Forgiveness is also something very different for those whose waywards have earned the "former" moniker.

Forgiveness requires awareness of sin and atonement...

Without them, it's a significantly tougher road

where is that quote from? it pretty much sums up the means to which i am trying to obtain "forgiveness"

I don't know that that's what forgiveness means to me. I felt sorrow for WSTBXH quite a while back. It was when I really started to research this site and it became clear to me that the path he has chosen can only lead to his misery. And he's half way there already. His A has a 3% chance of lasting and given that OW is a serial cheater, probably less. He's racked up a mountain of debt that they are going to have difficulty managing as a couple, and will be impossible for him to manage on his own. And he's estranged himself from family and friends who won't be around to pick up the pieces when they do fall. Honestly, it does make me sad that this man, who I promised to love and cherish, will go down like this.

But I have not forgiven his betrayal. I have not forgotten the lies - to the extent that I just assume everything he says now is still a lie (which it usually is). I have not forgiven him for stealing the money from the bank. I have not forgiven him for breaking into the house while I was at the hospital with my mom and stealing my possessions. I have not forgiven him for is raging anger at the mere suggestion that I was not put on this earth to serve him and provide a happy little nest egg for him and OW. I have not forgiven him for bringing OW to my baseball games to flaunt her in front of me. I have not forgiven him for telling me to move in with OWH so he could have my house and OWH could pay OW more money in child support because I owe him that. I can not forgive him for being upset with DS because he wants me and not OW to light the unity candle at his wedding. I could go on and on but it just feeds the anger. It's this anger that I want to get past.

But I still feel that sorrow for him and I always will. I never had a problem with that.

I have yet to see much PRACTICAL advice on how to work toward forgiveness, as I believe was the original message MEDC put out there.

I would like to say that I don't know if I'm truly interested in forgiveness. As I have thought more on the topic, I have come to the realization that my definition of forgiveness includes the offending party ASKING for it, or making strides to make amends, even if they don't ask for it.

I am much more interested in getting through the anger and leaving it in the past, when the offenses took place, and with the people that offended. If that, by someone else's definition means forgiveness, then so be it. I can only say that it will benefit ME to let go, but to forgive, I'm not so sure that will affect me at all, one way or the other. I would think that would affect the offending party, actually.

Reading "The Language of Letting Go" by Melody Beattie has helped me a great deal, with practical advice on learning to let go of the pain and anger that someone else causes you. It also teaches you to take responsibility for your happiness by drawing proper boundaries, and enforcing them with EVERYBODY (friends, family, neighbors, spouses, etc.) Meh, that's my $.02 for the day.

SL - I attempted to go down that discussion path of "what levels of forgiveness are there" and "how does one define 'forgiveness,'" but that was met with resistance as not being "relative to the discussion." So all I'll say now is that I think you are headed in the right direction, there ARE, in my opinion, differing types of "letting go" that are all lumped under the general heading of "forgiveness," just like differing types of love are lumped under one word "love."

Thanks for the response FH.

I truly believe I will live a better life by letting go, and acceptance. No easy task, but worth it.

This effort of mine in no way absolves my WH, but it sets me free from being the entity who levels the natural consequences upon him. Honestly, if WH is not of the frame of mind (or heart) that he has done anything wrong, and has no regrets, I wonder if he WILL actually suffer any consequences. I hope, for his sake, that he learns something, and doesn't repeat his mistakes. Still, not in my control.

letting go as we speak, little by little every day.

L2F,

I think that anger CAN be healthy, and that it does have its place in the world. The problem with anger is that many people tend to allow it to expand - it takes over easily, you know. A good angry vent can spread like a weed, into something else where it doesn't belong.

For me, anger over physical and sexual abuse spread into daily life. The justifiable anger, the rage I should have had and DID have, spread into and over things like traffic jams, or losing a shoe, or just not being able to open the peanut butter jar. Not a healthy way to live.

It's hard to put boundaries on anger, because when it is "big" anger, with a deep hurt behind it, and we let ourselves freely vent and feel and rage and just go with gay abandon, well...we can end up fueling it instead of letting it out and having it "be done". I guess what I'm trying to say is maybe we teach ourselves how to be angry when we vent too much, and it's too easy to learn how to be angry. We get really good at being angry, and then we use that skill too much, and inappropriately.

