What I learned about forgiveness

Betrayal recovery has taught me a lot about forgiveness. It has challenged my previous assumptions about forgiveness, what it is, and what it isn’t. It has taught me a completely different way to forgive than what I was taught throughout my childhood.

I know a lot about what forgiveness is not. It’s not reconciliation. It’s not “forgive and forget”. It’s not sweeping it under the rug. It’s not pretending it didn’t happen. It’s not really even saying “I forgive you” and just being done with it. So what exactly is forgiveness, then?

The first lesson I learned about forgiveness is that it’s different from what I’ve been previously taught.

As a child, I was taught that forgiveness was merely saying “I forgive you” or “It’s okay” when someone says they’re sorry. And then after you said that, your friendship with them was all better again, and there was no more need to talk about it. I carried such teachings into adulthood, and they informed my hasty decision to rush forgiveness the first time my husband confessed to me his porn use, which I will share in more detail in just a moment.

But forgiving betrayal, and my case of pornography use in my marriage, taught me something completely different about forgiveness.

Forgiveness, I have learned, is voluntarily relinquishing your right to seek restitution from the person who wronged you. Forgiveness is still desiring good for the offender and choosing to let go of bitterness and resentment toward the person who wronged you. Forgiveness requires grieving the offense. It’s grieving the pain they’ve caused you. It’s choosing to continue loving the person who wronged you through your actions rather than your words. Forgiveness is our Lord Jesus Christ dying on the cross for our sins, so that we don’t have to. Forgiveness is the grace that God freely extends to whoever asks for it, as a result of Jesus’ sacrifice.

The second lesson I learned was that forgiveness cannot be rushed.

On D-day number one, when my husband confessed to me his pornography struggles while we were dating, my very first response was forgiving too quickly. When I met him at his home so that we could go on a leisurely bike ride around his neighborhood, he sat down with me, at his front door, and confessed it all to me right then and there. I was not prepared for this confession at all. I didn’t want this conversation. I didn’t plan for it. I just wanted to go biking. I was in such a state of shock and denial that the only response I had was to rush forgiveness and get it over with so I could go on with my day.

Later I learned that was a huge mistake.

I had no idea of what the pain would be like after I did that. In the days and weeks that followed, the painful feelings of betrayal came rushing over me, and the it would continue to wash over me for the next several years, up to the present day. And that was one of the first lessons I learned about forgiveness: you can’t rush it.

Scripture has a lot to say about forgiveness:

I don’t quote these verses to throw them at you. I quote them to point out what they don’t say about forgiveness. Yes, these verses do tell us to forgive. But notice they don’t say that we need to forgive right this very minute! Forgiveness requires you to properly grieve the offense before you can get to a point where you can even consider forgiveness. What I initially thought about forgiveness informed my decision to rush through it. And because I rushed forgiveness, I felt an obligation to sweep it under the rug and pretend I’m alright. And if I wasn’t alright, it meant I didn’t truly forgive him. Right?

Wrong. This is not how forgiveness works. Rushed forgiveness is a counterfeit form of forgiveness that sends a message to the offender that their transgression was not that bad, and that it didn’t deeply affect the person they wronged. And it sends a similar message to the one who was wronged. Whatever feelings the forgiver had about that offense are not valid, and they no longer need to feel resentful. Such teachings about forgiveness did a great disservice to me. They did not prepare me to forgive something as incredibly painful, traumatic, and destructive as secret pornography use.

Forgiveness is a process. I’m sure you’ve heard this many times too, and it really is true. It is a very long, complicated process, I would come to find. It takes years, decades, even whole lifetimes to forgive. While we shouldn’t put off forgiveness forever, as I will talk about soon, we should never feel like there is a deadline to forgive. Because there isn’t one. Forgiveness requires you to grieve the offense. To shed tears over it. To tell the offender the brutal truth about the consequences of their actions. It requires you to give yourself grace, and to care for yourself when someone has deeply wronged you. And that all takes time.

The third lesson I learned about forgiveness is that you shouldn’t put it off forever.

Oh, how much I still very much struggle with this point! If you were sitting in front of me right now, asking me how in the world you can forgive something as heart-wrenching as betrayal, I would struggle with giving you a good answer. The last thing I want to do here is make forgiveness sound like an obligation. Forgiveness given out of obligation leads to the very counterfeit forgiveness I mistakenly gave to my own husband! No one should ever feel like they have to rush forgiveness, like I did. Please, learn from my mistake and take more time to forgive. Waaaayyyy more time than you think you need! Betrayal is such a serious offense, that quick “forgiveness” just doesn’t cut it!

But at the same time, there are consequences if you put off forgiveness to the point of refusing to do it. And they will affect you more than they affect the other person. Nursing a grudge toward someone and not forgiving them will make you a bitter person. It will affect your ability to trust other people. Over the long-term, it negatively affects your physical and mental health. And that’s no way to live. And it affects your relationship with God.

And that brings me back to the verses I quoted earlier. That’s definitely not an exhaustive list of verses in the Bible about forgiveness, but hopefully it’s enough to show that forgiveness is important.

