Why Can't I Forgive Him?

"In order for forgiveness to happen, something has to die."

Brené Brown was sitting in church when she heard her pastor utter those words. He had been speaking about counselling a couple on the brink of divorce after discovering her husband's affair. Brown had been wrestling with the idea of forgiveness for her book, The Gifts of Imperfection, and had ultimately taken the chapter about forgiveness out because she just couldn't get clear on it.
Those words were like an awakening. Because she realized this:
Embedded deeply in forgiveness is grief.
Think about that.
I always thought of forgiveness as something that people who weren't burdened with resentment and anger offered freely, then moved blithely into the rest of their lives. I would watch television shows (which is where so many of us children of dysfunctional families think we're finding reality) in which a sibling would wrong another sibling, but it would always end with an apology and the response: "I forgive you." And then all would be forgotten.
It took me years to realize that forgiveness doesn't really work like that, especially when the transgression is deep and painful.
I would wonder what was wrong with me that, even with my husband apologizing around the clock for his betrayal of me, I felt incapable of forgiveness. Surely those people were more spiritually evolved than I. They were simply better people. There were times in those early days that I didn't hate him. Brief moments when I could imagine not leaving. But mostly, I cried and simmered in resentment. I wasn't ready to leave but I hated staying. Forgiveness? Didn't that mean I was putting all this behind us? Didn't that mean I was okay with what he did? Didn't that mean I could never bring it up again?
Forget that.
I still wonder if I've "forgiven" my husband. I confess I'm not entirely sure what that means. I'm with him and happy to be. I trust him as much as I trust anyone who has revealed themselves capable of deception, which is the same as saying, I trust him as much as I trust anyone. His cheating is part of our story but only part. We rarely speak about it. I no longer use it like a sword, a way to cut him when I'm hurting.
Forgiveness though?
Maybe.
I've certainly grieved, which, as Brown says, is a key part of forgiveness. Something definitely died. A lot of somethings. My sense of safety. My idea of who he was. My idea of what my marriage was. My dream of doing marriage "right" (which says a whole lot about me, which I've had to wrestle with). My "perfect" family. A veritable graveyard of dreams.
And I had to grieve it all. Year by year. Tear by tear.
So maybe I have landed in this place of forgiveness. I've accepted that my husband is more than the worst thing he ever did. I admire and respect how hard he's worked to become a better person, how painful it was for him to face down his own demons. Plenty died for him too. His fantasy of his perfect childhood. His mythological martyr of a father. He had his own grieving to do.
I'm with Brené Brown on this one. Forgiveness is impossible without working through grief.
It never surprises me when one of our secret sisters washes up on these shores and begins her comment with, "I've forgiven him but I feel stuck."
Forgiveness looms large for so many of us – like this holy grail we feel we need to grasp.
But maybe we're looking at it wrong. Maybe forgiveness isn't something we bestow but rather something that is bestowed on us when we've worked through our grief. Maybe it's not something we feel but rather a place we arrive.
I had always thought forgiveness came easily to those more emotionally generous and loving than I. So did Brené Brown. It was only when she viewed forgiveness through the lens of death and grief that it clicked for her. There is nothing, she says, more generous than working through grief to get to forgiveness.

There's So Much Power In Owning Our Story

"When we own our stories, we avoid being trapped as characters in stories someone else is telling."
~Brené Brown, Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution.

There is another Web site devoted to betrayed wives which occasionally delights in skewering this one. I admire the woman who created it for the sanctuary she's created for those facing or seeking the dissolution of a marriage after betrayal. I envy her savviness at marketing, which includes a column in a widely read news site. I sometimes laugh at her smart humour. But I'm weary of her dismissal of this site and the women here as trafficking in fantasy. She might pay lip service to the possibility of reconciliation but her language around it is dismissive and demeaning.
The first time she wrote about me, it tied me in knots. I felt like the fool she was making me out to be. Worse, I feared I was fooling all of you. Was I was leading all of you down the garden path toward a future that would undoubtedly deliver you more pain? Was I peddling some sort of snake oil in the form of unlikely healing? My posts began to reflect this fear. Instead of delivering my clear thoughts, I waffled, afraid of looking like an "affair apologist", afraid of giving you the "wrong" impression.
It didn't take long until I realized that I had let her into the pages of my story. Though I inwardly railed against the caricature she'd constructed of me – naive, pathetic, a New-Age idiot – there was a part of me that wondered if she was right. Frankly, it's easier to insist that all cheaters deserve to be dumped. It follows our cultural script. It satisfies our desire for consequences. But that wasn't my story. I needed to find my own narrative again, to remain true to my story, not hers.
More recently, I noticed she had again linked to one of my posts in order to point out how deluded we all are. This time, however, it didn't faze me. I  know that no matter what she or anyone writes about me, it doesn't change my own story.
It isn't the first time I'm realizing this. I learned it following D-Day after I allowed myself to feel trapped by the story the OW was saying about me: I was pathetic. I was a fool. I deserved this.
Only when I challenged that story – really? What is it about being cheated on that makes ME pathetic? Am I really a fool for being loyal? For expecting people to behave with integrity? What am I satisfying by refusing to give a second chance? What am I denying? And what in the hell did I ever do to deserve this? – was I able to reclaim it as mine to tell. And it goes something like this:

Like all marriages, my husband's and mine had its challenges. Nonetheless, we had built a good life, a wonderful family. When I found out about my husband's betrayals, I was devastated. I wanted to die rather than endure another minute of the pain I was feeling. I wondered if I would ever feel anything close to happiness again. I couldn't imagine staying married to him. But I lacked the strength or conviction at that point in time with three young children to leave. So when he promised me that he would work every day of his life to become the man I had believed he was, I gave him that chance. Just as I had chosen to trust my mother two decades earlier when she promised to work toward sobriety after years of addiction.

That was close to ten years ago. I have no regrets. It has been hard at times. I have had many doubts, especially in the early years. Healing took far longer than I imagined. But the rewards have been greater. My husband has kept his promise. That's no guarantee that he will never break it but I have come to learn that the certainty I had about many things in life were illusions. I am only certain that I made the right choice for me. I continue to make that choice daily. I am neither a fool nor pathetic. I did nothing to deserve this. This is my story. And in my story, I am strong. I have approached the heartbreak of betrayal with courage and integrity (and a whole lot of tears). I have made my healing a story of compassion, no matter whether my husband is beside me or across from me. I have included all of you in my story – fellow travelers on this road, from whom I've gained so much. It has been worth the struggle.

I hope I have never given anyone the impression that my choice to rebuild my marriage is the right one for them. It can be tempting to believe in reconciliation when the alternative feels too painful. And there are many women who choose to offer a second chance to men who don't deserve it. In that sense, I suppose my counterpart's approach to dumping a cheater without a backward glance does remove any possibility he can do it again.
If that's your choice, I applaud you. If it takes you more than one (or two or three) D-Days to get there, then that's what it takes. But if your choice doesn't subscribe to what a Web site, or your sister, or any culture insists is the "right" one, then choose it anyway. If the idea of "choice" is something that doesn't feel available to you right now, then give yourself the time and space to access it. Each of us must recognize our truth, no matter what story others are making up about us. This is our story to tell, nobody else's.