How do I help my friend forgive?

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Ora_Et_Labora

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I have a friend that is unable to forgive her husband for an act of infidelity that took place before they were married (they were engaged at the time). It has been a year since she found out and everything resurfaced again. She is not Christian (she is Jewish) and is having a hard time grasping the concept of forgiveness. She believes that if she would have known about this infidelity before they got married, she would not have married him in the first place. They tried couseling but as soon as the topic of forgivness came up she didn’t want to go anymore because she coudn’t forgive him for this act.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how we can help her? Any good books on forgiving others? Please pray for them.

Thank You
 
Ora Et Labora:
I have a friend that is unable to forgive her husband for an act of infidelity that took place before they were married (they were engaged at the time). It has been a year since she found out and everything resurfaced again. She is not Christian (she is Jewish) and is having a hard time grasping the concept of forgiveness. She believes that if she would have known about this infidelity before they got married, she would not have married him in the first place. They tried couseling but as soon as the topic of forgivness came up she didn’t want to go anymore because she coudn’t forgive him for this act.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how we can help her? Any good books on forgiving others? Please pray for them.

Thank You
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Boy! Do I ever feel like this is my life! It has almost been a year since I’ve learned of my soon-to-be-ex’s indescretions, and it took me months to be able to forgive him. For me it was a “have to” thing…I couldn’t move forward without doing so. It may have been more for me than it was for him, but its done.

As for your friend, it seems that she doesn’t want to move in any direction. She shuts the door once forgiveness is mentioned. This will fester inside of her until she can let it go in her mind and in her heart. All you can do is encourage her to talk to you about it, and perhaps you can point out to her that to move on, she needs to decide how she wants put it behind her. It won’t be easy, in fact I still think about it, but its with more sadness than anger now.

She can spend/waste her time dwelling on it, and letting it control how she responds to anything in her life. I have learned that it takes more energy to be angry at anything than it does to forgive and move on. She just may need time.

I hope this helps.
 
You might go to or direct her to forgivenessweb.com. There are so many articles, books, topics, forums, etc on the concept of forgiveness, how it can be done and what it really means.

Many times we are reluctant to forgive because we think it erases the pain we felt and let’s the other person off the hook. Truly understanding forgiveness shows us that this is not the case.
 
Maybe you can gently tell her that forgiveness is actually for her. When we forgive we are able to give God all that negative energy that we used to harbor a grudge or hate. It is exhausting and consuming. Let her know that it is bothering her more than him to not forgive because she can’t move on with life at all. He however would be able to move on as any consequences of his actions will be viewed as a consequence and that is all. It would be tragic for her to spend her life feeling anger and betrayal because she would miss out on all the good things God has for us.

Are they separated? Are they still together? Is she contemplating any action at this time? Hopefully she can see that it takes at least a year after such a discovery to be able to make choices like this.
 
Blest one…very true!

Forgiveness is for Her…anger makes her miserable, and the only way to move past and be truly happy is to be able to forgive!

Forgiveness isn’t only for christians…It is for anyone who wants to be emotionally well.
 
Ora Et Labora:
I have a friend that is unable to forgive her husband for an act of infidelity that took place before they were married (they were engaged at the time). It has been a year since she found out and everything resurfaced again. She is not Christian (she is Jewish) and is having a hard time grasping the concept of forgiveness. She believes that if she would have known about this infidelity before they got married, she would not have married him in the first place. They tried couseling but as soon as the topic of forgivness came up she didn’t want to go anymore because she coudn’t forgive him for this act.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how we can help her? Any good books on forgiving others? Please pray for them.

Thank You
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Ask her what she gains by NOT forgiving? Some of us love to be victims, and if we forgive someone it means we can no longer lord it over them. She may be fearful of losing ‘control’ over the spouse. Afterall, if she forgives him they become equal partners in the marriage again, right?

I dunno - there is a reason she is not forgiving him and it is because it works for her, otherwise she would divorce him and move on.
 
I don’t understand something…what happened to expecting and being faithful?? Why does that seem to be such a foreign concept?
My personal philosophy is " I don’t share me and I don’t share him…EVER." No exceptions…no excuses…EVER
~ Kathy ~
 
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BlestOne:
Are they separated? Are they still together? Is she contemplating any action at this time? Hopefully she can see that it takes at least a year after such a discovery to be able to make choices like this.
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They are still together. She was contemplating divorce pretty seriously I think because she feels she woudn’t have been with him in the first place if she knew about the incident.

The two of them said they got it worked out but it concerns me that she is just bottling it away again and not dealing with her feelings or forgiving.
 
