Why would anyone forgive infidelity?

[Little Engine]

TnGuy--You are very strong in your opinion and that is great. I wasn't offended by your post at all. I always enjoy a sprited discussion.

That you were cheated on by a GF and you're sharing it here shows that you know the pain of betrayal. You don't care what happened to GF, but you do still care about the pain it caused you and that was 13 years ago! You can empathize with your cousin because you still feel the pain of finding out that you were cheated on. It sucks! I know it too. My LTR with a HS sweetheart ended with her revealing she had met someone else and she no longer had feelings for me. I still think about that and it happened twenty years ago.

My W has had three A's and for awhile I had hoped we could work it out. I realized in the last two weeks that ain't gonna happen. But when you get comments from your crying six year old daughter like "Daddy, I think Mommy wants (OM's name) to replace you." It makes it mighty easy to want to overlook the indiscretion of your W for the good of your kids. My S and D want nothing more than for W and I to reconcile. Unless there has been abuse, I don't think any kid wants his parents to get D'd.

When family gets involved in a marital dispute, they only get the side of the story that is painted with their loved one's brush, not that of the in-law that came into the family through M. It is no surprise that everyone wants the guilty spouse branded with a scarlet A and banished from the family. After all that person has caused their loved one pain, and they don't want to see their family member suffer. If family members say things like, "Oh she is such a slut, you deserve better." That doesn't help, because the betrayed spouse still has feelings for this person. Now that person is left feeling worse! "I still love her, but my family thinks she is a slut!"

IMO, it is easy to see it as black and white from the sidelines, but unless you are completly heartless, when you are the one affected, your emotions will fly in the face of logic.

Before I had kids, I never paid much attention to any news story that had to do with a kid getting killed. After I had kids, every story I hear now about some child getting murdered or killed in some other fashion weighs on me. Because my first thought is what the parents are going through, and the second is about what if it were my kid?

I think you'll be hard pressed to find anyone here who thinks cheating is OK. But you will find plenty of people here who understand why cheating happens and how forgiveness is essential. Whether it is to heal the relationship or to allow the betrayed spouse to move forward.

The simple answer is: There is no simple answer.