Marriage Infidelity - Should you forgive someone who cheated on you?
Would you forgive someone who cheated on you? That question draws out several different observations.
3. Choosing to forgive on a mental level is something you can do. You choose to lay down your ways of getting revenge and choose to want the best for someone - consciously. You should absolutely forgive. By not forgiving, you choose to carry the resentment, anger, hate in your heart. This is a never ending spiral that only damages you and others. Forgive and move forward.
4. However, that still leaves another question. Can you forgive someone from your heart just by choosing to do so? No you cannot. Our will and conscious mind cannot overrule our heart (emotional brain.)
Forgiveness of the heart comes with time or with deep healing or as a gift of God. We cannot do that on our own. This may explain the value of good psychotherapy.
Often, there is another step. It is forgiving yourself for allowing this. That is another story.
- For example, can I, or should I trust someone who betrayed me? Trust is a different issue than forgiveness and cannot be rushed. It must be earned. Infidelity is the very worst type if betrayal there could be. Once it is committed, it cannot be undone. One cannot decide to trust again. It can take years to forge an honest trusting relationship. It can be broken in mere minutes and then it could take years to build it back again. There is a reason they say it’s better not to cheat - repairing a relationship takes a tremendous amount of time and effort.
3. Choosing to forgive on a mental level is something you can do. You choose to lay down your ways of getting revenge and choose to want the best for someone - consciously. You should absolutely forgive. By not forgiving, you choose to carry the resentment, anger, hate in your heart. This is a never ending spiral that only damages you and others. Forgive and move forward.
4. However, that still leaves another question. Can you forgive someone from your heart just by choosing to do so? No you cannot. Our will and conscious mind cannot overrule our heart (emotional brain.)
Forgiveness of the heart comes with time or with deep healing or as a gift of God. We cannot do that on our own. This may explain the value of good psychotherapy.
Often, there is another step. It is forgiving yourself for allowing this. That is another story.
How to make a marriage Work
Some rules of thumb on marriages that work:
- Show Appreciation means that you demonstrate your gratitude for the person in your life, for all they are on their own and to you, for all they do. That means saying 'Thank You,' a lot.
- Provide Attention means you are alert and responsive to your partner even if what they’re talking about is boring you to death. It’s not about you; it’s about them. For example, your partner wants to show you something, DO NOT ignore them, even if it seems trivial. It’s not about the thing they’re showing, but about them needing for YOU to pay attention. That means with words you acknowledge them when they speak.
- Focused Listening means you name the feeling they have demonstrated or spoken in words. Our feelings come from the true, authentic part of us. To acknowledge them dissolves loneliness; to ignore them builds walls of separation.
- Encourage rather than criticize.
- Communicate and never stonewall. The cruelest expression of anger is silence. Silence is the poison of hate to relationships.
- Listen to them and acknowledge their thinking. Do not focus on yourself and get defensive. Grant them a chance to express themselves - the gift of being their audience.
- Do not hold contempt for your partner.