Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

I sometimes hear from wives who are considering unconventional ways to heal after their husband has an affair. One example is writing a letter forgiving the other woman.

A wife might explain, “I am not trying to downplay my husband’s affair. It was so painful, and I am not over it. But I am trying very hard to move on. About two weeks after I found out about the affair, the other woman sent a letter to me. She apologized for cheating with my husband. She claimed that she did not know my husband was married. I later found out that this was a lie. I saw notes between them where she mentioned our marriage. However, she is indeed a recent widow. I do feel compassion for that. I heard a podcast yesterday about the power of forgiveness. The host said that offering forgiveness to someone who has hurt and wronged you releases all of your pain. I want to let go of my pain. So I would like to forgive her. I am considering responding to her letter and telling her of my forgiveness. My husband thinks that this is a horrible idea. He says that I am just stirring things up and that the most compassionate thing is to leave her be. Is he right? Should I write this letter? Should I offer her forgiveness?”

I think that you are probably in the best position to answer your own question, but I can offer you my insights and my opinion. I agree that forgiveness can release some (although often not all) pain. I also believe that some of the time, we forgive for our own well-being and not necessarily for the benefit of the other person. We are not trying to let them off the hook. We are trying to free ourselves.

I have also chosen to forgive those who have hurt me. That said, I did not inform many of these people about that same forgiveness. Why? Because it was only necessary for those with whom I have a close relationship.

Here is an example. After much contemplation, I decided to forgive a somewhat abusive adult from my childhood. This person was extremely negative and belittling. While she was supposed to be caring for me, she caused great harm. However, continuing to think about the person and the harm she caused me was forcing me to re-live that awful time in my life. I was ruminating rather than healing. But, when I thought about the issue objectively, I knew that this person also had a very difficult life and background. She may not have had the skills to care for a child with compassion.

So, I decided to forgive her and to move on. This did provide me some relief. But, I decided that I was not going to share my forgiveness with her. I had already made the difficult decision to no longer include her in my life. I didn’t want to go backward. Frankly, I didn’t see any upside to bringing this person back into my life, even with a short conversation or letter. I wanted to forgive and move on. So that is exactly what I did.

To be clear, I did write a letter. I outlined all that she did to hurt me and then I forgave her for every bit of it. But I burned that letter once I finished it. I saw no need to go back to the past for her or for me.

And that would be my reservation for sending the other woman a forgiveness letter. I would be afraid that she would use this as an “in” to try to resume a relationship with your husband or even with you – neither of which would be healthy.

I believe that the best course of action for everyone (even her) is to move on. If you send her the letter, then she too is re-visiting the pain that she caused.

If you truly feel that you can’t move on and release the pain unless and until you have responded to her letter, then I would keep it very short. I would limit it to something like: “In response to your letter, I forgive you. But I wish to move on with my life. Although I wish you luck, I ask that you do not contact me or my family again for obvious reasons.”

Then, leave it at that. If the point of the forgiveness is for you to release the pain so that you can move forward, make sure you do just that. Don’t bring the other woman into your life in any way. And make good on your vow to use this as the starting point to getting on with your life. With any luck, she will do the same.

Conversely, when I forgave my husband, I told him. We had long conversations about it. The difference is that I still wanted him in my life. So, that forgiveness was worthy of deep discussion. You can read about our recovery and what helped with our reconciliation at http://surviving-the-affair.com

Since you do not want the other woman in your life, either offering the forgiveness on your own or offering it in a very limited way is probably the best course of action, at least in my opinion. This gives you the release but protects you against further injury.

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