Why Forgiveness In Marriage Is Important - And When To Use It

It’s safe to assume that most people know forgiveness is important for a marriage. When two people decide to combine their lives completely, moments will arise when one or both will hurt each other. Whether a spouse disappoints, betrays, wrongs, or lets down, there will come a time when a married couple is faced with transgressions that deserve resolution. It is nearly impossible to for two distinct personalities to come together and expect something different to happen. When these painful events occur, each person is faced with a decision that involves forgiveness. According to research, a spouse’s capacity to seek or give forgiveness is one of the main contributors to marital satisfaction and longevity. For the couple to move forward, forgiveness needs to be achieved.

When we use the word forgiveness, though, what does that mean? You may have heard the phrase, forgive, and forget. However, forgiveness is possible without having to forget what happened. People can learn from their mistakes, and those wronged can decide what they want to do about it going forward. To truly forgive your partner, you need to understand what forgiveness entails, and what it means when you say, “I forgive you.” Read on to learn more about the importance of forgiveness and why reaching this place in your heart will help your marriage move through turbulent times. 

What is forgiveness?

Forgiveness is essentially letting go of a past hurt or wrongdoing done to you. According to the American Psychological Association, it is not the simple act of ceasing to be angry about the wrongdoing nor is it excusing someone’s actions. Rather, forgiveness is a  or transformation of a person’s feeling, attitude, and behavior towards the person who hurt you. It occurs when you willingly let go of resentment, sadness, or fear that came with the action. You may even reach a point of compassion towards the guilty party. 

There is a process of forgiveness. For some small transgressions, you might be able to forgive quickly. Others will take time and talk things through. Again, forgiveness does not mean that you forget what is done, and it is reasonable to seek therapy to work through the aftereffects. You can forgive a partner and still have conversations about what happened. Once you decide as a married couple to work through forgiveness, you come to an understanding that what happened was wrong and hopefully move forward together as a couple.

When should I forgive my partner?

Because forgiveness is a process, only you can decide when the right time is to forgive someone. Some good rules of thumb are when your spouse seeks forgiveness, or when holding onto your hurt is affecting your mental health, your partner’s feelings aside.  These are two opposite ends of the spectrum.

When your partner expresses remorse and actively seeks forgiveness, they are showing you they are aware of their wrongdoing and willing to listen to you and your needs. This makes it easy to forgive because they meet you halfway. However, there will be times in a marriage that this will not happen. Maybe you got into a huge fight where you both feel like you are right and the other is wrong. Maybe you are both saying hurtful things but do not realize it because you are too engrossed in being right.

At these times you may be holding on to resentment and not want to forgive because it feels like your partner does not deserve it. But forgiveness is for you just as much as it is for your partner. Holding onto anger and resentment will diminish your quality of life. Instead of moving on, you may find yourself stuck in a place of bitterness and anger. When we are hurt, we want the person who hurt us to understand that they were in the wrong, but, unfortunately, it does not always work out that way. Getting to a place of forgiveness even when the person does not “deserve” it takes strength and courage, but it is possible.

Many experts will tell you that forgiveness is essential to happy and long-lasting marriages. Without forgiveness, the inevitable hurts and pains that come up during a lifetime will eventually break a marriage in pieces. For example, professor of social psychology Tsukasa Kato of 344 Japanese adults between the ages of 18 and 28 who were in committed relationships.

Each participant was asked to fill out a survey of questions about their relationship. They completed the same survey again ten years later, noting as well if the relationship was still intact. A little over 31% of the participants had broken off their relationship in the ten years between surveys. And of the couples who stayed together, they had higher scores of forgiveness in their surveys.

Another study published in the Journal of Family Psychology found that lack of forgiveness in relationships made it much harder for couples to resolve conflicts and issues. Without that act of forgiving, couples are less likely to come to a mutually beneficial decision in conflict or resolve issues that are bound to come up in marriage. This not only affects the health of the marriage, but it can affect your physical health as well. Mayo Clinic warns that holding onto anger and resentment can lead to depression, anxiety, a lack of purpose, and losing the feeling of connection.

