What is the difference between just compensation and restitution, if any?
I read a lot of posts and I cannot recall reading any where the WS makes restitution in the form of a monetary settlement.
I have read a fair amount on the concept of forgivenss, and several authors seem to feel that making restitution is a requirement for forgiveness. One author mentioned that Judaism views restitution as absolutely critical.
I think there is some wisdom in this. As a BS, one often feels that the WS got over on you, walked away with a cache of pleasurable expieriences that you are expected to forgoe, yourself.
So, in additon to hurt and anger and insecurity, there is a fair amount of resentment toward the Ws.
And, for WSs, making restitution seems to help them heal, as well. It allows the WS to make some tangible compensation, not merely to now abide by the rules that should have been abided by all along. Seems to relieve some of the self hatred.
So, why not try to quantify the value of the pleasure the WS got, and pay that value to the BS and children?
I think one way would be for the WS to quantify the number of sexual encounters, multiply that number by the going rate for hookers in the area, and come up with a $$ fiigure. Toss in the value of the babysitting the BS was doing to help subsidize the affair, the cost of counseling for the BS and the couple, the cost of any expenses associated with the affair, like gifts, entertainment, etc . and arrive at a value.
Then, so as not to squander family resources, the Ws could take on additional employemnt to earn the money. This could all be done strictly on the WSs free time and might result in some loss of sleep and weight loss, much like that the BS has expierienced.
Once the money is earned, the kids and BS get to spend it on themselves. Maybe take a vacation, sans the WS or buy Harleys for everyone.
Also, the WS could keep the job on a part time basis to fund a private investigator fund, should the BS have suspiscions down the road that need to be put to rest. Also, periodic polygraphs and STD testing for life could be funded.

LOL - I LIKE this idea! Seems only fair that since BS get the total raw end of the deal, we should at least get some $$ compensation...

Too bad the legal systems would never enforce such a thing. I am totally ok with going back to the idea of stoning those who commit adultery or at least throwing them in jail or something for a while...

I really hope you're kidding here, though it's not a particularly funny joke.

The going rate for hookers? This seems pretty dang inappropriate to me.

And, as a FWW, I can assure you that I did not walk away from my A with a "cache of pleasurable experiences." Far from it. I suffered every bit as much as my BH. I suffered depression, thoughts of suicide, loss of sleep, and a massive loss of weight.

And, just so you know, I've been on both sides of this issue. I was the BS long before I was ever the WS. If anything, I think being the BS was actually easier in some ways. I suffered knowing how my H had betrayed me, but at least then I still had my sense of self-worth. Whatever he did, I knew wasn't my fault and that it didn't mean anything about me as a worthwhile human being. I didn't have that comfort when I was the WS. All I had was pain and confusion and loneliness. I literally thought I was dying at times.

Is that enough restitution for you?

Not, really, as you chose to go that WS route. It's sort of like an assailant that breaks his/her fist on one's face, complaining about the pain of the fracture.
Your own pain, if any, does nothing to compensate the BS. So, even in the unlikely event it comes close to the pain of a BS, it does nothing to help the BS heal.

Dr. Harley's thoughts;

Forgiveness is a subject that comes up quite a bit in marriage. Offenses are common, and the offender usually wants to be forgiven. But the offended is usually reluctant to forgive, particularly if the offender hasn't learned anything from the ordeal.

But if forgiveness is difficult, forgetting can be downright impossible for many spouses. How can people be expected to forget some of the most painful experiences of their lives?

I approach the subject of forgiveness from the perspective of someone (me) who believes in forgiveness, but also believes that marriage should be fair. Since, in many cases, forgiveness is unfair, what should be done? As you will see in my responses to the three letters I've chosen, I support just compensation for some marital offenses, so I don't always recommend forgiveness. It should be an encouragement to those of you who have been feeling guilty about being unable to forgive and forget. But, at the same time, it should also encourage offenders, because the compensation I propose will earn you a terrific marriage, and it won't hurt at all.




Dear Dr. Harley,
My husband had an affair a year ago, and since then I have not felt the same toward him because of his betrayal and my loss of trust. I want to move forward in this relationship, but I'm having a very difficult time forgiving him. I believe, as you do, that honesty is essential in marriage, but my husband does not. As a result, he continues to lie to me about his behavior, and I continue to discover "bombs" that further explain the absolute wretchedness of his affair.

I'd prefer for him to be honest and get it over with so I can begin the healing process, but after a year of emotional turmoil, my focus has changed somewhat. My inability to forgive is eating me up and I need to get better. I've read your columns and I don't find specific advice on how to forgive. Are there steps I can do on my own to resolve this terrible pain?

