The 3 Barriers to Forgiveness after Cheating

One of the most difficult decisions you’ll make post-affair—beyond whether or not to save your marriage—is whether or not to forgive your spouse.

The choice is yours, and there’s no right or wrong. You’ll either want to grant forgiveness, or it will be something you can’t abide the thought of doing.

Forgive or Not Forgive: What is the Cost to You?

Forgiveness is more about you as the victim than it is about the cheater. While it may make the cheater feel better to know that ‘all is forgiven,’ this does not mean that you will feel better.

After you’ve learned that your spouse cheated, you will have a range of negative thoughts, volatile emotions and a string of haunting images with which to deal. The very thought of forgiving the person who perpetrated this sort of pain on you is probably enough to make you feel indignant, insulted and more than just a little queasy.

It is said, “it is human to err, but forgiveness is divine.”

You can look at that one of two ways:

1-       You need to be a divine being to even consider such a thing, or

2-      You will feel divine once you have granted forgiveness.

There are also two ways of looking at forgiveness in terms of what it means to you. If you refuse to ever forgive your spouse, you may be signing on for long-term anger, resentment and bitterness. However, if you offer forgiveness, you may find yourself at peace with the world—and your spouse.

Either way, your spouse doesn’t receive a free pass for cheating. It’s not a matter of you saying “Hey, what you did was fine. Please feel free to shred my heart again in the future.” What forgiveness can signify is your readiness to move into the future and not become caught permanently in this dark spot of the past.

There is another option, which may be the best option for you, especially after I tell you about the barriers to forgiveness in a moment.

What about considering acceptance? This simply means that you find a different kind of peace: you accept the circumstances for what they are—a bad turn in life, but one that has happened and cannot be erased, it simply is.

Acceptance may be the only option you will have, simply because there are barriers in place. Maybe not all three that we are about to look at, but if even one barrier remains, then consider acceptance as a gift to yourself. It’s another means of finding peace and letting go of any anger or bitterness you may be harboring, which only serves to sicken you.

The 3 Barriers to Forgiveness

In a marriage, you’re emotionally involved, which is why you are capable of experiencing such pain. If your spouse was some random person that you don’t know, the fact of his or her affair would have absolutely no impact on you from an emotional level.

Most people have a tendency to have an intellectual reaction to hearing about someone’s affair, but it doesn’t hit the heart the way having your spouse do it to you can.

Here are 3 barriers to forgiveness you may experience:

Barrier 1: You’re Not Ready

Before you can decide whether you should forgive, or simply accept the affair, there is a progression of healing you need to go through. Remember those volatile emotions and negative thoughts I mentioned earlier? These must be dealt with first and foremost before you can even consider moving forward, whether it’s to consider forgiveness or if you should stay in your marriage.

Your initial healing phase begins with taking care of yourself and working through the enormous amount of pain you are experiencing.

Barrier 2: Lack of Cheater Remorse

It’s difficult to forgive someone who shows absolutely no remorse. There are some cheaters who seem incapable of understanding the pain they’ve caused their spouses, and refuse to take responsibility for their actions. Or, your spouse may not have fully broken off the relationship with the paramour.

This is a barrier to forgiveness. You may decide to grant it, but not through any good faith actions on the part of your spouse.

Barrier 3: The Cheater has Not Apologized

A heartfelt apology is usually the prerequisite to forgiveness. The person who has caused injury may say, “I am truly sorry for the pain I have caused you. Can you ever forgive me?”

The victim is much more inclined to give consideration to forgiveness when the cheater comes to them with a heartfelt plea such as that. And, piggybacking on barrier 2—when the cheater truly shows remorse and is doing everything they can to show that they’ve changed their cheating behavior.

Now, it’s your turn: I have 3 questions for you

1. Are you experiencing any of these barriers to forgiveness?
2. Do you feel you’ll ever be able to offer forgiveness to your spouse?
3. What do you think about acceptance, which isn’t contingent upon your spouse’s level of remorse?