Five steps to forgiveness

Forgiveness is easier said than done when you are truly hurting. To help you create a mindset of forgiveness before you need to forgive, there are five things to think about when you are ready to try to forgive your partner: 

Consider your desired outcome

Think about what you want the outcome of your fights to be. Do you want always to win, or do you want to be able to come to a compromise with your partner? Knowing from the start what your end goal is will help you make choices that get you closer to that goal, even when it’s difficult.

Let go 

Consider letting the grudges go. Some fights are not worth hashing out. If you and your partner disagree on something, but it’s not that important to you, dropping the argument altogether will help you maintain your relationship. You can also call this “picking your battles.”

Choose love

Train your inner voice to be loving instead of cruel. When we get into fights, there’s that small, vindictive voice in our heads that tells us to give the silent treatment or eviscerate our partner with our words. The goal of that voice is to do the most damage it can. Often, we regret listening to the voice. Remember that you love your partner and want what is best for them, even if they hurt you in some way.

Pause and reflect

The fourth and fifth steps can be thought about together. When you are in a good place and have time to think, contend with your innermost fears of intimacy and think about how old family dynamics might shape how you fight with your spouse. Often, we bring baggage into a relationship that will shape how we argue and how we forgive. Understanding where our motivations come from and how we can ultimately move past old hurts will help us do better in the future.

Is there ever a time I shouldn’t forgive?

Though hopefully you will never be put in this situation, if a partner cheats on you or abuses you in any way, you are not obligated to forgive them for the sake of the relationship. For your healing, you might think about forgiving and moving on when you are ready, and with professional help. However,  staying in a toxic relationship is not an option you have to consider. Some hurts run too deep to come back from, romantically, and you have the right to take care of yourself in those situations.

It should be said, though, that it is important to forgive yourself in those situations. If you leave a failed relationship, thinking it was your fault or feeling unworthy because of a big hurt, you can forgive yourself for all of it. You can come to an understanding that the abuse you endured or the infidelity you discovered was not your fault. In giving yourself that kind of forgiveness, you can move on.

If you are experiencing any form of abuse, help is available. Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1.800.799.SAFE (7233).

Seeking professional advice

When your spouse hurts you, it often reaches a deeper place of pain than other people in your life. After all, they are meant to be our closest loved ones who we entrust our hearts. However, humans are not infallible, and there is not one of us who has not made a mistake from time to time or wronged another. Some hurts are deeper than others and you may not be able to reach a place of forgiveness. While completely understandable, holding on to this pain may be affecting your ability to accomplish daily tasks or enjoy your love. In these moments, do not hesitate to reach for professional help. A licensed therapist can help you work through these difficult feelings and provide a trusting, non-biased perspective as they listen to you. You can seek individualized therapy or couples counseling, depending on what you think will help you most. 

If you find that couples therapy will benefit your marriage, you may find online therapy preferable over in-person therapy due to convenience and accessibility. Studies have shown that many couples feel a greater sense of control and comfort when participating in online therapy sessions and report the experience to be beneficial and positive for their relationship. 

Regain, an online therapy system for couples will match a couple with the right therapist to give couples the ability to get therapy 100% online through a chat room. You and your partner would be able to write down everything you are going through and have a therapist give you practical advice to use in your relationship. Because the therapy isn’t in real-time, you can use the chat room whenever you need to, and the therapist will only read it at appointed times. If this sounds like something you are interested in, go to www.regain.us/start to get started.

Takeaway

It is not an easy thing to contend with forgiveness in relationships. As humans, we often believe we are in the right, and it is difficult to see the other person’s perspective. Or we simply want to win the argument.  If you both are stuck in this cycle of wanting to be right and not hearing each other, you may find your marriage is in trouble. Couple’s counseling is available and truly effective for couples who need extra support in learning effective communication and conflict resolution strategies.