In the novel BEYOND PISD, Meg was offended when Forgiveness is the topic of her first S-ANON meeting (Page 207). As Kathy, Meg’s sponsor, shared her experience with forgiveness, Meg saw wisdom in what Kathy said.

Michelle, Meg’s therapist, saw naming the wounds and the impact they had as the first step in the process forgiveness. The paradox was that, in naming everything Art did and how it affected her, actually escalated Meg’s anger and resentments. Still, there was no shortcut to forgiveness.

THE PARADOX OF FORGIVENESS

For many betrayed partners, the word “forgive” feels like abuse. Your spouse cheated and pressure to forgive renders the pain of that infidelity invisible. While it seems paradoxical, forgiveness will actually unburden you from your spouse’s infidelity. When you arrive at a place of forgiveness for the harm, you will be able to reengage with life.

It is important to remember four things:

First: Forgiveness is a process, not an event!

Forgiveness takes time and involves several tasks to get there. True forgiveness can only happen once the harmful acts have been named and the full extent of their impact acknowledged. Working through the tasks of forgiveness initially escalates the anger because the process begins by taking stock of what happened and the harm it caused. While it seems like a step backwards, embracing the enormity of the pain is vital for you to absolve yourself of any blame for the infidelity and place responsibility for the harm squarely on the shoulders of your spouse.

Second: Wounds that break a core moral code are serious violations.

Each culture has its own moral code that guides relationships. For a society to function, people in relationships make the basic assumption that those moral codes will be respected. Sexual fidelity is not universally held as part of the core moral code. If you belong to a culture where monogamy is the standard, it is reasonable to expect that your spouses will adhere to that code.

Third: The most difficult wounds to forgive are those inflicted by someone in a sacred position of trust.

When you entered into this intimate partner relationship, you gave your spouse more power to inflict harm on you than they gave to anyone else. Intimate partner betrayal leads to complex trauma because infidelity not only violates a core moral code, the wound was delivered by the person you held in the most sacred position of trust. If your spouse committed multiple infidelities, the harm is enormous.

Fourth: Forgiveness implies neither forgetting nor reconciliation.

Betrayed partners never forget that the infidelity happened. For the rest of your life, you will know the horrible truth. “My spouse has the capacity to cheat on me, come home, look me in the eye, and lie to me.” The blind, naïve trust which you assumed was the foundation of your relationships has been shattered. For reconciliation to happen, the old blind trust has to be replaced with wise trust. Building wise trust following infidelity requires your spouse to be genuinely remorseful about the enormous pain the cheating has caused you. Your spouse will need to show up, own the infidelity, make emotional restitution, and commit to a life of fidelity and honesty going forward. Even then, you may be unable to risk making yourself vulnerable to your spouse again. This is not a failure on your part; rather it is evidence of the depth and complexity of the trauma created by infidelity.

THE TASKS OF FORGIVENESS

1. FACE THE WOUNDS

The first task in the process of forgiveness is to make a detailed inventory of the wound(s): what was done and how it was done. It is incredibly difficult to forgive what you have not been allowed to name. Forgiveness begins as you construct a timeline of wounds takes time and can be retraumatizing. It is important to be in a safe and supportive environment and to allow yourself the right to take breaks during this phase of the process.

2. OUTLINE THE IMPACT

Once the wounds have been named, the pervasive harm they caused becomes apparent. Infidelity impacts all aspects of the self (e.g., self-worth, confidence, attractiveness, trust of own intuition, etc.). Relationship betrayal reverberates across the entire life space, damaging family relationships, the social network, work and/or school life, and individual fun pursuits. The p class="bwparagraphtext"rimary emotions that accompany relationship betrayal are pervasive feelings of being unsafe and life being out of control. This leads to vulnerability for intrusion (i.e., triggers and flashbacks), psychological arousal (i.e., hypervigilance, fight/flight response), avoidance (i.e., withdrawal, isolation, numbing, freeze response), and altered mood and cognition (i.e., emotional roller coaster: rage to sadness to despair to detachment to love to compassion; and lack of attention, concentration, productivity, memory). Using Table 1, for each wound delivered to you, identify the ways in which each wound impacted you at the time and continues to impact you today.

When the wounds have been identified and the impact of those wounds assessed, it is important to write an impact letter to your spouse. This letter is for your benefit. It should only be read or delivered to your spouse if he/she is healthy enough to respond to the letter with compassion (i.e., has the capacity for empathy in intense emotional situations), and if you are open to reconciliation and healing the relationship. You are encouraged to work with a trained therapist if you decide to share the impact letter with your spouse.

3. RECOGNIZE THE DISTORTION IN THE PERPETRATOR

When you married your spouse, you never imagined you would one day face the pain of infidelity. It was inconceivable to you that the person you loved would betray you in such a deeply harmful way. Forgiveness requires creating a narrative that provides a construction on the truth that puts the you spouse’s actions in perspective. This is not for the purpose of excusing your spouse or justifying the actions. Rather, it is to emphasize that something was wrong with your spouse, and that you are in no way responsible for what happened. Hurt people hurt people. Forgiving is facilitated by constructing a narrative about how the person who delivered the wound was acting out of his/her own pain.

Sex addiction and infidelity are rarely about sex. Most often, they are desperate attempts at seeking affirmation. Think back to the stories your spouse told you about growing up. What were his early recollections of interactions with parents, siblings, extended family, and peers? Were there themes of being constructed as weak, inferior, inadequate, or unwanted? If those were the themes, it is likely that the unconscious motivation for your spouse’s infidelity was to prove that those messages were wrong―that your spouse was worthy. While nothing justifies cheating, understanding the factors that predisposed your spouse to being unfaithful places the infidelity in its proper context. Your spouse didn’t cheat on you because there was something wrong or lacking in you; the cheating happened because there was something wrong with your spouse.

Completing the following worksheet helps identify the source of your spouse’s feelings of inadequacy that led to the infidelity.