So while I do agree that anger is healthy for its purpose, I also think that we should indulge it with a dose of caution. We shouldn't wallow in it, and we should watch ourselves when we do vent. Make sure that we don't learn how to "vent too well".

As far as the idea of getting over the anger part before forgiving, I think that's erroneous thinking.

JMHO

Here's why.

It seems that living in an "anger phase" for a certain amount of time is natural. But I don't see these phases as exclusive to other feelings. When we are in the shock phase, we have some anger in that phase, too. When we are in the phase of forgiving, we still carry over some shock, and some anger. I don't see it all so compartmentalized.

I can see myself as angry and forgiving at the same time.

Right now, I know that I have forgiven the rapists, and my father, for what they did to me.

Yet, there are still many times that I am very angry at them. (I have learned to isolate that anger to them and their acts! Progress in my life, that was!)

The two are not mutually exclusive. Yet, I can tell you that the anger was significantly different with the production of the forgiveness. So different, in fact, that the anger became something that *I* was in control of, and something that no longer controlled me.

The forgiveness was conscious, and was a process.

I have something complicated to say about the concept of forgiveness and anger.

I hope I can do this without confusing everyone, but I will try.

I think that it was difficult for me to let go of the anger because it was what I knew. These events, the rapes and the way I had been brought up in physical violence were just so much of "who I was", and I had felt the anger for so long, that it was basically the essence of my "self" for a time.

I considered that the idea of forgiving was a threat to me in the sense that I would have to release the events, and in the process, lose "who I was". After all, I had invested so much emotional energy and time into grieving, being angry, thinking about it, emoting about it, remembering it, being triggered to it, and all the rest. To forgive it all meant...

What?


Would it mean that the "investment" of my anger, my grief, my words, my thoughts, my emotions

meant nothing?

All that work, for nothing?


I considered this, and the impact of the forgiving, the letting go of the anger, and all the rest.


And then I considered the other person.

Forgiving, after all, really meant that it had nothing to do with what *I* would get out of it.

Forgiving was a SACRIFICE by me, with no expectations from the other person, and nothing in return to me.

I had to get over the concept that I would ever

get even
get that apology
get restitution

get....ANYTHING


There is NOTHING in forgiveness for the giver. Nothing.

Nothing.

It is not a "gift" if it is not given freely. You can attach any religious connotation you want to this - for me, I did not have a religious thing in it.

For me, I understood that the perpetrators and I were attached, because I carried them with me:

in my heart
in my mind
in my memories
in the triggers
in my anger
in my rage
in my dreams at night
in my fears
in every single day

And that the only way to release them was to understand the depths of their problems. The depths of their own dark soul, and their own neediness.

Their pitiful, needy, sorrowful, pathetic, broken dark souls.

And then, I could forgive, and release them from all of my days.

And that UNDERSTANDING of them, what drove them, and their brokenness, gave me the ability to forgive them.

Start with seeing the pathetic act, and what might lead someone to be just so very broken that they would just go against everything they knew was right and good, and keep doing it, and eventually do something so stupid and hurtful that they could not even look at themselves anymore. Go down from there, and you will find broken.

You will stop seeing anger within yourself, and begin seeing

pity.

Then you will begin to understand why you can forgive.

You can still get mad every now and then. But I guarantee, it just won't be the same!

SB

Pariah,

I just wanted to say regarding your comment about

"getting even with" your WW.

That would mean you would have to be at HER level.

You would not want to be there. She isn't happy. When she turns off the light at night and lies awake in the dark, she deals with the things she knows she has done that violated her own knowledge of right and wrong. She lives with that - you need to believe it.

Read Ernest Hemingway's "A Clean Well-Lighted Place".

SB

My take on all of this is somewhat convoluted but I’ve found I express myself best by using analogies.

If you’ll allow me, I will present it this way. It would seem we all walk through life and it’s heartaches with two ropes dangling on each side of us. One rope is a sturdy one inch rope that looks perfectly reliable and it’s label is anger, the other is a rather skinny looking rope, much like a clothesline, labeled forgiveness.