And this is the part where I wrestle with the parable of the unmerciful servant. I won’t paste it verbatim here, because it’s a bit long, but it’s in Matthew 18:23-25. Allow me to summarize it here:

The parable is told by Jesus, and it’s about a servant whose master forgave him a huge debt of 10,000 talents (roughly $6 billion). After this servant’s debt is forgiven, he goes to a fellow servant who owes him a much smaller debt of 100 denarii (roughly $12,000) and demands that he pay him back immediately. When the fellow servant pleaded for more time to pay it back, the servant showed him no mercy, and threw him in prison for not immediately paying back his 100 denarii. When the master heard about this, he said to his servant, “You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And you should not have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?” (Matthew 18:32) And the master sent the unmerciful servant to prison until his 10,000 talents were paid.

Because of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, the Lord has forgiven us for far more than our brains can even fathom. And if we believe that, we no longer need to repay the Lord for our sins, because Jesus already paid our debt! So this parable challenges us to offer the same forgiveness to our fellow man, because if we don’t, the Lord will not forgive our own sins. Because we have been forgiven so much, we should offer forgiveness to others who may have committed far lesser sins against us. Those who have truly experienced God’s forgiveness will have a changed heart. They will have the kind of heart that wants to offer forgiveness to others. If you’re like the servant that was forgiven much, but doesn’t forgive his fellow servant for a much smaller debt, have you really experienced the forgiveness of God?

So take the time to experience God’s forgiveness for you. Trust me, it’s an experience you won’t want to miss! Being forgiven by the Lord for our innumerable sins is so amazing, you’ll want other people to experience that forgiveness too. This, to me, is what makes real forgiveness (slightly) easier to offer to my husband.

So, allow forgiveness to be your ultimate goal. But don’t expect to get there overnight, and don’t outright refuse to forgive, either. That’s the best balance I can strike here. Forgiveness takes a lot of grieving, a lot of work, and a lot of time, but we shouldn’t put off the start of that difficult process. Walk with God through that pain, because He so intimately knows what betrayal is like. Allow Him to bring you to other people who know that pain too, and wants to walk with you through that too. Experience the love, grace, and forgiveness God so wants to show to you, and in turn you will want to show that to others. Then, and only then, will forgiveness be possible.

The fourth lesson I learned about forgiveness is that it doesn’t require reconciliation.

James Matthew Barrie, the author and playwright of Peter Pan, divorced his wife, Mary Ansell, of 15 years because of her infidelity. Before their divorce was granted in 1909, he at first offered to legally separate, to avoid the scandal of divorce, if she agreed to end her affair. When Ansell refused, Barrie allowed a very logical consequence to happen: the tragic end of their marriage.

Later, Barrie discovered that his ex-wife was in dire financial straits after her second marriage to her affair partner ended due to (surprise!) her second husband’s infidelity. Now Barrie could have felt some kind of schadenfreude or a “serves you right” kind of attitude toward his ex-wife. But neither his words nor his actions showed that. Rather, Barrie reached out to Ansell in a letter asking to meet with her, and the words in this letter showed nothing but genuine concern for Ansell, and a genuine desire to see her again. They never remarried each other, but he offered to pay her a regular allowance to support her financially, which he did until his death in 1937. Barrie’s estate even continued to provide for her financially after his death.

I think Barrie shows us a prime example of forgiveness toward an unfaithful spouse, while also setting boundaries and allowing consequences to happen. Barrie set a hard boundary with his wife. His boundary was “end the affair, or I will end the marriage!”. And he followed through. He made it clear that he was not willing to tolerate infidelity! He didn’t have to continue supporting her. He didn’t have to have an amicable relationship with her, but he did anyway. He still looked out for her financial well-being, and still desired good for her, in spite of her unfaithfulness. Based on Barrie’s actions here, I think he really did forgive her. And he didn’t even need to reconcile to do that.

By the grace of God, forgiving my husband did result in the reconciliation of our relationship, at least for now. It took a lot of work and recovery from both of us to get there. But forgiveness does NOT require that!

Sometimes reconciliation just isn’t possible. Reconciliation requires both people to want that and both people to work for it. Sometimes you, your spouse, or neither of you want to reconcile. If your spouse was abusive, it may be neither safe nor wise to reconcile with such a spouse. Maybe your marriage has already ended, and you’re both married to other people. And sometimes, the person you need to forgive has passed away. Forgiveness is possible even in these circumstances. It just might look a bit different. It doesn’t have to look like J.M. Barrie’s forgiveness, but forgiving in such cases means letting go of bitterness and anger towards the wrongdoer. Forgiveness means not seeking vengeance, but allowing the natural consequences of their wrongdoing to happen, up to and including the end of a relationship. Forgiving means allowing the anger and grief come and go for a while, but eventually choosing to release those feelings in due time, so that you don’t have to carry that for the rest of your life. Believe me when I say, carrying any resentment for any length of time is just not fun.

Conclusion

Forgiveness, though difficult, is a truly beautiful thing. I continue to learn to find the beauty in it and embrace even its challenges. If you allow forgiveness to happen in its own time, without unnecessarily delaying that process, and without equating it with reconciliation, you’ll discover new growth in yourself and your relationship. And if your relationship doesn’t survive, you’ll find the same thing in future relationships and your relationship with God. By forgiving the right way, you’ll really get to know God more intimately and how He forgives us so abundantly and generously.