I had an interesting conversation this week. An older couple shared their marriage story with me, which caused me to contemplate the gift of forgiveness and honesty all week long. They have been married almost 50 years, but around year 40, the husband decided he wanted a divorce. Why? His wife had had an affair early on in their marriage. She gave up the other man, they went on with their life, raised 5 children, and seemed to have a good life. In reality, they had only swept the affair under the rug and never dealt with it.


Although the affair was never discussed, the husband on occasion would pull it out from the dusty shadows and roll it over in his mind. Each time it grew bigger and bigger until it became so insurmountable that he felt his only option was divorce. Truly unforgiveness is one of satan's craftiest tools. I just finished a phenomenal book on this subject, "The Bait of Satan - Living Free from the Deadly Trap of Offense."


This heart to heart conversation and finishing this book has made me contemplate my own journey of honesty and forgiveness. I remember asking our marriage counselor early on when we should talk about forgiveness. She wisely told me that I was not ready yet. So back to writing in my "raw anger journal" I went. Although God had graciously dropped a kernel of forgiveness in my heart the day I found out about my husband's affair, I needed to process all the cr.p and anger and yes hatred that comes with betrayal before doing all the practical things one can do to make forgiveness grow and thrive.


One might surmise from this couple's story that it would have been better if the husband had not known about the affair. But I believe that God never designed marriage to accommodate secrets. Secrets destroy intimacy. If you choose to keep them, you choose to have a marriage that will never be a deeply satisfying experience like God intended. I know when I was keeping my secrets (yes, I've been on both sides of the fence) there was always this invisible wall between us even though I was the only one who knew about it. I shied away from certain subjects. I could not be vulnerable and "naked." I had secrets.


On the other hand, to keep from revealing his secrets, my husband chose to divorce me, or tried to until God got hold of him! Because I had always taken the stance that I would never tolerate infidelity in our marriage, he felt it was his only choice. But you know what, you never know what you will do until you are in any given situation. By not telling, my husband was taking away my choice. And saving face for himself. Neither one an honorable thing to do.


I guess I've rambled on way too long, but this heart felt story that was entrusted to me this week, has made me think deeply for days. (By the way, there was a happy ending to their story. They sought help, worked really hard to repair their marriage, and will be celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary very soon.) If you are vacillating and sitting on the fence when it comes to forgiveness or honesty - hop off! You might be surprised what you will find on the other side!


EE

Echo,

I have actually been reading a book on forgiveness. I think I have completely forgiven him, but the challenge is, MY HUSBAND doesn't exist today. The cruel WAYWARD lives.

So an interesting thought is, so I keep forgiving the wayward his trespasses or hold tight and hold out for the TRUE man and forgive him because G-d gave me that strength too.

I like your story and the happy ending.

SG

Thank you for the story, this is a topic I have been working over in my mind since our recovery began.

I guess I still don't really know what forgiveness is. I understand the concept of it, but I don't know how to feel it.

I want to reach a place where thoughts of my W's affair don't intrude. There's no reason for them to be as frequent as they are, they serve little purpose now, other than to create conflict within me.

I think if I can forgive, these thoughts will dissipate, perhaps.

Anyhow, thanks for the story, I found encouragement in it.

The book that I am reading is The Bridge to Forgiveness. Stories and prayers for finding G-d and restoring wholeness, by Karyn Kedar.

It is a Jewish book, but I am thoroughly enjoying it and finding much comfort from it.

SG

Always like to hear what others are reading on their journey. I will pick up, "The Bridge to Forgiveness."

Another good book I read several years ago is "Total Forgiveness" by R. T. Kendall.

Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself, but is often an act of your will. Feelings follow later. For me, reading good books on whatever subject I am dealing with at the time helps tremendously. It helps me "get out of myself" and see the bigger picture. An added bonus is learning concrete things to do to accomplish what I am striving for.

Reading this forum is often like reading great authors!

Echo

Hi EE !

Interesting post. Close to the bone for me I admit. Squid and I HAVE processed her affair, but mortal processing can't fix everything IMO.

Is 61:3-4


We who mourn our old pure marriage may carry with us a closed fist full of ashes. Tightly clenched : afraid to let them go, for fear we may burn again or that the significance of the dreadful pain they caused in their burning be rendered meaningless.

