Choosing to forgive your spouse when they’ve hurt you, is one of the hardest things you will ever do in marriage. But until you choose forgiveness, there will be a wall built up in your relationship hindering your growth. So what does it really mean to forgive? It means to stop bearing resentment or vengeance towards a person, to stop feeling angry or wanting to punish them. Ask yourself this, “Is there anything my spouse did that I haven’t forgiven them for?” Maybe you’ve said, “I forgive you.” But you’re holding bitterness and resentment in your heart towards them. If every time you two get in an argument you throw up what they did in their face, you have not truly forgiven them. If you treat them differently because of their offense, you have not truly forgiven them. Think about how the word breaks down, For-given. It means you give yourself to that person the way you did before they wronged you.

For years in our marriage my husband would bring up the affair I had back when we first started dating. Every time he got mad at me he reminded me of my past mistakes. Eventually, when things got really bad in our marriage he used what I had done as an excuse to get revenge. He held unto that hurt for so long, that he wanted to hurt me back. When you don’t forgive your spouse it not only hurts them, but it hurts you as well. It’s like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies.

Now think about your relationship with God. Asking him to forgive you is one of the first steps of having a personal relationship with him. If he didn’t forgive us, or if he always reminded us of our sins, what kind of relationship do you think we could have with him? Do you think it could be close and intimate? That it could grow? No it couldn’t. God forgives us because he loves us, he’s merciful, he’s full of grace, and he’s compassionate. In his word he commands us to be this way towards others. To be Christ like. Since our relationship with our spouse is the most important relationship we have on Earth, we especially need to treat them that way. “Be kind and compassionate towards one another, forgiving each other, just as Christ forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:32)

In Matthew chapter 18 there’s a story about the unforgiving servant. There was a man who owed the King 10,000 bags of gold. He wasn’t able to pay so for punishment the king was going to sell his wife, kids, and all that he had to repay the debt. The man fell on his knees and begged him to have pity on him and would pay back all he owed. So the king cancelled all his debt and let him go. Afterwards, that same man went out and found someone who owed him money. He grabbed him up, choked him, and demanded he pay his debt. In the same way that man begged for mercy but none was shown. Instead, he was thrown into prison for punishment. The moral of this story is this: how can we beg for God’s forgiveness and mercy and then turn around and refuse to forgive our spouse who wronged us?

If you are thinking, “Well they don’t deserve my forgiveness. Why should I treat them good when they don’t do it in return.?” It’s because God commands you to. God says if you love those who love you, then you’re no different than anyone else. We have to love the unlovable, and forgive when we think their act is unforgivable. The way we can be a transformed wife or husband is by giving 100 percent to our spouse even when they aren’t doing the same. We have to be the better person. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, and hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”-Martin Luther King Jr

If you’re saying to yourself, “Well you don’t know what they did and how bad they hurt me.” Trust me, I know how you feel. It still hurts thinking about my husband’s affair. It’s the worst emotional pain I’ve ever felt, but I chose to forgive him and start over in our marriage. Not only did I forgive him, but I started treating him like he was the best husband in the world. Like he had never committed the awful things he did. I cooked his favorite meals, bought him gifts, wrote him love letters, stayed up late to spend quality time with him, and showed him love like never before. Did he deserve it? No he didn’t, but God is that way towards us even though we are so undeserving. The trust I had for him was broken, but you don’t have to trust someone to forgive them, but you do have to forgive them in order to make that trust possible again.

If you’re dealing with your spouse making the same mistakes over and over again, I want you to think of these verses. Matt 18:21-22, Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”

Sometimes the person we have trouble forgiving is ourselves. I know for a few months I struggled with this because I had so much regret for the damage I caused in my marriage. I had thoughts like, “I should have been a better wife. I should have showed my husband more attention. I shouldn’t have put the kids first. If only I wouldn’t have given him the cold shoulder, our marriage would have never came to this.” Although those were all things I needed to work on, I couldn’t live with the constant guilt of my failures at being a wife. I had to ask for God’s forgiveness, my husband’s, and then forgive myself. We know that God makes all things new, so not only can he change you but he can change your marriage too. It’s never too late to start making the right choices. If you were to ask a couple who’s been married for  50 years or more how they survived, they will tell you they both learned to be good forgivers.

If you don’t forgive, your spouse will feel guilty, unloved, disconnected, unworthy, and like they are constantly being punished. They may become bitter because they believe you will never treat them the same again.

1 Corinthians 13:5 says, “Love keeps no record of wrongs.” If your goal is to keep score of all the times your spouse wronged you, you both lose. If you forgive, you both win. 

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