So we stumble along in life and one day, inadvertenly walk right off the edge of a cliff. In our freefall, our two ropes are with us. It is human nature to grasp onto the much sturdier looking rope called anger.

Before too long, we realize that this rope is doing nothing to slow us down or brake our freefall. So, at some point we take a chance and grasp the skinny looking rope called forgiveness and hope for the best.

Then lo and behold, our perilous downfall stops. Then, slowly, we are being winched back up to the top of the cliff we fell off. We have no idea who is doing the heavy lifting (actually I do), but we accept it gratefully.

Sometimes, actually often, life is nothing more than a freefall. It’s at times like this that our faith is tested, and our response is well noted.

Grab the rope that isn’t so obvious!

It may just bring you back up to the top.

All Blessings,
Jerry

Schoolbus and Jerry,

Thank you for two very powerful and thoughtful posts. Your input is very much appreciated.

MEDC

I don't know what WH thinks when the world is quiet and he is left with his own thoughts. I suppose he knows what he did was wrong, but I'm not so convinced that he's not entirely happy to divorce and get the heck away from me. As believer said to me, it's easier than the alternative.

Whether or not he knows he did wrong isn't as much of a struggle for me to believe. Knowing he's wrong doesn't make my life any easier, or anybody else's for that matter. FIXING what he's done, now that would matter to me.

((((((((SL))))))))

Is it silly to worry about NOT feeling the need to forgive? I feel like somehow my emotions are betraying me and I haven't taken full advantage of my right to be angry and upset...expecting atonement and remorse.

I have talked with FWH about regret and remorse, and he has expressed remorse, shame, guilt for his actions. But I just can't seem to find that "demand" within me for him to ask for forgiveness. And I'm not sure if I can give it to him.

I asked him at the very beginning if he could forgive himself (very early on) and he wasn't sure if he needed to be forgiven. Maybe that is the crux of it. The semantics of the word "forgive" means so many things. Maybe my "forgive" is making peace with the past. Maybe his "forgive" is admitting regret (something that he has said he doesn't feel because it brought him to a new place in our relationship).

No, it's not silly in the least.

Do what works best for you and your recovery and don't fret about the semantics.

There are many eloquent replies here. The way I see it is relatively simple. If the BS is able to progress towards happiness (after the offense) then forgiveness often becomes possible. Conversely,those who linger in unhappiness often are unprepared to offer forgiveness (because they blame the WS for their misery). Ironically, the WS was probably blaming the BS for their unhappiness prior to and during the affair. When you can get past blame the nature of transgression and forgiveness in relationships becomes clearer.

Blaming the WS for your unhappiness after an affair is appropriate. There comes a time to let that go though. But, make no mistake about it, a WS IS responsible for the BS being unhappy due to the damage caused. (Just as a rapist is responsible for the "raped" being unhappy).

I agree that getting past blame is an integral part of forgiveness.

In my case, it became more and more difficult to forgive with each additional offense. Multiple affairs and separations. Not so easy to slide back into your old self, and be the happy homemaker. It takes a lot of coaxing and work by the WS for the BS to feel comfortable enough to open themselves up again, much less forgive. Just my humble opinion.

I think you can forgive, to some degree, a WS who never returns home. I also believe that the WS who comes home and works hard to earn the "F" is forgiven to a higher degree, because they are ASKING for something deeper thru their actions. maybe this doesn't make sense to some.

I agree 100%.

I wonder if some of the lack of anger emotions for me is that he did this in shifts...two years that I kind of knew about, then two more where I was oblivious, then ended it himself about six months before telling me about the whole sordid thing. I have been "healing" off and on throughout the ordeal.

I also agree with SL, the F makes a big difference when it comes to forgiveness. I don't know that I would be able to rise above the anger and hurt if DH was continuing to betray me. Then again, he did do it for two additional years without my knowledge and somehow, the way that he did it, made it possible for me to see it as the past and not a prediction of the future.

I think for me, recognizing culpability may be the most important factor in forgiveness. Accepting his responsibility for what happened and admitting his actions were hurtful and wrong makes forgiveness (even if it's not asked for) seem like the right thing to do in response.

hicktownmommy, you said this very well, and exactly like I thought it in my head. I would be more apt to forgive a truly repentent former wayward spouse, one who was hauling the load, and helping to build a better marriage.