Discovering that you your spouse cheated on you triggers strong reactions. You may find yourself experiencing anger, threats, fear, confusion and other strong reactions. After the initial reactions between you and your spouse, the emotions will begin calming down. The calming occurs unless you or your spouse do an ‘instant replay’ and keep the fireworks going.
When the emotions do calm down, you will be facing many questions and many choices. You will need to find a way of dealing with what happened. You will have to find a way to deal with the cheater. You can choose to either end the relationship or to continue your relationship with each other.
In the event that you choose to continue the relationship, eventually, you will have to deal with forgiveness. One of the questions that is likely going through your mind is “Should I forgive them?”Although people often talk about forgiveness, few understand what it is and how to do it.
Choosing not to forgive and the consequences
You can choose to either forgive or not forgive. Either choice is a valid option. Just because the cheater asks for your forgiveness, does not mean that you have to give it to them. Many cheaters want to ‘move on’ rather than to work through the forgiveness process. Real forgiveness brings with it accountability. Few cheaters understand this. They want a ‘get out of jail free card’ that does not have any accountability with it.
When you choose to not forgive, you are making a choice to continue holding onto the pain. You are also choosing to hold onto the memories of what happened. When you have the memories of what happened and the pain, it sets up a perpetual hurt machine that continues replaying the affair over and over in your mind. Replaying such pain is like having your car stuck in the mud, the wheels may keep turning faster and faster, but you are not getting anywhere. There is no forward momentum. You may need time to pull yourself together, but the longer you stay in the situation, the more stuck you become in the relationship.
Holding onto the pain can lead to you believing that you are a martyr. The danger of being the martyr is that it can lead to you assume a position of self-righteousness, where you are the good party and the one who hurt you is the ‘bad’ party. Although you may believe this, those around you see what happened and how you are choosing to hold onto the pain. As long as you hold onto the pain, you believe that you can continue blaming the cheater for what happened. As long as they are painted as the bad one, you do not have to make changes.
On the positive side, holding onto the pain can help you identify what your issues with the affair are. Pain is actually a protection of life and when we feel it, it is trying to tell us something. You will have to discern what the pain in telling you. There are many insights you can gain from holding onto the pain and listening to what it is telling you. Some people forgive too early, since they do not know what they are actually forgiving. They just know that they want out of the pain.
You may need to hold onto the pain in order to obtain a clear idea of what you are forgiving. Whether it is the pain of betrayal, the pain of being lied to, the torment of your spouse being with someone else, the letdown of your marriage vows and plans turning into a sham. Knowing where the hurt is coming from will help you know what you need to forgive, whether it is betrayal, lies, disappointment, etc.
Choosing not to forgive also erects a restrictive barrier in the relationship. That barrier becomes a wall. It keeps the two of you from being close to one another. It limits the closeness. It constantly keeps the two of you from being connected with each other.
In the initial days after finding out about the affair, you may need to keep them from getting close. After the issues have come out into the open, the barriers can become a prison that forever keeps them or anyone else from getting emotionally close to you. The wall protects your heart, but it also keeps people out. Tearing down the walls built by unforgiveness is often a long process.
Holding onto the pain and hurt brings its own burden. Many people, including you, may not be able to carry that kind of pain for very long. Holding onto the pain often brings consequences in terms of having a strained relationship, worsening health problems, fragmented spirituality and losing your peace of mind. There are many psychosomatic disorders that worsen when you hold onto such pains.
Some of those disorders include high blood pressure, ulcers, diabetic conditions, skin irritations, cancers, and a host of other diseases. The affair did not cause these conditions, but choosing not to forgive can make them worse. Having poor health is not much comfort compared to having improved relations with your spouse. There is a price tag associated with you choosing not to forgive.
Holding onto the unforgiveness can also turn into a ‘grudge’ or resentment. The grudge will give you perceived power in the relationship, although the price tag for that power is costly. You may think it gives you control over the cheater, but the reality is that it does not. The whole idea that by holding onto pain, you have control over those who hurt you is akin to magic superstition of a mental voodoo doll that you think you can inflict pain on according to your whims.
You may assume that it hurts them when you do not forgive them. In the initial days, it does, but over time, the amount of that influence lessens. It eventually gets to the point that your pain does not impact them at all.
If you do choose to forgive them, there is no rule that says you have to do it right away. It may be helpful to let them stew in the pain of their poor choices for a period of time. Let’s say that you choose not to forgive, what does it do for you?
Forgiving the act versus forgiving the person
Once you decide to forgive, there other choices you will need to consider. When you decide to forgive, what or who is it that you forgive? You may have never considered the question of whether you forgive the cheater or the cheating. The answer you choose can determine whether you continue suffering or if you let your spouse back into your life.
