Forgiveness

[saffie]

On another thread Lotus wrote

I have talked to a lot of people in the throes of unhappy marriages, and I can't tell who will be able to reconcile and who won't. But I do know that in order to reconcile, you have to be able to forgive another person. Only you know what your limits are. But, that is my little tidbit of wisdom after 3 years.

Having been on here pretty much the same amount of time as Lotus I have also seen similar things, both on this board, other boards and IRL.

HOW one goes about trying to stop the infidelity when it occurs , it seems to me, depends on the circumstances. Why did it get to the point where the person who is unfaithful is unfaithful.

In my M it was down to both my H and I - we both did things we shouldn't. That didn't make me turn to another person but it did make me turn away from my H; my H however decided to look for comfort elsewhere. I know for others there will have been different reasons and for some it will feel like they did nothing to make their S be unfaithful. Whatever the problems, I believe there is no reason for a S to be unfaithful.....however once it happens I don't believe it is unforgivable.

Only the LBS can decide how they want to handle it. Before I ever found this site I went through stages of great anger and was in the depths of depression and grief when I arrived here - even though the decision had been made to stay together and for my H to end his 18 month A. Forgiveness was a massive issue for me. Forgiving my H, forgiving OW, ....forgiving myself.

My H and I talked things out and we both owned our own part of the breakdown in the M....and we could also see other things that we hadn't done 'wrong' but that had contributed to the breakdown - like neglecting each other as we were so busy raising a family of four children. Forgetting who the other person was and that we actually liked each other, etc....

I still had trouble though getting my head round the fact that my H had 'cheated', and I would cycle and be ok and then I would berate him with his infidelity. He, man that he is, stood up to all that berating and he was completely transparent about everything.

Gradually the forgiveness for him came.....and I also realised that I had been unfaithful in my own way. I had used my friends to talk to about things that bothered me rather than my H. I had moaned about my H to GF's - and the more one does that the more one becomes to dislike the person one moans about. He stopped being my best friend and confident. I had rejected him and became miserable in my self imposed loneliness; so he sort a smiley face and comfort elsewhere. He was wrong, but so was I. The forgiveness on both sides came.

As for OW - well in my sitch she was a gold digger and I tried hard to forgive but it meant she took up too much space in my thoughts; so I decided to let myself not forgive her but just forget about her. That's what I have done.

As for forgiving myself......well that's a work in project, which is how I think it should be. I don't think I should forget what happened. Everyday I work at my M. It is the best gift I can give myself, my H, and my children.

I have seen a lot of direction on the boards about whether to expose or not....and who to if one does expose......and that is a personal decision and has different outcomes for different people. What I would say, is that for me, knowing WHY it happened was important, so that I could try and rectify that and work on making sure it never happened again.

I would be lying if I didn't say at times I thought I would never achieve forgiveness, but with the help of some of the fine folks on here, plus some other good cyber friends, and friends and family IRL, (who ALL were supportive), I feel I have come a long way.

It is true that forgiveness is a gift - without the ability to forgive there is no point in being here IMO - but it can take a while to realise that.

I feel deep sorrow for anyone who ends up needing this site, but you have also come to a good place, where you can hopefully offload, find friends and support, grow and heal.