I think it's easier to understand if you think of forgiveness as a state of relationship rather than a feeling. We will have all kinds of feelings, but it is what we do that matters: Be angry, but sin not. Think that's in Proverbs somewhere.

Good morning. Thank you for all of your responses. I do agree that for God to forgive any of us we have to ask for it, and if someone asks us to forgive them, biblically we are required to do that. When I speak of forgiving someone before they ask, I am not saying that the same happens with God. For His forgiveness you must first ask. BUT, in the case of me, for me to go to God and ask for forgiveness, I must first clean up my own life. That includes forgiving others, even if they have not asked me for it. If they repent, or seek God that is up to them, but I am free from any responsibility once I forgive. For example:
Mark 11:25 But when you are praying, first for give anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins too.
Colossians 3:12-13 Since God chose you to be the holy people whom he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. 13- You must make allowance for each other's faults and forgive the person who offends you. Remeber, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.<p>Those are a couple that show biblical basis to my viewpoint. My intentions are not to challenge anyone's views. These are mine, and this is where I am in my walk, and I am still learning and have a long way to go. For me, forgiving the OW was a huge release from much heartache. I did that long before she had a chance to apologize, which she has done now. This may not be what you are led to do. It was for me, and has helped my healing. This board is a wonderful opportunity for us to build each other up and learn from each others' experiences. I hope that I don't alienate anyone with my views, they are mine, and I don't intend to push them on anyone else. <p>I would like any input on transferrance of feelings that any of you may have. It seems to be one of my downfalls as of late. Any help in that area is greatly appreciated.

Hi All. It has been a while since I posted anything, but this thread has really hit home with me. I found more insights and truth here than anything I have read before on this bulletin board. What has been shared here has helped immensely with my understandings of my own feelings and situation, and I thank all of you who have posted.<p>I truly discovered my W’s A on 04/30/2001 (had suspicions before that), finally got her to break it off completely several weeks later. She never admitting to anything that I didn’t find out on my own first, and most of the truths I had to drag out with a pick and shovel. I forgave her several weeks later; reluctantly prayed for and forgave him, but I feel haunted. She has been repentant in action, but never told me the truth about what happened. So now I am in a state of wanting to trust, trying to trust, but cannot truly trust. And I find myself being feeling chapped all over again, loosing sleep thinking about it, and constantly wondering if she is truly honest, or is now just better at covering up?<p>I guess then my question for this forum is this: you can verbally forgive someone, and perhaps at the time feel so in your heart, but later have feelings of anger and mistrust that continue to surface again and again. Is that truly forgiveness, or is that just giving lip service to the entire concept? Does that “forgiveness” release them from any responsibility of their past actions (i.e. they no longer need to make any more effort at restoring your faith in them)? I am concerned that I don’t truly understand what forgiveness is, in that I harbor mistrust and resentment even after “giving” my forgiveness. I pray about this daily, but cannot seem to win the wrestling match with this demon.<p>The most reoccurring thought is that I don’t really know this person after all; for she cannot or is not willing to come to me and tell me the truth. And it goes deeper than just the A, for if she cannot be honest about this, what about anything else that is difficult to admit? How can you objectively face questions such as these without wallowing in the "poor, pitiful, me syndrome" as sfmc so aptly put it?<p>Thank You All,<p>Kale-IM

Hi Kale Im,
I have read about some of your situation. In some ways I feel like you do, if I have forgiven, then why is the hurt still there. In my situation, the betrayel happened while we were engaged, and that was over ten years ago. So he has had a long time to prove himself trustworthy, even though the full disclosure did not occur until Nov 01. I knew part, but not all, and it is probably best it took this long to come out. At first my thoughts were, what else has he lied about and how big of a fool am I? But then when I looked back at our years realistically, he has been honest, sometimes painfully honest. He missed many opportiunities to be "one of the boys" by choosing his marriage over the good ole boy network, he was military. So that says a lot to me about his priorities.
Your are still very fresh in this. Even though I suspected there was more for years , with this particular situation, I finally had to decide to either stay and work through it and accept the worst probably did happen and stay, or leave. I stayed and now I am glad.
I attended a seminar that said, You will never "get over it" BUT you can "get through it" and it is a painful process, but will not hurt more than the original hurt did. That is where I am now, working my way through it. I am determined that it is not possible without letting God be in control. I study and pray and seek guidance. I have come across very preachy in this thread, and I don't intend to. My faith is a huge part of me, and it has always been there. I think that it is the reason our marriage is thriving now. Miracles are possible, but only if you allow God to work His will in your life.
ps, my husband is a geek also!! too funny, and I am nearly illiterate on the PC.<p>Sorry about rambling, I hope your pastor is of help, and have you talked to any doc's about antidepressants to help in the meantime?
check in later,
ps#2 on the preachy note, I heard a broadcast about reaping and sowing. If you plant corn you will get corn, wheat, wheat and so on. I was sowing sadness and bitterness but I expected joy and security. Once I realized what I was doing, I found any thing feasible to help me sow good things. For me it was changing the radio station, and praying through all the bad thoughts instead of letting them drive me down, among other changes as neccessary. It worked, and I started reaping happy things. I told my H that I was tired of sowing sadness and misery and needed to do something about it. He is very supportive. Well I still have bad days, but now it isn't all day as before, and I am consciously seeking to sow happiness and it is helping tremendously. Give it a try, it might help, what have you got to loose?

