A Secret to forgiving your spouse after an affair

You can forgive anyone for anything. Forgiving does not mean that the offender can have full access to your life. When someone has committed an affair and is forgiven it does not mean they have full rights back into their spouses life. This post is NOT addressing trust issues or suggesting their should be no healthy boundaries put in place. These issues and an establishment that true repentance on the offender's part is real and guidelines should set up for restoration of themselves and their marriage IS NOT TO BE OVERLOOKED. Here, I am talking about matters of the heart and attitude.

After my husband did repent of his affair and we had set our healthy boundaries for safety and healing, many people did not understand how I could have forgiven him. I remember one man who sat with me at church and looking perplexed asked me, "How did you forgive him?" His implication was more a "Why" did you for give him. He was viewing our situation as my husband being the worst slim ball he had ever met. It only took me a second to respond.

God had made his point to me on this particular matter quite clear. It took a long time for God's message to fully penetrate my heart. I understood it in my head, but until something reaches your heart the full impact of the revelation will not be able to explode into your world and start to change you and your situation.

My response to this man was, given with a smile and a bit of a chuckle, "You have never lived with me, you have no idea of my sins." The man looked perplexed. Simply put I explained to the man that I too was a sinner and God has forgiven me of my sin. I do realise that an affair has much more drastic consequences on a marriage than many other sins. That was not my point. My point was a matter of the heart. My attitude of forgiveness.

I forgive because I have been forgiven. I have committed murder in my heart towards my husband. Thank God I did not act on on it.... Yet I do understand too fully how evil my heart and actions can be. My life verse is a simple one it is found in Psalms 16:2, "O my soul, you have said to the Lord, You are my Lord, MY GOODNESS IS NOTHING APART FROM YOU."

There is nothing good in me but God. If God has forgiven me, I will follow his command for me to forgive others.

Mimwrite