The act or behavior of infidelity should not be forgiven. It is not the forgiveness of the act that brings closeness back to the relationship. What brings closeness to the relationship is when you forgive the person.
The only thing that can be forgiven is the person. You can only forgive the adulterer/adultress. What they did was wrong. You can forgive them, but not forgive their actions. Forgiveness is choosing not to resort to paybacks for the affair. It is letting go of the resentments that may have formed. You choose to let them back into your life and your heart.
Who they are and what they did are two separate things. There is a big difference between their person (who they are) and their performance (what they did). Although today’s society tries to blend the two, they need to be kept separate.The confusing of these two concepts is one of the reasons that people do not understand forgiveness.
Who you are is MORE than what you do. Society often equates person and performance (person = performance). You will need to challenge that assumption if you hope to forgive. As long as you equate who they are with what they do, you will find forgiveness a struggle. The two will need to be separated.
You will need to let them know that they are acceptable, but that cheating is not. You love them, but hate what they did. They are not allowed to cheat, that cheating is not tolerated, nor will be in the future. For example, if I acted like a cow, it does not make me a cow. I can moo like one and bellow like one, but I am not a cow. Likewise, the cheater acted in a way that was not acceptable. It did not change who they were, they made a poor choice. The cheater as a person is still lovable, acceptable and can be forgiven, their actions are not so. You allow them back in your life, but you do not erase the slate. They need to know that their choices hurt you and brought consequences. It is not up to you to punish them, although you will hold them accountable for their actions. They will have to talk to you more, communicate where they are going, and open up about more of their needs.
When you forgive the person, you let go of the barriers that kept you two apart. You allow them back into your heart and your life. You allow the two of you to begin relating to one another. The cheater may have trouble with this idea, but that is fine. You may have trouble with it at first as well. Learning to forgive takes time. Some days you may be better at it than others.
Forgiveness is also a process. Since we are human, it is easy for us to take up offenses and resent the cheater. You will need to let go of the desire to punish the cheater every time this happens. Some days you will be able to and some days, it may be a struggle. The cheater may have difficulty separating their person from their performance as well. They may be confused as to how you can forgive them, but not the what they did. If they have the idea that forgiveness is a ‘get out of jail free’ card, it will be a struggle for them.
Many people have trouble separating the two concepts.
Here is what happens when you try to forgive the cheating rather than the cheater.n Choosing to forgive ‘the act’ of infidelity, brings problems. Choosing to forgive the act often only encourages it to happen again. It is as if you erased the act, cleaning the slate and behaved like the affair never happened. To the cheater, the slate has been cleaned, and they may fill it up again. Choosing to forgive the act, only serves to erase the latest episode of what they did. It also sets up some mental confusion for you. If you want to stay mentally consistent in viewing infidelity as an unacceptable thing, you will need to be consistent in separating out the cheater from the cheating. Trying to forgive the act, without forgiving the cheater creates inconsistency. Trying to forgive the act also leaves the cheater still feeling unaccepted. Remember, you are wanting to get back into relationship with your spouse, not to change your stance on cheating.
Consequences of forgiving the act
Forgiving the cheater allows the relationship to be restored. When you forgive the person you can still hold them accountable for their actions. It is not about punishing them over and over again. They made a bad choice, they admitted it, they regret it and now they are trying to make things right. To continue punishing them over and over again for one bad choice only creates more problems.
You will need to let the cheater know that the cheating, lying, etc. hurt you and hurt them. Their choice started a series of events that can not be undone, especially if someone got pregnant or was scarred by events. Those scars and pregnancies do not go away. They are part of the consequences of the poor choice. If the cheater caught a disease from the affair, there will be changes in your private lives. Forgiveness will not make such consequences go away.
The connection between the behavior and your response needs to be crystal clear. You love the cheater, but HATE what they did. There is no place for romancing what happened. It was not pretty. The cheater needs to HATE what they did. With many cheaters, if they do not learn to HATE what they did, they may return to that behavior pattern. When they romanticize the affair, they have not learned to hate what they did.
Punishing them is not the answer. When I read about all the spouses who punish cheaters, I cringe. I know that that does not deal with the root issue and only sets the stage for more problems. It is not up to you to punish the cheater. Allow their conscience to do that, not you. As they have to deal with the consequences, the pain will bring changes on its own, without you helping it along. Forgiving the cheater (their person) allows their conscience to ‘turn on’ and begin bringing transformation to them. Pain brings changes. Letting the cheater out of the pain often brings incomplete changes in their lives and yours.
Understanding the dynamics of forgiveness is important in knowing how to handle the affair and improve your marriage.
