I was under the impression that it was a feeling you would get as well. I don't "feel" like I've forgiven him yet. I don't know that I could just wake up one day and say "You know, I forgive you for everything you've put me through." and actually mean it. I think that forgiveness is something that has to be earned by the person who wronged us, instead of our personal decision.

Who doesn't want to alleviate pain by employing forgiveness?

One of the viewpoints is that forgiveness is a 'choice', and we do it for 'ourselves'. This is not original to Dr. Phil.

While it makes sense from a practical POV, emotions are complicated.

Let me use an analogy.........

If someone we love dies, we grieve....sometimes terribly. Using the same logic, we can say....

- Crying won't bring them back
- The are in a better place
- They are no longer in pain

Some may say of others grieving......It's time they moved on with their life, accept it as a part of life, etc.

Yet we grieve.

Certainly, some may adamantly refuse to forgive. This is likely not a healthy choice. It's emotional cancer.

I feel that MOST people do NOT fall in the above category.
Most just don't know how they can ever forgive.

It's extremely easy to make a choice to forgive, it's another to really feel it. Does making the choice influence how we feel? Probably to an extent....it's a beginning.

I guess I've never thought of forgiveness as a feeling. But like Dr. Phil, a choice to not punish someone for what they've done to you.

I also don't think of it as something they earn. If they have to earn it, it isn't forgiveness. It is paying back.

Like blindsided said, for me, it was a matter of my own emotional damage that required me to forgive, to help my own healing. The other option is to remain angry and trying to hurt and punish them for what they've done, and that is destructive to me, her, and any chance of rebuilding.

On Dday, my H Cole told me he had forgiven me. Actually at the time of confrontation. The forgiveness was free. He told me he still loved me and always would no matter what happened.

After I declared my intentions to stay in the marriage and end the A he gave me trust on loan. This was not free. I had to "make payments" to keep it and ultimately earn it. I had to figure out how to do that. I worked hard to make those payments and I made a lot of them. At almost 20 mos I am still making payments. I will never stop. At the time that he gave me trust on loan he also drew some hard lines for me. He made it perfectly clear what he needed from me at a minimum. These things got more clear and refined as we went through counseling and read books together and talked a ton and explored the contributing factors, core issues, and vulnerabilities that got me to that place.

He did not expect me to heal myself. I did not expect him to heal himself. We each healed our own selves, and each other simultaneously. We learned to meet each others needs.

Back to forgiveness. It took me 11 mos to get to the place that I felt I could even accept his forgiveness. I wanted to but I just could not absorb it until then. I was far too broken by the damage I had done.

I cannot imagine anyone saying they forgive an unfaithful spouse on Dday....they don't even know what they are truly forgiving at that point.....they are usually in shock. Not being unkind...just my thoughts.

Ok for me it begins with a choice and is completed with a feeling. I initially waited for a feeling but was also putting this "punishment" timeline on. Like the thought of saving face by not really allowing my heart to forgive because he needed to know it wasn't that simple.

However by doing that I lost sight of forgiveness. I got caught up in triggers, resentment, hatred etc... It got really bad for a few months. I came to the realization that I needed to find forgiveness for my own well being before I do it for him. I needed to not live with hate in my heart.

I realizes he did deserve it because he was very remorseful and trying so hard. He didn't deserve so much hatred. Even if he was undeserving, I had to forgive so I could function and heal as a person

Once I came to that understanding I went on a path internally. I try to face my Hirt, I seperated from him for a few months so that I wasn't focused on us. I found klove, a Christian radio station. I listened to it day and night. The songs spoke to me and helped me let ,y guard down. I started to look at my H with less hate. Then the unthinkable happened. Our 15 year old nephew unexpectedly. It was a very difficult time for both of us.

As we leaned on eachother through this I knew I had forgiven. I wasn't sure exactly when the forgiveness happened but I know when I realized I was ready to open my heart again.

Forgiveness doesn't take away the hurt and sadness I still experience over the A and the oc, and it doesn't give him a free pass. It simply means the toxic anger and resentment are in the past.

Not sure if I've helped but that is my path to forgiveness.

Pink,

Indeed a very touching post.

I found myself on the opposite spectrum unavailble to forgive.

This fed my hate, there could be no action by the EW that could have mended the heart.

Happy to see you found your answer.