J.J.



Dear J.J.,
Forgiveness is something I believe in with all my heart. I forgive others and have been forgiven many times. God wants us all to be forgiving just as he has forgiven us.

And, as you have noticed, when you don't forgive someone, it can "eat you up." It's not healthy to keep resentment bottled up inside of you.

The vast majority of couples I counsel who have been through the horror of an affair, have better marriages after the affair than before. It's because the affair jolts them into recognizing the need for building an affair-proof marriage, and the safety precautions they use help them create compatibility and love. But has the offended spouse forgiven the offender in these marriages? Yes and no.

First let's try to understand what forgiveness is. One illustration is telling a person who owes you $10,000 that he won't have to pay you back. You "forgive" the debt. In other words, forgiveness is eliminating a obligation of some sort.

But we generally don't think of money when we think of the need of forgiveness. Instead, we are concerned about inconsiderate behavior that has caused us great pain and suffering -- the pain that an affair causes, for example. Forgiveness in these situations means thinking about the person as if the offense never took place. That is extremely difficult to do. The offended spouse usually thinks, what can he or she do to make it up to me. How can I be compensated for the pain I've suffered.

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 unwise 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.

So let's talk about just compensation. What could the offending spouse possibly do to compensate for an affair? After all, it's probably the most painful experiences anyone could ever put his or her spouse through.

The first act of compensation to you from your husband should be to end his relationship with the other woman once and for all. He should never see or talk to her again, even if it means leaving his job or moving your family to another state. The reason should be obvious, but in case there's some confusion, he should be reminded that every contact he will ever have with this woman will be like a knife in your heart. He has already caused you to suffer unbearable pain, and any further contact with his ex-lover would keep you suffering. In your case, the affair is probably over, but has your husband taken precautions to never see or talk to his ex-lover again?

And then he should put extraordinary precautions in place to guarantee that another affair will not take it's place. Has he considered the circumstances that led to his affair? Intoxication, business trips that separate you overnight, close friendships with those of the opposite sex, recreational relationships that do not include you, and so forth, should be subject to scrutiny. What was it that made him vulnerable? Whatever it was, he should take extraordinary precautions to avoid it in the future. It's part of just compensation for the suffering he's caused you to bear.

While there's no excuse for an affair, and if your husband takes the extraordinary precautions I've suggested he will never have another affair again, there are "reasons" that people have affairs. And those reasons must also be addressed when considering just compensation.

I've made the point in His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair-proof Marriage that spouses usually have affairs because their emotional needs are not being met in the marriage. The way to affair-proof a marriage is for couples to meet each other's most important emotional needs. So whenever one spouse has an affair, the other should try to learn to meet the unmet needs that led to the affair.

That's a tough sell to someone who has just learned about their spouse's unfaithfulness. I'd sooner kill him than meet his needs, is the most common reaction. Besides, we haven't talked about compensation at all. Instead, we've gone and blamed the offended spouse for the affair!

But in most cases, neither spouse is meeting the other's needs prior to the affair. The reason that there were not two affairs is often a lack of opportunity for the offended spouse. And sometimes when there is that opportunity, there actually are two affairs.

The point I'm making is that in most cases both the offending and offended spouses' emotional needs were not being met by each other prior to the affair. One compensation for the affair, therefore, is for the offending spouse to learn to meet the emotional needs of the offended spouse. But if I can also motivate the offended spouse to do something that should have been done all along, meet the offending spouse's emotional needs, the arrangement seems more fair to the offending spouse. There is not only compensation for the affair, but the one of the conditions that may have created the affair (unmet emotional needs) are removed. The marriage is restored and affair-proofed.

But forgiveness is still necessary even after compensation is made. That's because there's really nothing that can completely compensate for the betrayal of infidelity. Even after compensation is made, there is still the need to forgive. But it's sure makes a lot more sense after the unfaithful spouse makes an effort to restore the relationship.

Using this meaning of forgiveness, the person asking to be forgiven must first demonstrate an awareness of how inconsiderate the act was and how much pain his or her spouse was made to suffer. Second, he or she must express some plan to assure the forgiver that steps have been taken to avoid the painful act in the future. Extraordinary precautions to never see or talk to the former lover, and to avoid circumstances that might ignight a new affair should be part of the plan for recovery. And another part of the plan is for both spouses to meet each other's unmet emotional needs that may have given the unfaithful spouse a "reason" to be unfaithful. As it turns out, it's the successful completion of that plan that's the compensation that leads to "forgiveness." Learning to meet each other's most important emotional needs is the plan that usually does the trick.