I have forgiven Squid, but the consequences of her choices haunt me every day.

I am tired of being hurt by unchangeable facts. Only God can fix this.

I have begun praying that God will help me unclench my fist, and blow away the ashes and will replace them with beauty; remove my mourning of my old marriage and life and replace it with oil of joy and dress me in a garment of praise having removed my "BH" tattoo. Let Him rebuild my ruined city: my devastated land.

Amen !

Bob_Pure your post is exactly where I find myself. Thank you for posting a prayer which I will use also.

Dr. Harley has an excellent article on forgiveness that outlines the path to true healing and forgiveness when just compensation is made:


Can't We Just Forgive and Forget?
a key excerpt:

To make matters worse, whenever a wayward spouse sees me for counseling there is rarely regret and rarely a willingness to compensate the offended spouse. They usually ask to be forgiven, but that doesn't mean he or she is deeply remorseful. It usually means that he or she doesn't want us to bring up the subject anymore, or require a change in behavior. In other words, the wayward spouse wants the pain suffered by the offended spouse to be ignored or forgotten. Like a $10,000 debt, they want it forgiven, and then they want to borrow another $10,000.

I'm in favor of forgiveness in many situations, but this isn't one of them. In the case of infidelity, compensation not only helps the offended spouse overcome the resentment he or she harbors, but the right kind of compensation helps restore the relationship and prevents the painful act from being repeated.

In most cases, an offended spouse would be stupid to forgive the wayward spouse without just compensation. It's like forgiving a friend of the $10,000 he owes you, when it's actually in the friend's best interest to pay you in full because it would teach him how to be more responsible with money.

As it turns out, in every affair there is a way to adequately compensate the offended spouse that is good for the offender and good for the marriage. At first, the offended spouse may not want to be compensated. He or she may try to get as far away from the offender as possible to avoid further pain. But if the spouse asks for forgiveness along with a willingness to compensate, the offended spouse is usually willing to entertain the proposal.

article continued at: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5042_qa.html

echo_echo - Here's something you might like to read that touches on this very issue.

God bless.



In the village of Faken in innermost Friesland there lived a long thin baker named Fouke, a righteous man, with a long thin chin and a long thin nose. Fouke was so upright that he seemed to spray righteousness from his thin lips over everyone who came near him; so the people of Faken preferred to stay away.

Fouke’s wife, Hilda, was short and round, her arms were round, her bosom was round, her rump was round. Hilda did not keep people at bay with righteousness; her soft roundness seemed to invite them instead to come close to her in order to share the warm cheer of her open heart.

Hilda respected her righteous husband, and loved him too, as much as he allowed her; but her heart ached for something more from him than his worthy righteousness.

And there, in the bed or her need, lay the seed of sadness.

One morning, having worked since dawn to knead his dough for the ovens, Fouke came home and found a stranger in his bedroom lying on Hilda’s round bosom.

Hilda’s adultery soon became the talk of the tavern and the scandal of the Faken congregation. Everyone assumed that Fouke would cast Hilda out of his house, so righteous was he. But he surprised everyone by keeping Hilda as his wife, saying he forgave her as the Good Book said he should.

In his heart of hearts, however, Fouke could not forgive Hilda for bringing shame to his name. Whenever he thought about her, his feelings toward her were angry and hard; He despised her as if she were a common whor*. When it came right down to it, he hated her for betraying him after he had been so good and so faithful a husband to her.

He only pretended to forgive Hilda so that he could punish her with his righteous mercy.

But Fouke’s fakery did not sit well in heaven.

So each time that Fouke would feel his secret hate toward Hilda, an angel came to him and dropped a small pebble, hardly the size of a shirt button, into Fouke’s heart. Each time a pebble dropped, Fouke would feel a stab of pain like the pain he felt the moment he came on Hilda feeding her hungry heart from a stranger’s larder.

Thus he hated her the more; his hate brought him pain and his pain made him hate.

The pebbles multiplied. And Fouke’s heart grew very heavy with the weight of them, so heavy that the top half of his body bent forward so far that he had to strain his neck upward in order to see straight ahead. Weary with hurt, Fouke began to wish he were dead.

The angel who dropped the pebbles into his heart came to Fouke one night and told him how he could be healed of his hurt.

