. I felt it. I felt the betrayal by touching his shoulder. I walked away and thought. Wow that was weird. I couldn't shake my instinct. The next week, I asked if he was having an affair. I knew he was "ripe" to have an affair. I had watched him get more and more distant. He also had had a stroke. Anyway. It was another 3 weeks when I finally got his phone. I needed proof to confront. Of course he lied about who she was. Duh. He felll to sleep. I took his phone and combed through it and also his work iPad. I got every piece of proof. Then I got credit card statements. I didn't know/understand. Like other in JFO. I didn't know.....how detached my husband was from me. After I saw all I saw on his devices. I hit him over the head with a pillow and woke him up. I had been calm until this point. And then the downhill spiral started. He wouldn't call her immediately and establish NC. I knew more than he did about her. He had never seen pictures of her children. I showed him. (BTW. They were getting married). On Sunday evening I put a VAR in his car. Monday, I knew everything I needed to know. They were in love. Getting married. After listening to the VAR I walked into the house. I was calm. He ranted to her how scared I was to lose him. I told him he was wrong. I wasn't scared to lose him. Anyway....he didn't see her for 3 weeks. He then saw her again. I totally busted them. They both thought the stay at home wife was stupid. So I started divorce proceedings. At this point my husband realized what the affair really was...and he understood what a divorce would cost him. I don't doubt for a minute my husband didn't want to lose his respectability and his retirement. Those first 6 months after this were full of peaks and valleys. We found IC and MC. I came to SI because I wanted to know if people could recover after infidelity.

At that point, I had resigned myself to attempting a bitter-Free marriage. I didn't think I would ever love my spouse as a romantic partner again. I loved him as the definition of husband.

He did all I asked and more for me to move forward in reconciliation.

He implented all our MC advised. And then, I almost died. I had to have life saving surgery. My spouse was a different man. His gentleness, compassion, empathy, love just poured out of him while I recovered. It was a side I had never seen before. He was humbled.

The affair brought him to his knees. He traded in his integrity for an affair that was nothing. He feels repentness is a continued series of acts towards me....

I love my husband again. I am ready to forgive. I want to live my marriage to the full extent of love. I do not want anything hard burning inside of me. Forgiving him is best for me and for my children.

For the first time in years and years, my marriage isn't mediocre. My husband is fully in love with me and I feel it in each of his actions.

I want him to be able to say the same about me. I love him and I want him to fully experience my love.

[This message edited by Iwantmyglasses at 10:59 AM, September 26th (Tuesday)]

Living your life right has given you so many blessings. You made a decision to turn towards the blessings and received blessings so many times. The person who had rejected blessings in the past....how sad is it they haven't had a full life with God's blessings.

You know what. I have received so many blessings in my 15 years of marriage. I had a very nice life. In spite of the affair my marriage is better. It truly is. My husband is finally experiencing the blessings in our marriage and of us as a couple. I feel this with every fiber of my being.

Thank you so much for sharing your story Iwantmyglasses. The quoted part above absolutely hit me between the eyes. I am so happy that you are receiving the love you deserve and that you are feeling it for your husband again.

OMG I love this:

"I'm not Jesus and I don't have Alzheimer's."

Struggle bus,

Thank you. I hope my intention came across in my writing. During our 15 years of marriage...my husband wasn't fully committed to me or our marriage. He thought bringing home a paycheck was his only contribution. I would lay awake at night and pray. "Why doesn't he see me?"" I would make excuses. Is there something wrong with him socially? Does he have sensory problems".

The truth was he was rejecting the blessings. I feel sorry for him.

I also feel sorry for his AP. She broke her vows for a man who was not worth it. My husband wasn't worth it. He wasn't selfish or disengaged because of me or the marriage. It was something wrong inside of him. She hurt her husband for nothing. It's a shame to me she didn't value her body or her soul. My husband is a gift giver. He never even gave her flowers. During the DD turmoil he kept saying she doesn't love him for his income. I said you are so stupid!!! I said you have never had to share the limelight with anyone. The only thing she cares about is her career. Good women (and mothers) do not do this to families. My husband had convinced himself it was true love because they both broke marriage vows.

Anyway---we all know the affair fantasy.

[This message edited by Iwantmyglasses at 11:52 AM, September 26th (Tuesday)]

I hadn't been able to forgive because I do not feel I have had justice.

The need for justice fades with time and processing, I think.

I like this thread topic - always do.

I believe that the issue is more semantics than anything. Some people say, let go. Some people say forgive. Maybe some people need eye for eye...

The bible is FULL is issues in semantics. Can you change the wording that was/is used to a word you like and understand better?

I don't think I understand forgiveness unless I am talking about my kids. Outside of that, I think I am still developing this as I work on self love, healthy boundaries, and accepting this is my story line, like it or not.

Keep posting, I need to hear these things too. Thanks.

Also, I second love for this quote!

I'm not Jesus and I don't have Alzheimer's.

The end results isn't fairness. It's blessings. Living your life right has given you so many blessings. You made a decision to turn towards the blessings and received blessings so many times. The person who had rejected blessings in the past....how sad is it they haven't had a full life with God's blessings.