There has been a lot written on this site over the years about forgiveness. Lots of people seem to believe that forgiveness is some magical thing, that it takes away the hurt and the bad memories.<p>Personally, I have found forgiveness to be a choice. I actively chose to try to forgive my husband, and it took some time for me to be able to do it. I prayed ALOT for the strength to forgive him, and I have to KEEP forgiving him. Forgiveness is NOT a one time thing, you have to keep doing it everytime another thing happens to remind you of the hurt and pain that betrayal brings.<p>Forgiveness will NOT take away the pain of the affair, but it is a very good first step in the healing process, both personally and maritally.

Forgiveness is difficult when a WS withholds information, and there are two simple explanations for this:<p>1. Part of the repentance and restoration process is CONFESSION. If a person does not disclose all that they have done to sin against you, then they have not confessed that sin. I think this is part of the fruit of repentance. When someone who sins against you is able to articulate to you EXACTLY what they did to harm you, it demonstrates to you that they have INSIGHT and UNDERSTANDING. It shows you that they understand the depth of the pain they have caused and your right to know what they did behind your back.<p>When this does not take place, they are in denial at best and being manipulative at worst. Anything less than full disclosure is minimizing and rationalizing, which means they are not fully owning what they did ("I'm sorry, BUT") and not taking full responsibility for their actions.<p>In training my children, they are never allowed to get away with just an "I'm sorry". They are required to articulate exactly what they are sorry for, i.e. "I'm sorry for throwing a block at you and hurting your cheek. Will you please forgive me?"<p>2. You cannot forgive what you do not know about. Your gut instinct tells you something else is there, but you can't put your finger on it, so it is like a thorn in your flesh constantly pricking you.<p>I believe God will grant us the discernment we need to assess whether repentance is truly taking place.

I think it's important to remember that an unrepentent person does not want or need our forgiveness so an act of unwarranted forgiveness is not for THEM, but rather for the giver. It might make us "feel" good and "feel" holy but it is all for naught. Nor is it biblical as I showed above. <p>They gain nothing from unwarranted, unwanted forgiveness. Nothing. And that is because unwarranted forgiveness is usually never about the unrepentent it, but about the one who is hanging onto bitterness and who is under the illusion that a futile "forgiveness" will relieve thier pain and put them in good standing with God. [even though the Bible clearly states that you forgive *IF* your brother repents] <p>The giver of this kind of "forgiveness" can achieve the same effect for themselves [since it is all about *THEM* anyway] by simply releasing thier bitterness and praying for the person's REPENTENCE and possible reconciliation. Praying for thier repentence would be much more compassionate than granting an unwarranted and unwanted "forgiveness," because it is truly for THEM instead of for ourselves.

