Quote: What has transpired in your R that made it possible for W to forgive you? Did she actually tell you "I forgive you"? Do you think religion plays a part in any way for the two of you?
I really can’t answer that one. Like I said, it was quite a while after getting back together that I actually confessed to what we both already knew. At that time, I apologized and asked her to forgive me. This was something that the C said was important. I needed to acknowledge what I had done and I needed to ask for forgiveness. W flat refused to forgive me. She said that she just couldn’t: it was still too recent and too painful. Then like you, I felt it hanging over my head for a long time. Just like what you said about movies or songs or whatever. With any mention of cheating, even though W never reacted, I felt the guilt and the weight of my bag of rocks. I always wondered if W was personalizing it, and usually assumed that since I was feeling it, she was too.
It was actually several years later that W told me that she had forgiven me. I don’t remember the exact circumstances, but she had done or said something rather non-specific that I took as a reference to my A. I felt the old sword of Damocles feeling again, but this time I spoke up. I asked W how long she was going to hold the A against me. I asked how long I was going to have to live with it constantly hanging over my head. Her response was that she had already forgiven me. If I felt the weight of it, it was my own guilt. So I specifically asked forgiveness and was rebuffed. Some time later, I guess she did forgive me, but she never told me until I brought it up again. So since we never discussed it, I’m really not sure what changed in the R to allow her to forgive me. It’s pure speculation, but I’ve always assumed that it was time and a visible change in my attitude and behavior. She has told me that I’ve been a better H since the A than I was before. We never went into what was better though.
The religion question is a little more difficult. It’s speculation again, but as Christians, repentance and forgiveness are central to what we believe. I know that it has helped me to forgive both W and myself. Without asking her, I can only guess, but I would guess that the same is true for her.
Quote: Do you think that your wife was able to forgive you for your affair because she realizes she herself and her behavior helped lead you to the point of crossing the line?
I’ve already said that I’m going on gut here since we’ve really never discussed how the forgiveness came about, but my gut is telling me that the answer to this one is no. The C stressed that we were both equally responsible for the A. In fact, it was even presented as not being 50-50, but 100-100. IOW, we each had to accept that there were no excuses, no mitigating circumstances, no nothing: we each were individually responsible. The “but” here is that even though W did say that, I never truly believed that she bought into it. There were too many instances between her saying that she was equally responsible and the actual forgiveness, when she pointed out to me that she wasn’t the one who had the A.
The A is still pretty much a taboo subject: W says that it stirs up too many bad feelings. For the most part, my answers here are based upon observation of her behavior and demeanor, tangentally related comments, and good old gut feelings. What my gut tells me is that W still holds me solely responsible for the A. She has forgiven me, but it’s a tenuous forgiveness that’s still subject to revocation. I do believe that she’s forgiven me, but I suspect that the old, “Time heals all wounds” is as responsible as anything. To me, the thing about stirring up too many bad feelings translates into, “I’ve put this behind me, but if you insist on reminding me of it, all the old feelings of anger and resentment will come back in full force.” That may be reading something into it that really isn’t there, but that’s what my gut is telling me.