I am writing this one down. Seriously. Between this and the whole giving your spouse's sins to God and letting Him deal with them, I am loving the insights on SI in the past week.

I asked my WH the other night what he thought my forgiveness would mean, and he told me that it would hopefully mean that I was letting the anger go and moving past it - for myself. Not for him. That forgiving him would not mean anything to him in the sense that he would feel absolved or be freed from his own sins. That was something he was having to work on his own with God, forgiving himself.

I'm still not at a point where I hink I would forgive my husband (I still equate it mentally with absolution and I will NEVER be there), but being able to let go of the anger and appreciate the blessings in my life sounds like a lot nicer life than the one I've had for the past six months. Thanks for the food for thought. :)

ETA:

I don't think I understand forgiveness unless I am talking about my kids.

I feel the same. My unhelpful IC said that I should forgive my WH like I would forgive my 12 yo son. Um, no. I love my son unconditionally. My husband? Not so much. He murders someone, I divorce him, end of story. My kid does the same I would still visit him in jail. There's a HUGE difference between forgiving a kid and a spouse.

[This message edited by TX1995 at 2:07 PM, September 26th (Tuesday)]

In my mind forgiving is taking care of yourself. Its giving yourself permission to let it go. I am not real sure it does a whole lot for the person who hurt you. Most of them are selfish jackasses that don't really care. Others are selfish jackasses that take forgiveness as if they are getting a "get out of jail free" card. There are those that truly are remorseful and forgiveness means a lot to.. I think the true benefactor of forgiving is the forgiver. They release themselves from needing to hate, needing to hold grudges and needing to feel that pit in their stomach every time they are confronted with the situation again.

I think that is why forgiveness is so hard to do. When your angry and hurt you want to hold that grudge, you want them to hurt. You almost enjoy the negative thoughts about those that hurt you.

Once you get to the point where you are sick of the thoughts (hate, anger, that pit in your stomach), forgiving comes easier. It is basically saying, "I am going to let it go because its hurting me as badly as you did, so, I forgive you."

It you get to that point and you have a truly remorseful Wayward. They will feel the pain you are letting go of in sympathy for what they put you through.. The other types of waywards will remain remain jackasses. They can't help it, thats their nature.

The concept of forgiveness means something different to everyone. An example is that I will never forgive my WW and I'm at peace with that. What she did is unforgivable. Yet I still live with her and I would describe our marriage as just as good (or bad) as anyone else I know. It is something I have (mostly) successfully compartmentalized and buried in the back of my mind. Would someone else call this forgiveness? I think many would. They might say something like "I forgive the person but not the act" and that would be good enough for many.

Nearly everyone on this thread has defined what forgiveness means to them and not one of them describes my feelings about forgiveness. For me, even the thought of forgiving her cheating is disgusting. It would be giving tacit approval of what she did. I will never accept that the act or the person who gladly, happily, eagerly did that act is worthy of my forgiveness. Not now...not ever. But, again, this is all predicated on what forgiveness means to me.

What does forgiveness look like to you?

[This message edited by ISurvived7734 at 4:55 PM, September 26th (Tuesday)]

Glasses--my WH was similar to yours in that he thought providing for us financially was enough. I always had to beg for attention, affection; I had to ask him if he loved me in order to hear him say those words 95% of the time. He did miss out on the blessings of our marriage. While not perfect, I don't think anybody's is, it was good. And he chose to destroy what it was for some slut that was worth less than nothing. How sad for him and her.

Forgive for me is not accepting. I haven't been able to do that yet. I hope I will one day, but I don't feel close right now. But it does mean that I know without a doubt that my WH is remorseful, is working hard for me, regrets what he did to me and our family, and if he could go back, he'd not ever of broken our vows and stomped all over them. I know that and can see it--so I can forgive him. I'm still very mad, very hurt, but I can forgive him.

I think that is why forgiveness is so hard to do. When your angry and hurt you want to hold that grudge, you want them to hurt. You almost enjoy the negative thoughts about those that hurt you.

Once you get to the point where you are sick of the thoughts (hate, anger, that pit in your stomach), forgiving comes easier. It is basically saying, "I am going to let it go because its hurting me as badly as you did, so, I forgive you."

Bingo! I absolutely can relate to this.

When I first came to SI--I was so scared to become a 6 year poster who wasn't "healed". I shared this with my IC.

We spoke a great deal concerning my belief system. IE--am I in control of myself? Do I control my own thoughts? Do I believe people can change?

It was some type of personality test. It was very eye opening. I scored very high in believing I am in control of my own thoughts.

This helped me because I believe you are what you think/speak. I didn't want the negative thought patterns to develop.

Do you know the "if you give a mouse a cookie/ pig a pancake" children's story book series? Excuse my pun, but it's so elementary. Allowing your thoughts to spiral will have the same result as those stories...chaos and exhaustion.