Ora Et Labora is my wife, btw. (Love ya’!)

…Well it was being bottled away… for a couple days.

She seems, outwardly at least, to have come to a final decision. She says she has made up her mind, and that might actually be true. But that’s what scares me. I think she’s made up her mind, even though she still loves him, to leave. She believes in the covenant of marriage though. So to get around that, she’s saying that the marriage was never valid.

The reason she uses for the marriage not being valid is that she and he made their own covenant to be faithful during the engagement process. I maintain that the actual marriage covenant is separate from their personal covenant, but she refuses to agree with that. In fact, she’s really refusing to listen to me, Ora, her husband, her sisters, and her coworkers who all are advising similarly on the issue. Plus… I believe that she hasn’t told her father, who is a pastor, about all this and asked advice from him yet because she knows he’ll give even more of the same advice, and it would be much harder to not listen to him. I think she’s just so angry and unforgiving right now that she’s incapable of moving on and trying to make things work. What makes me upset is that I think she might come to a decisive point before she cools down and can think things through. 😦
 
To help clarify things, I’ve made a little time line of what went on. Please correct me if I’m wrong, Ora. To avoid naming names, I’ll be using the aliases of Adam and Eve for the husband and wife. My opinions are highlighted in blue.

Pre-Engagement

  1. *]Adam was married in a civil court to his first wife.
    *]Adam and his first wife grew apart because of the immaturity of their relationship.
    *]Adam tried and failed to keep the marriage together, but his first wife succeeded in getting a divorce in the end.
    *]Adam and Eve each dated and had “relations” with several people before they met each other.
    *]Adam and Eve met on line and through a mutual friend, who was visiting Eve’s country at the time.
    *]After a fairly short dating period in which they each visited each other’s country, they decided to get started on the very lengthy process of getting an engagement visa so Eve could come to the States.

    Engagement

    1. *]Adam and Eve decided between themselves that their engagement was their promise to be faithful to each other. To them, since there was no point in getting engaged unless you fully intended to get married, the time to settle any any doubts about being married forever to each other was when they were dating. Basically, they tried to move the starting point of the covenant from the marriage to the engagement.
      *]During the engagement, Adam and Eve each had at least one time when one didn’t know if he/she wanted to be married to the other. Eve says that she only felt that once, after she found out about a previously-unknown-to-her affair that Adam had before the engagement. Adam says there were one or two additional times that Eve considered not going on with the marriage.
      *]At this point, regardless of why, each of them had thoughts of “unfaithfulness to their home-brew ‘covenant’”. Eventually, they each overcame those thoughts and moved on, deciding that marriage was the right thing for them.
      *]Eve knew Adam was capable of revealing only partial truths at a time with the objective of keeping conflict low. She still decided that she would accept that as a possibility of reoccurring and married him.

      Marriage

      1. *]Some time after being married, Adam revealed another layer of truth previously unknown to Eve. This caused Eve to become (understandably) very upset and consider leaving. In the end, they worked things out, and they were happily married again for a long while.
        *]Recently, Adam revealed yet another layer of the truth. Undoubtedly, there is a pattern here, but I truly believe he’s revealed everything at this point. There is also a pattern of Adam never being unfaithful during a marriage. He maintains (and I have not seen evidence to the contrary) that in both his first marriage and in this one, he has never been unfaithful.
        *]Eve seems to have had enough with the layers of truth coming out every now and again. She has every right to be thoroughly angry about this situation and the deceit Adam has propagated. But being angry or regretful does NOT dissolve the covenant of marriage. Eve says that she would not have married a man capable of being this dishonest, but as history shows, that is untrue. She decided during the engagement and reaffirmed that decision during the first revelation in the marriage that she still loved him and that the marriage was valid.

        My point is this: It doesn’t matter if she’s more upset now than before. Adam and Eve have already determined that the marriage was valid, and on top of that Adam says that he KNOWS he will never do this again and he’s finally revealed all. At the same time, Eve says Adam BELIEVES he knows he will never do it again. The marriage is valid they both OBVIOUSLY still have strong love for each other – if they didn’t, this situation wouldn’t hurt so bad. Eve should let her anger go, and instead of picking at this gaping wound in their relationship, try to mend it. At this point I think the scar will always be there, but that doesn’t mean that the wound can’t still heal.

        I feel sorry for Eve that she has had to endure something so terrible, and I feel sorry for Adam that Eve’s lack of understanding of forgiveness is tearing them further apart. I hope the best for them both. If you don’t know how to help with advice for anyone involved, at least join my wife and I as we pray for Adam’s son (who’s already experienced one divorce), Adam and Eve, and their marriage.
 
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