Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: I sometimes hear from wives who are unsure if they will ever be inclined to forgive their husband for cheating or having an affair. Unfortunately, society often gives these wives not so subtle messages about the necessity of forgiving sooner rather than later.

I heard from a wife who said: “my husband recently admitted to me that he had an affair early in our marriage. He said that he couldn’t continue to lie to me even though it has been over for years. I think that he assumed that since it happened so long ago, there really wouldn’t be a huge fall out. He was wrong. I honestly don’t know what I want to happen but I do know that I am not just going to forgive him now and maybe not ever. My first husband cheated on me so my current husband knows very well that this is a deal breaker. The truth is, I still love my husband. He is a good man. We have a good marriage that I would not want to throw away, but at the same time, I do not want to forgive him right now. I don’t think what he did warrants my forgiveness. And I guess I am just not a good enough person but I do not feel capable of forgiveness for that kind of betrayal. But all of my friends say that my marriage will never work if I can’t forgive him. Are they right?” I will tell you my opinion on this below.

Why I Don’t Believe That Forgiveness Is Required, Especially At First: If you listen to mental health specialists and well meaning friends, you would think that the idea forgiveness comes almost automatically. It seems that people assume that you can’t move on in a healthy way until you forgive.

Although I agree that forgiveness is optimal and a worthwhile long term goal, I would disagree that it is always necessary, especially in the early stages of healing. First of all, if you forgive before you are ready, willing and able to do so, then it is not going to be genuine anyway and you are not going to get any benefit from it. Not only that, but it could foster resentment that you claimed to offer something that wasn’t yet yours to give.

Also, sometimes it takes a while to take all of this in, see the entire picture, and then evaluate how you want to proceed. And even then, many of us need to watch and wait for quite a while. We need to wait it out to see if our husband is going to make good on his promises. Forgiving before we have this reassurance can feel like it is just unrealistic or too much to ask.

Frankly, I did not forgive my husband in the early stages of recovery. In fact, I made it clear that I might never forgive him. Instead, I promised to wait and see what would happen rather than just walking away. But I made no promises as far as forgiveness went. Eventually, I committed to saving and rebuilding our marriage. A little later, I committed to letting go of resentment and anger. I eventually allowed myself to be vulnerable again so that we could have a whole marriage. But honestly, forgiveness didn’t come until I was at peace with the whole situation and at peace with myself and the way that I had rebounded.

Don’t get me wrong. I think that if you can offer heartfelt forgiveness, then this can be very freeing. But I also do not think that you should lie or kid yourself and offer it up before you are ready because of pressure or guilt.

Why Forgiveness Is For You And Not For Him: Wives often assume that once they forgive their husbands, they are giving him a free pass or they are unleashing that little bit of leverage that they have over him. I understand why it might seem so. But it actually feels wonderful to forgive once you are truly ready to do so. Because suddenly, you get to drop that horribly heavy weight that you have been carrying. You get to let it go.

And suddenly, things are more equitable between you. And you no longer have to worry if he is motivated only to seek your forgiveness. Since you have already offered it, you know that his actions are genuine. You know that he is being sweet or loving or accountable because he wants to and not because he is seeking forgiveness from you.

When this happens, you will sometimes find that all that anger that you were holding onto and being damaged by is suddenly gone. There is a huge release and this allows that choke hold on your marriage to also release so that you can move on.

So to answer the initial concern, I don’t think that anyone should be forced into forgiveness if they are not ready. I believe that you don’t have to forgive before you try to save your marriage. I believe that you have the right to just wait and see how things unfold. With that said, you will often find that once some healing and progress have taken place and once you feel that you have been made whole again, you may just naturally want to forgive because carrying that burden is a heavy load indeed.

As I alluded to, I did forgive my husband, but not until I was good and ready and not until he had proven to me that it made sense to do so.  If it helps, you can read the whole story on my blog http://surviving-the-affair.com

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