What would you not forgive? That was one of the topics we talked about yesterday with another younger married couple. Mick and I had already discussed it earlier. We both agreed the one area we would struggle to find hard to forgive – is our spouse having an affair.
Yes, I know marriages have been put back together after an affair. But we decided we’d both find it extremely difficult to forgive what is a betrayal of the most intimate relationship. It’s far more than just the physical act of sex. It’s the whole betrayal of everything you’ve believed about your marriage and your partner. It’s the lies and the cheating and the emotional involvement.
Of course, one of the guys also admitted that as well as the betrayal aspect, there’s an s certain amount of pride involved. It doesn’t help your ego to know that your spouse has preferred another to you.
And what about afterwards, even if you do get past the affair and patch the marriage up, would you ever be able to feel secure again? Or would you be waiting for the crack to appear again? Would you start to get suspicious every time he or she was late or there were unexplained absences or credit card expenses or bank withdrawals?
For the partner who has been betrayed, once that trust is lost it’s every hard to rebuild it again. You could be forgiven for thinking that is the person did it once, how much easier it be then to do it a second time. That’s also a reality. People who have an affair, often don’t stop at one. Many are repeat offenders.
Of course I couldn’t imagine facing that problem. Maybe that’s naïve. Or maybe it’s because I know my man. I know his good qualities and his faults. I know what he is capable of and what he is not. The other woman in our discussion felt similarly.
It’s also about making sure we keep our marriage healthy and vital so the tendency to want to wander doesn’t even arise.
Join me tomorrow to find out what the other unforgivable on our list was.
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