Synonyms of forgive:
pardon - remit - excuse - condone - absolve

Um... yeah. No. Infidelity isn't something I can condone or excuse. Absolution usually comes via a process - praying, "Hail Mary's", paying a fine... whatever.

For us, "repayment" was the only solution. When I read about the Marriage Builders policy regarding forgiveness, I knew it was spot on for what I could stomach. My husband has repaid his relationship debt by becoming transparent, becoming open and honest, and by making changes in his behavior that I felt where necessary to "forgive" him.

As Jessie said: it has to be earned. I know that there are people who are gracious and loving and who can "forgive" without repayment, but when it comes to marriage, I wouldn't and couldn't just erase the debt incurred just because I loved my husband (and certainly not because I'm a good person - I'm apparently not THAT good!)

I guess technically, letting go of hurt, anger, and resentment is "forgiveness" and that's an essential key to healing and moving forward (with or without your cheating spouse), but I think "letting go and moving on" doesn't have to mean "forgive and forget."

I've been reading this book...How Can I Forgive You? Some of it hit's home and some of seems really off base for me. I honestly belive it is up to the one that was cheated on to give that as a gift to yourself. I know for myself...I'm really struggling with it. I moving on, and have little to no feelings for my stbx, but I still from time to time have anger and a tinge of hate for her and her new friend. He was also my friend.

I know holding on to those feelings that are bad are not healthy, but I also don't want to give her that forgiveness in some ways. I have accepted it and have forgiven it, but not directly to her. I know that she has said she is sorry...but still has done little to mend things with me or her kids. She continues to do what she wants and I feel her "sorry's" are self serving more then anything.

She lied and continues to lie and the more distance I get from her...the better off I feel and live. I still have to deal with her, because we have a son, but really, that's about as much as I want to invest in talking with her.

Maybe one day I will get to that point and say - You are forgiven for your infidelity, but right now I feel I need to hold on to it for safety.

To me I treat this as she is dead to me. How can you forgive a person who is gone. She is mostly. Gove from my life, my kids life usually. I barely have to communicate. I just accepted her for her good and bad and have tried to move on without her true sorry. I deserve more then words. She's not going to give me that, so why hold out for anything that I will never get. It's like holding on for her to be that person that she was prior to the cheating...it's not going to happen. She is someone that I used to know.

I think forgiveness is easier to come by when the CS is truly remorseful and exhibits that they hurt from putting us through the hurt. I forgave my wife and this forgiveness came from lots of discussion and therapy and my understanding better what led her to it. It was not right what she did and she fully acknowledges that.

Conversely, I will never forgive my mother for my childhood sexual abuse from a nanny that went on from when I was 7-14. I was in my 40's when I realized I was a child and the nanny was an adult. I specifically had told my mother twice during the abuse, and the abuse never ended, so as a child I accepted the abuse as "okay". I opened up a discussion with her about it and she would neither deny nor admit the abuse happening under her watch, nor deny or admit to my telling her during the abuse, easily letting me interpret that she did know, or else she would have been surprised and aghast at what happened. Had she owned up and had an open discussion with me about it I would be able to approach forgiving her. Mental cancer or not, I will never forgive her for hiding from what happened.

This is similar, to me, to infidelity. Had my wife blamed me and hemmed and hawed and not owned up and showed remorse I could have never forgiven her for her act that was a breach of our vows.

Just my two cents.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts and comments. Maybe I was feeling a little bummed when Dr. Phil said that forgiveness was a choice we have to make. That sounds like more work to me!! I feel like I have worked hard and put so much energy into R that some things would just come to me on their own. (forgiving)

And I guess I get scared that I will be one of those folks who cannot accept what their spouse did. That I simply won't be able to get past it. I'll just live and let live and see what the future brings. Knowing that I still have choices does make me feel a bit better. I can always make a change if I feel the need to.

I had to stop and think to myself - "forgiveness - what does that even mean?" I mean, I know what it is, but in terms of something like infidelity, how would you ever truly forgive? So this is the definition of forgiveness: "Forgiveness is the renunciation or cessation of resentment, indignation or anger as a result of a perceived offense, disagreement, or mistake, or ceasing to demand punishment or restitution." I guess it's just me, or maybe how badly I was hurt (my H had a 3-way with his own cuckhold brother and a sister-in-law that I trusted and thought was my friend), but...there is just no way on earth that I will ever forgive any of them. Emotional cancer? Sure it is. But when I think about what they did behind my back, all three of them, I will resent their actions til the day I die. They no longer see each other or have any contact with each other. It tore a family apart. Ended the brothers from seeing each other ever again. My H now says he hates his brother and wants nothing to do with him ever again - he is supposedly repulsed by both of them now and ashamed of himself. Whatever. I just know that I can't imagine a day when I will ever "forgive" what they did behind my back. It's sick and disgusting. Forgiveness to me does not seem possible, unless I were to just lie to myself. All the A did was show what those 3 are made of. True colors. Forgive them? Not a chance.