There was one remedy, he said, only one, for the hurt of a wounded heart. Fouke would need the miracle of the magic eyes. He would need eyes that could look back to the beginning of his hurt and see his Hilda, not as a wife who betrayed him, but as a weak woman who needed him. Only a new way of looking at things through the magic eyes could heal the hurt flowing from the wounds of yesterday.

Fouke protested. “Nothing can change the past,” he said. “Hilda is guilty, a fact that not even an angel can change.”

“Yes, poor hurting man, you are right,” the angel said. “You cannot change the past, you can only heal the hurt that comes to you from the past. And you can heal it only with the vision of magic eyes.”

“And how can I get your magic eyes?” pouted Fouke.

“Only ask, desiring as you ask, and they will be given you. And each time you see Hilda through your new eyes, one pebble will be lifted from your aching heart.”

Fouke could not ask at once, for he had grown to love his hatred. But the pain of his heart finally drove him to want and to ask for the magic eyes that the angel had promised. So he asked. And the angel gave.

Soon Hilda began to change in front of Fouke’s eyes, wonderfully and mysteriously. He began to see her as a needy woman who loved him instead of a wicked woman who betrayed him.

The angel kept his promise; he lifted the pebbles from Fouke’s heart, one by one, though it took a long time to take them all away. Fouke gradually felt his heart grow lighter; he began to walk straight again, and somehow his nose and his chin seemed less thin and sharp than before. He invited Hilda to come into his heart again, and she came, and together they began again a journey into their second season of humble joy.

(The Magic Eyes: A Little Fable, Lewis B. Smedes, Forgive & Forget, Healing The Hurts We Don’t Deserve, p.xvii-xix)

Thank you for sharing that fable, ForeverHers. Great! I printed it off to keep. At different times in my life, I have been Faken and I have been Hilda. Life is miserable with a heart full of pebbles.


Thank you, Bob, for the reminder of that wonderful passage in Isaiah and your eloquent post. I agree: "I am tired of being hurt by unchangeable facts. Only God can fix this."


Your prayer for God to "dress you in a garment of praise" is a concept that God has brought to me time and time again during dark times in my life. It is a tool God gives us to bring Him into our hearts, our circumstances so He can begin His healing, His miracles, His "fix."


I can't count the times I have "put on the garment of praise" without any feelings at all, but as an act of my will. I have had tears of pain steaming down my face, anger in my heart, apathy in my spirit, yet I make myself sing songs of praise, quote scripture of praise and thankfulness and that has made all the difference in the world for preparing my heart for God to work His miracles in me. I would probably rate this spiritual exercise of praise as the very best concept I have latched onto in the past 5 years of my life. It works.


I wanted to mention one more thing on this topic of forgiveness. There is an amazing movie I watched some time ago called, "To End All Wars." It came out on 2001. Kiefer Sutherland. Unbelievably powerful message.


Blessings
Echo

Your comment - "There's no reason for them to be as frequent as they are." I can totally identifiy. I still remember the day, a good 6 months after D-Day that I stopped dead in my tracks one day and thought to myself, "I haven't thought about the OW yet today."


Here's a good tool, Tyk, you might like to try. It's from Stephen Arterburn's book, "Feeding Your Appetites"


"Thought Stopping: It begins as soon as you become consciously aware of what you are thinking about. As soon as you identify a thought as something negative or detrimental for you to be thinking about, you simply say, 'stop' to yourself in your mind or out loud. Be firm and strong. You are taking control of your thinking; this is not time to be a wimp."


"The key to this process is what happens next. If you simply say 'stop' and then go about whatever you were doing, your mind will go blank again, and the thought about your appetite (or OW/OM) will return. After you have taken control and commanded an unhealthy thought to stop, you must then choose what you are going to think about next."


"If you don't replace the unhealthy thought with something healthier, you may as well not have even tried to stop the original thought in the first place. You can replace the negative thought with anything positive: a memory verse, a song, pleasant memory, plans for your next vacation. . . anything that you enjoy."


"Eventually you will have replaced a negative thought with a positive one so many times that the next time your brain goes blank and starts searching for the last most prominent thought, it will come up with the positive thoughts you have been using. When that happens, you will have retrained your mind to think differently."


Blessings,
EE