----I loved my IC. :)

Default Posted: 9:02 AM, September 27th (Wednesday), 2017 View ProfileEdit MessagePrivate MessageHomepage

Glasses--my WH was similar to yours in that he thought providing for us financially was enough. I always had to beg for attention, affection; I had to ask him if he loved me in order to hear him say those words 95% of the time. He did miss out on the blessings of our marriage. While not perfect, I don't think anybody's is, it was good. And he chose to destroy what it was for some slut that was worth less than nothing. How sad for him and her.

I think this is why you are so angry. I was so angry. I had spent years being silent so I could earn his love. We were always very affectionate. He told me he loved me easily. But I never had his time nor any interest in me as a woman. I was a life manager to him. I was a puppy licking his heels at the door when he got home. Eating that life long shit sandwich and purposely making choices to see the good in the marriage in spite of his complete lack of interest in me.....and then for him to cheat on me. My friends and family said...I was the most supportive and wife of service they have ever seen. It was true.

The cheating sent me into a tailspin of anger and rage. He was literally chasing white trash ass. While I was so starved for an equal marriage of love and affection.

My husband had never served his own plate of food in 15 years. He never loaded the dishwasher! One Saturday after DD he was laying on the couch. I walked in and started laughing. I said...wow and you and your unicorn princess really believed the two of you could make a life together. I said, "do you really believe a career woman would put up with this?"

This affair gave me a catalyst to just stop the excuses. To demand my worth so to speak.

My therapist said, he has already done the worst thing to you. What do you have to lose by becoming assertive?

I understand your anger Blackheartbroken. To have wanted to have love and then give what you have been missing for so long.....it's just beyond hurtful. With my therapist I realized I was using the anger as a cover up for the hurt. Being hurt was weak to me. The anger was a mask. The hurt engulfed me to my soul once I allowed it to be released. And my healing began.

Forgiveness is something I truly want to offer at this point. P

So, when offering forgiveness, what does that mean to you? Yes you dont forget, you still hurt, everything is not ok....but If I were to say to my WH, I forgive you, I would still feel the same. I would still have triggers, I would still cry after sex, I would still hate what he did, etc.

So what would offering forgiveness change? We would still be in the same place as we are now with our conversations, sexless marriage, living like roommates, etc.

So he will breath better after me offering forgiveness, but I will still be hurt? I dont get offering forgiveness. I feel I may have offered some sort of forgiveness the moment I found out when I didnt kick him out and when I offered R. But to actually say, I forgive you, wouldnt change how I feel and how I react towards him right now.

Worst pain. I don't think we can compare stories with others on SI. We were married for 15 years. You were only married a few months before he cheated.

My husband's cheating was a manifestation of his selfishness.

I don't know how people can forgive a LTA or an affair at the beginning of a new marriage?

We each need to take our beliefs and value systems and make the right choice for our families.

I am 16 months out from DD. We have been able to rebuild our marriage because my spouse has done the work. I have done the work. I spent a year in therapy to help myself.

My exploration of forgiveness doesn't mean forgetting. It means I am releasing my need for justice, revenge, and control.

"everything is not ok"

The truth about this above statement....everything was NOT okay before the affair. My marriage is OK now.

Our MC told my husband he could use this to create a better marriage for me. It gave my husband hope. He has lived this mantra everyday since the MC stated "we could have a better marriage"

[This message edited by Iwantmyglasses at 10:49 AM, September 27th (Wednesday)]

Glasses, yes. Absolutely correct. It bothers me to my core that I was giving and giving and loving and loving...and in return he cheated for over a year with trash, and hurt me more than anything ever has times a million. But your words resonated with me today--he was missing out for a long time. He was. And boy do I know my worth now if I didn't before. I tell him it's all about me now. That I will not settle and I will not accept BS anymore. And he apologizes and tells me he will treat me like the queen I am until the day he dies. That feels good. Knowing I have a position of power that I didn't really have before. I love what my WH is becoming. I hate that it took a nasty, shameful A with a pasty, meth addict looking slut to get here, and I'm still very upset, consumed, and hurt by it, even with the forgiveness.

Worst, I think it gives me more power in knowing that I am so much better than him and his choices. When I forgave him, he cried. Out of happiness and also shame. We BS are bigger people than our WS. They know it. Forgiving is just another reminder of that. And I feel like it's a step I need to take to heal and work toward R. I know he's remorseful--I can forgive him. I can try to move forward. It won't be a fast move, but it will happen.

The most powerful clip I have seen on forgiveness in is the movie "The Shack". Graham Greene is the Almighty, he is talking with Mac about forgiving the man that killed Mac's daughter.

He says some powerful words. When asked if forgiving means that Mac or God lets the killer get away with it, Greene replies, "Nobody gets away with anything, everything has consequences." He goes on to say "the pain inside is devouring you, robbing you of joy and crippling your capacity to love." When Mac decides to let go, he tells Greene, I am still angry. Greene says "of course you are, no one lets go all at once". "You may have to do it a thousand times before it gets any easier." Anyway, it is worth seeing.

But the best quote I have ever seen came from SI, "We never forgive and act, we only ever forgive people." I cannot excuse or forgive what she did, but I can forgive her.