All marriages experience situations where the need for forgiveness arises, whether it is simply over looking a crude habit to forgiving a stronger transgression, there will come a time in your marriage when you both will have the need to forgive each other in order to keep your marriage strong.
We are human. We enter into a relationship because we love the other person, and the vows say for better or for worse. That means we know going into the marriage that we are going to make mistakes. This is so important to remember when times are tough and you feel as if your partner has wronged you.
But just what is forgiveness, really, and how do we move through forgiving to forgetting?
Every religion in the world teaches forgiveness. This short word is often confused with “forget.” While we know that forgiveness is a big part of being in a relationship, we often aren’t willing to let go entirely of the situation once it has passed, we don’t forget, which makes true forgiveness impossible. I’m sure you’ve heard -maybe on TV-“I’ll forgive you but I can’t forget.” That is, in fact, not forgiveness at all.
In the bible, psalm 32:1 reads “Our God, you bless everyone whose sins you forgive and wipe away.” This means that when we ask God to forgive our transgressions and he does, it is as it never happened.
That can be very hard for us humans to do, but it is an important idea to take with us into a relationship, or else we could develop resentments, which will plague the marriage later on.
How often are you fighting with your spouse and one of you will bring up something that happened in the past? It happens all too often in marriage, we hold on to things that have happened weeks, sometimes years ago, and when we bring it up during an argument it is a barb that keeps the hurt going. This kind of unforgiving festers and the resentments attached to them keep wearing down the relationship until there is nothing left.
So how to we forgive and let go? We have to practice it. There is no magic solution, we cannot forgive and forget and wipe the situation from our memory, but we can try to let it go. Often that entails looking at our part in the situation, and both parties have to admit and discuss their part. It is much easier to forgive and forget when we know that somewhere we had something to do with what happened.
It’s about cleaning up our side of the street. If we apologize and are sincere, there is nothing more we can do about what happened, except not let it happen again. If we are the one whose forgiveness is being asked, we can learn to look at the cause of the problem, without blaming, and let it go.
Forgiveness and letting go is crucial to a happy marriage, and hopefully you won’t have to deal with it very often.