But, unlike the repayment of $10,000, where payee suffers a $10,000 loss in order to provide compensation, in marriage, the compensation does not lead to a loss. Your husband should guarantee that he will never have another affair, and learn how to meet your important emotional needs, as you should learn to meet his. I'd say that's just compensation, wouldn't you? And yet, the price your husband pays will make him a much better and a much happier person.

There's another important point that I should make regarding forgiveness. When you discovered your husband's affair, you learned two things about him that you had not known before. You learned that he would make decisions that did not take your feelings into account (having the affair), and you learned that he would lie about his behavior to cover it up. In other words, you learned that he was not following the Policy of Joint Agreement or the Policy of Radical Honesty. That discovery was undoubtedly very disillusioning to you. Who wants to be married to a man who is inconsiderate and dishonest?

Now you are trying to create a new understanding with your husband, where he will agree to follow the Policy of Joint Agreement and the Policy of Radical Honesty. Good for you! Apparently, he has not yet agreed to these important issues, and that has a great deal to do with your reluctance to forgive him. I'm sure you will not find forgiveness in your heart until he agrees to be honest with you, and to take your feelings into account in the future.

But forgiveness will be much easier after you are convinced that your husband considers your feelings whenever he makes a decision (follows the Policy of Joint Agreement), is completely honest with you about everything (follows the Policy of Radical Honesty), and is meeting your important emotional needs. For you to be convinced, he must not only agree to these changes, but he must also demonstrate his commitment by living them for a while. Forgiveness may still require a bit of generosity on your part, but if he makes these changes, I think you'll be able to handle it. When that happens, the burden of resentment you are carrying will be lifted, and the love you have for each other will be restored.

Zelmo: All I can say is, don't pass judgement on another person's pain. If you haven't walked both paths, you cannot possibly understand the difficulty of the wayward journey. If I had to live either my H's A or my own A over again, I would choose to go through what I went through when he confessed his A over having to relive the nightmare of my own A any day.

Yes, the wayward does make choices. Unfortunately, they almost always do so without any real understanding of what the consequences of those choices will be. And, once the A begins, the fog is so thick that clear thinking is almost impossible. It feels much like swimming uphill through pea soup.

Do we blame the alcoholic for taking that first drink, or do we try to help them get sober and stay that way? Sure, they chose to take the drink, but once caught up in the addiction, it becomes a disease. So do A's.

Good stuff, tst. Thanks.
Now , with the caveat that I am a BH who has never seen an ounce of remorse or willingness to pay just compenstion from my XWW, I would point out the following, which is probably pretty obvious to you and to which I am sure there is a response:
Much of what Dr Harely is recommneding as just compensation, is a compilation of actions, like transparency, honesty, fidelity, etc. that were "givens" in a marriage. These are things that the WS allegedly already committed to by virute of taking his/her vows. In many cases ,they will be behaviors that the Bs was already engaging in all along.
So, how does a new commitment constitute restitution. It's noblise oblige, isn't it.
I realize that my point of view is colored by the perception that my WW walked away from this unscathed and that ,at least to this point, she is not showing that she has been terribly adversely affected by this. And, my perception may be inaccurate, in that my kids know about this, and her family has rejected her lifestyle.
But, really, doesn't someone that causes you harm, owe you something tangible over and above that to which he or she has already committed. Sounds, petty, i know. Gotta work on the Ghandi aspiration thing.

writer, the wayward "pain" - and I include the pain of alcoholics - is SELF WROUGHT. We signed on for it. Our victims DID NOT. If we suffer, we suffer as a consequence of our own actions. Our victims did not not ask to be harmed.

Restitution is not the same thing as suffering the natural consequences of our actions. The pain that I suffered as a result of my own behavior was DESERVED. It had nothing to do with the restitution I owed my victims. My "pain" was irrelevant to the amends I owed my victims.

An affair is not a "disease," writer. It is bad behavior. A bad CHOICE.

This is a post I wrote about this time last year;

I wanted to give you some insight into Just Compensation that may help you at this point.

I believe "just compensation" was created by Dr. Harley to help us waywards understand that our offense is not a "forgive and forget" type of offense. Actions are required!

quoting Dr. Harley:

"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."


When an insurance company pays you for your home that was lost from a devastating fire, this would be compensation. It is all they can offer you. They cannot restore your memories, photos, collectibles, treasures, or the security you always felt prior to the fire. You would also feel no obligation to drop on your knees and say thank you to your insurance company for the compensation either. It may even feel cold that they are paying you for something you can never get back again. But, it is what they must do regardless.