Melody Lane,
Good morning. I understand your point and would like to explain a little about what happened with me so you can see why I am where I am.
The betrayel in my marriage happened duing our engagement. We were all teenagers, and that speeks volumes about our maturity and life experience. The OW, was the former GF. They had broken up over a month before I met my H. We dated and eventually became engaged. Shortly after, due to severe changes in the OW's life she sought out my H. It all began as "talking" and then quickly became other. I found them together and the event was very ugly. My behavior was horrible, but understandable due to my age and what I encountered. Both said nothing happened. For years I lived with those images. There is another post going on right now where the WS says she didn't lie about "THAT WEEKEND" but did have contact one other time preceding that. Well that is basically what happened with us. Nothing did happen that night. BUT things did happen before that. That all came out last Nov. 01. Anyway, with the information I originally had, I hated the OW, and I wanted her to experience all of my pain and more. In my eyes it was all her fault, she was some evil wayward vixin who decided she wanted her old-BF back and would do whatever it took to make that happen. I felt that way for a long time because it was the only way I could live with what happened. Eventually, I began to realize that it was not all her fault, he had to respond in order for things to procede. Then I began to separate what was her's from what was his. Once I did that, and the blame was not all her's I was able to start to get through my pain. For me it was distributing ownership to the responsible parties. She did pursue him, she sought him out. He was available to talk to her, he did not stop it or just say no at the start. He could have said that due to our (mine and his) relationship that he did not feel comfortable spending time with his XGF, even though it did start out innocent. That was hard for me. For him to have been an active participant was difficult for me to accept. My feelings for the OW began to change, through a lot of prayer. I realized that she was just a scared, hurting kid, who used bad judgement on who was available to help her through her pain. She had many relationship issues with her family and current BF and a host of other problems also. Finally I began to see that she did not pursue him to hurt me, it did not have anything to do with me. She was not out to harm me intentially. After that I started to let go of my resentment toward her. It had filled up a well in me and was poison to me. I felt I needed to forgive her, I have never seen her since that day, and didn't know if whe was sorry or would ever be, BUT for me to heal I had to let go of all of my anger and resentment toward her. And in my case I did it through forgiving her and not holding her responsible for my current pain. I began to heal. That also helped me place the neccessary responsibility on my H for his part in the affair. That was much harder than blaming all on her. THis happened over many years, I did not wake up one morning and decide that I would forgive, forget and be happy. I studied the Bible, grew spiritually, and matured. Then I had to start working on my feelings of resentment toward my husband. I knew I didn't have the whole story for years, and it was just like you said a thorn always sticking me. So I had to separate things, and I tried to forgive and get past this. During all of this time, we did discuss it. He never owned up to all I know now, but was always sorry and did everything possible to demonstrate trustworthyness etc. After the full disclosure in Nov 01, real healing has finally started. I am not completely there yet. I have pain about the number of years of lying about the whole situation. But, as I stated earlier, we were young and immature. He has been afraid to come clean, and protected his rear end too. I told him for years I would put up with just about anything except infidelity, and it would not matter if it occurred ten years ago or yesterday, as soon as I found out I was gone!! Then when my sister went through her divorce, her H commited A, and my H saw the lengths we went through to prove A in court, it strengthened his resolve to keep his secret. Was he right in not being radically honest? No!! But if I had known right after it happened, I would have left him, if I had found out while we were separated, would have probably ended the marriage. This is the only time in our marriage that I have been strong and mature enough to see the whole situation for what it was. I am not pleased about it and I wish none of it had ever happened, but I have learned things that I never would have if it had been different. I have lived places and experienced things that would have been impossible if I'd left years ago. I would not have my son, home, or this life if I had left. Now that we have the whole truth, and it is painful for me, our marriage feels better. The thorn isn't there anymore. The truth really does set you free. So my forgiveness of my husband has many levels, like an onion skin. I have the initial betrayal, and the lies to forgive. Forgiving the OW was neccessary for me to grow, and that is where I am now. I have a long way to go in my recovery, but for the first time feel it is based on the full truth and feel that full recovery is possible.

sfmc,<p>I do understand the great need to release the bitterness and resentment that one feels for the
WS or the OW and it sounds like you have done a good job of that by taking a realistic look at the roles of each party. <p>But I will just reiterate that forgiveness is something that is for the wrongdoer, rather than the wronged - it is not about your resentments. The act of releasing bitterness and resentment is not the same as "forgiving." Do you see what I mean? One can release bitterness and resentment without the act of forgiveness. They are not the same thing. The purpose of forgiveness is to facilitate the act of reconciliation by bringing about repentence on the part of the wrongdoer.

Melody Lane,
Hi, yes I see your point. I think my opinion of forgiveness is a little different but not entirely from yours. I do feel that I forgave the OW, and that was letting go and not blaming her for how I feel now. It was taking away the power those harmful feelings had on me. Maybe we are into semantics in this one a little. For me to forgive my H and stay and have a healthy marriage, I do need repentance on his part. BUT, if I had left the marriage, I still feel that I would have needed to forgive on some level, if for no other reason than to free myself from poison and the responsiblility of holding grudges. I do feel that he is responsible for his actions, and if he desires a healthy marriage it will require a lot of work and commitment from him. These issues run deep, and have permeated us for years. Finally having the whole truth has been a freeing experience for me. On many levels, for one thing I know that my intuition was right, it was not my fault the he did this, he is responsible for his own behavior. Had the behavior continued in our marriage in addition to this, then I don't know how I would feel. I thank God that it did not. I can see many lessons from this that have strenghthened us as individuals, and as a result helped our marriage. There is still a long way to go. I am in counseling, and have some wonderful opportunities at our church. Working through the "LIE" feelings is one thing I am doing now. FOr example, for this to have happened I must have been, and I felt that , I was: Less than nothing, trash that is easily discarded, second choice, unworthy, full of fault, etc. Well, I am none of those things, but it is taking a process to sort them out and really feel that knowledge in my heart. I think many BS feel these and similar feelings. They aren't true. That is why I call them "LIE " feelings. Have you experienced similar? I do understand that in marriage, needs must be met and it takes two, that is not what I am talking about here. I know that I have a specific role and responsibility to fulfill. If I want to have a successful marriage, I should not expect my husband to grovel at my feet and beg for mercy over this for the rest of his life. But, I do expect his support for healing all of the pain in me and to help rebuild the holes from this in us. This isn't the only rocky spot we have ever experienced, just the only one involving infidelity. Eventually my counselor will meet with us and will start marital counseling. So far the meetings with her have been very helpful. What I am so thankful for is that at this point in my marriage we are both able to say, I love you and this relationship, our goal is to have a successful marriage and we are each willing to work through whatever problem or issue exists to have that. That would not have been true a few years ago, we were not ready then. God is always on time!!