Forgiveness can't be earned. I don't understand what that even means, as to say it can be earned goes against the definition of the word. I think that is mixing up forgiveness with other concepts.

Let me put it this way. There is nothing my wife could ever do to pay me back for what I lost in the affair. Some of it can be rebuilt, but some of it is gone for good. Destroyed. Our marriage will never be what it was before the affair. I mourn the loss of that. But unless I want to hang this over her head for the rest of our marriage, and make sure we have a miserable life, I have to forgive.

Which means nothing more than I'm not going to punish her for her violation of my rights and person. That doesn't mean she avoids the consequences of her actions. It doesn't mean if she was unrepentant, that we would end up parting ways at some point. It doesn't mean consequences would not have followed if she had continued seeing the OM. It didn't mean that I wouldn't need to again forgive her as new information or feelings came to me. I've had to tell her that I forgive her more than once or twice over the last year and a half.

When you forgive, you forgive for past actions that you know about, not a blanket forgiveness for all past and future violations. So when I forgave her on Dday, I knew what I was forgiving. I had pretty much the whole story. Didn't mean some new info or emotions wouldn't have arisen after dday that I had to deal with. It did.

I forgave her on dday for two reasons. One, I firmly believe I don't have the right to withhold it. I'm a sinner. I am now without sin. I don't have the right to be casting stones at anyone. I simply don't have it in me to not forgive a wrong done to me. No matter how repentant the other person is. What lack of repentance in the other person means is they will not receive my forgiveness and it will not benefit them. But that is their issue, not mine.

I realized from the start, without ever reading a book, that if I was going to give rebuilding a fair chance, I could not sabatoge it by hating her, punishing her regularly, and holding this over her head. She could have been the perfect rebuilding CS, but if I refused to forgive her, rebuilding wouldn't be successful.

I knew I needed to commit 100% to the rebuilding as well as her. If either of us didn't, it wouldn't work. If this didn't end well, I didn't want it to be because I didn't do my part to be open to healing. If I'm not ready to give it all I've got, then I might as well save both of us the pain and end it all now.

Note, I'm not saying if a person isn't ready to forgive on dday, that rebuilding is doomed. But for rebuilding to be successful, the BS needs to reach that point somewhere along the line. As long as that doesn't happen, don't expect smooth sailing.

Also, forgiving doesn't mean forgetting. We aren't God. It does mean not rubbing their face in it years down the line. But we can't forget. The memories are ingrained upon our brain, and affect us emotionally at times. Forgiveness erases none of that. Nor does having moments of hating what happened mean you haven't forgiven. It means you are dealing with the unavoidable consequences of what happened. CSs need to be aware as well that when these hit, it isn't us throwing the affair back in their face, but dealing with the consequences of what we've gone through. Grieving the loss of what we lost.

No, for me, there was nothing my wife could have done to pay me back. Either I forgave her and we moved onto rebuilding, or we separated and eventually divorced if nothing changed. Even if we'd done the later, I would in time had to forgive her for my own mental and spiritual health.

But I'm sure my ability (I know most are not able to go there right away) to forgive her on dday is one among many reasons why we healed so fast, or at least, I healed so fast. I think most people take a while longer to reach that point, if they reach it at all, and so rebuilding takes longer.

I think I've posted this link before, but I've written an article on forgiveness in relation to affairs that some might find useful:
http://www.dailystrength.org/groups/healing-infidelity-through-faith/news/view/4055904

Have we progressed or regressed on this matter of the heart.

Up to the 80's cheating was a done deal for a marriage very few survive and forgiveness was not a fact.

Now we all want to feel good via forgiveness.

Which was better.

cigarman,

I don't think it has anything directly to do with feeling better. It has to do with healing. And divorcing doesn't negate the need to forgive if you want healing.

I think some people believe forgiving means you act like it didn't happen and there will be no consequences to their actions, thus, letting them off the hook. Nothing could be further from the truth.