I can never offer Just (as in justice) Compensation for my affair, because it can never really be more than just (merely) compensation. But, I must offer it just the same if I am going to be part of the marriage recovery of today and tomorrow.

Zelmo, and I would agree with you here to an extent. All of that should have been in place in the first place. However, its implementation does restore the marriage to its whole state, [usually] so it serves as restitution in that it makes the victim WHOLE. Money would never suffice. To me, money would cheapen my pain.

I just don't think there is a way to fully compensate a BS for the crime that was committed against him. But there are ways to make the marriage whole. The list that Harley made come closest to achieving that end, in my experience.

And then again, some cannot ever get over the resentment. Others should not get over the resentment and divorce is the measure of success in those cases.

I love this quote.


In my situation, I have allowed my H to pull me back in with his pain. I start to sympathize and feel badly for him. When in reality, I have come to the conclusion that I just don't have it in me to be the wife anymore. There's too much in the marriage to be fixed and too little desire from him to want to pitch in and help me fix it.

Well, I guess in my case, my H and I are even. He spent 10 years of our M in a mostly EA with his ex-girlfriend. I spent 6 months of our M in an EA/PA with a man I met in my graduate program.

I wouldn't have wanted money from my WH to compensate me for the years of pain I had to endure because of his actions. He has never asked for money to compensate him for the pain I caused him with my actions. I honestly don't see how money could ever make up for such a huge and painful betrayal. Yes, it does seem cheap and petty.

Instead, we are focusing on our M now, on loving each other, on meeting each other's EN's, on becoming the kind of people we should have been all along. Knowing that my H and I can now be completely open and honest with each other is a far better compensation than any amount of money.

Well Z,

I personally wouldn't want to be paid with a "hookers" going rate, but I took a pretty good educated guess once on how much H's A cost us and the figure was around $45,000. Quite a bit for a 5 month affair......not sure if this would be enough for restitution though......

Writer, nice pity party you have going there......wonder if your H would agree with that assesment???

Not2fun

hey now, at least a hooker doesn't put out for free!

not2fun: Pity party? Exactly what did I say that would qualify as a pity party? Would that be the part about my H and I focusing on our M and loving each other and being open and honest with each other? Hmmm... I thought that's what we were all here for.... on MARRIAGE BUILDERS. You know, a forum dedicated to, oh, I don't know, BUILDING MARRIAGES.

Oh, and my H is a registered member here. He can read any of my posts that he chooses.

It doesn't seem to me that I'm the one on the pity party. Sounds more like the people looking to be paid a "hooker's" rate for their pain are spending a lot more time feeling sorry for themselves than I am.

writer,

I could be wrong, but I feel like you may be taking Zelmo's post PERSONALLY...Still identifying yourself in some ways as a WS...I understand doing that, I did that when I first arrived here myself...Ask yourself what is true about yourself and your husband currently, and rest securely in that, okay? When I read posts like Zelmo's NOW, I realize that they are about the author and what they are feeling, and I try and respect that - and have empathy, yanno?

Unfortunately, many BSs don't have the benefit of recovering with a true FWS and never get to see actual "just compensation" up close and personal...for them, I would imagine it's an unfathomable thing - understandable, right?

Anyway, hope something I said makes a bit of sense for you...Have a good evening...

Best,

Mrs. W

MrsWondering,

In many ways, you are probably right. I don't mean to take things personally, but sometimes it happens. I'm still sort of new to this forum, so I am trying.

I do realize that some, in fact probably many, marriages do not recover. I still don't think monetary compensation could ever make up for the pain of an A though.

I struggle some with the entire concept of just compensation. How do you compensate someone for causing them horrendous emotional pain? I've read what Dr. Harley has to say on the matter, but it is a difficult thing to come to terms with. In the end, the only "compensation" that I can offer my BH is my love and honesty and devotion. That seems to be good enough for him. Lucky me, since I'm pretty poor.

The best compensation if for the WS to make ammends by repairing the damage they caused and facilitating the BS falling in love with them again.

It's ridiculous to suggest money or anything else can compensate.

NEVER seeing or speaking with the lover again AND repairing the damage is a good recipe for a recovery in most cases.

Sounds like you are on the right track Writer!

Unfortunately, I can't think of any suitable restitution or compensation for the best years of my life that I gave to someone who turned around and cheated on me so horribly. I can never get those years back.

The ones here against compensation or restitution are the recovered ones.

What about us who lost everything they had and the wayward was lavishly rewarded for their adultery in the divorce?