There are many ways that we could define unforgiveness. However, I find it helpful to define unforgiveness as such:
Unforgiveness is chaining yourself to a problem that you never wanted in the first place.
The Problem with Unforgiveness
Though it is sometimes difficult to control whether or not someone hurts you the first time, if you continue to hold on to painful feelings from the past, you are still allowing them to overpower you.
This is because unforgiveness is really chaining yourself to a problem by holding on to hurt feelings from the past. And, when this occurs in marriage, a spouse is still allowing themselves to be controlled by feelings of anger, negativity, hostility, and resentment. In a sense, they are allowing a type of double jeopardy in that, through their unforgiveness, they are allowing the original problem to keep them in an emotionally imprisoned state.
Deep Topic
Though the subject of forgiveness is a deep topic, I just wanted to take a little time to share with you the above mentioned thought. This is because though some of us feel that we are gaining some sort of power back when we have vengeful thoughts or angry attitudes towards those that have hurt us, the opposite is actually true. In reality, when we hold on to past hurts in a marriage or pre marriage relationship, we are still succumbing to the control that we never wanted from the beginning.
My Prayer
I pray for all of those that are struggling with holding on to past hurts in a marriage. My prayer is that the grace of God overflowing in their lives will help them to administer the grace required for they themselves to experience a spirit of freedom.
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Should I have to prove to my husband that I have forgiven him for his infedility before he allows himself to give me another chance at success? I was extremely hurt and to a degree still can be hurt on certain days by what my husband did over 4 years ago. A year and a half ago I left him because our anger and rage became more that I could handle. He has accused me of continuing to run away from him ever since. In this year and a half we have had many heated discussions and with that I have changed the way I think about his infidelity a lot and have begged him several times to take me back and help me work on our marriage together. He says that he wants nothing more than to fix our marriage, but his criteria is that he has to know that I have forgiven him first before he will ever give this marriage another chance but he doesn’t believe I’ve actually done that yet because I tend to bring it up when we have discussions about our past. He feels that moving forward with the marriage is a waist of time until he knows that I have forgiven him. At this point I’m starting to grow somewhat angry of him making me prove myself before he will take me back. Days are turning into years and I am not sure whether I just accept his opinon that I haven’t forgiven him (he states that he doesn’t believe I have it in me to ever forgive him) and respect his decision to not continue a life with me due to what he exclaims is my unforgiveness, or do I continue to try to prove myself and the fact that I truly have forgiven him?
I guess there is something about your situation that feels off. It seems as if you are being made out to be the perpetrator rather than the victim of an affair. It may do you well to read this article: https://hittinghomeministry.com/forgiving-your-spouse-after-an-affair/
Thank you,
Dr. Force
http://www.Shop.HittingHomeMinistry.com
How do you know you have truly forgiven someone that has hurt you so much. As a child of God I have by faith chosen to forgive my husband now ex-husband of 25 yrs and the woman he left me and his children for, but somehow I still feel bound and tide to this painful hurts, at times I feel angry and upset for his actions. I want to truly forgive so that I can be free. Thou I learned forgiveness is a choice I am learning its also a process. My ex-husband has been gone for almost 3 yrs, I pleaded with him to fix our marriage and not to divorce but he still left and file for the divorce. How long before this pain is totally healed and I am free from the past so that I can move forward from it all? I have prayed and pleaded with God to give me the heart to forgive even if now its by faith. How do I know in my heart I have forgiven?
Great question. I will certainly pray for you.
There is a very fine line between righteous anger and forgiveness. Some Christians tend to beat up on themselves because they feel righteous anger toward those that have harmed them.
Of course, this article is dealing with those that are cloaking unforgiveness through overly cautious actions and attitudes, especially in the presence of viable progress in a relationship. But, I am not so sure that this article is applicable to you. In fact, you seem to have a right to be angry, however, I would still encourage you to live and respond in a godly fashion.
You may want to check out our Christian anger management book, Angry Without a Cause. In this book, we discuss righteous anger versus unrighteous anger and how to tell the difference.
Check it out at:
http://shop.hittinghomeministry.com/Book-Angry-Without-a-Cause-Hard-Copy-1.htm
Thank you,
Dr. Force