Has anyone successfully managed to forgive their spouse for cheating?

Question

I was just wondering if anyone had a spouse who had an affair and he or she decided to forgive, and how they are doing now? How long ago was it? Do they truly feel they are 'over it' now or does it still haunt them? Or are they basically doing okay, but still have moments of pain? My husband and I have and are going through counselling, our marriage is much, much better than it was before, and generally we're doing alright. But things come up between us still sometimes and it's so painful for me, it's hard to bear. It's been about a year and a half. I was just wondering how other people have coped with it.

Answer 1

My *now ex* husband had an emotional/cyber affair with his brothers *now ex* wife (as well as physical 2x, we lived over 1k miles from each other, otherwise it would have happened more, I'm certain) about 5 years into our 11 yr marriage and 13 yr relationship. It cut me to the bone and I never forgot, but 3 yrs later I had really forgiven and was moving on, although occasionally pissed off and sad. I could not completely avoid her, you see, her son is only 6 weeks older than my son, and is his only cousin so far, so traveling back to his home town meant being around her.

Unfortunately for me, right when I was getting past it and our relationship was improving I found out about another emotional and physical affair he had had in the first year of our marrige. We remained married for 4 years after I found out about the second one, but it was the beginning of the end. One I could and did forgive, but the second hurt me too much and it was pretty much the death knoll.

BTW, you won't forget. There will always be things which set you off, certain songs, movies you watched at that point in time, etc......but if you truly love him and you are both committed you CAN move past this. I'm glad he was open to counselling, that was part of the problem in my marriage--my ex would admit there were problems, but being a military officer refused to get help, telling me it would ruin his career.

Answer 2

Ok, what in the world is "emotional cheating"? Really, I don't ask that to be harsh, I just really really don't understand what that would be. He is having an affair with anger? He enjoys long moonlit walks with fear? Either he cheated or he didn't cheat. If he didn't cheat with someone but was simply emotionally distant with you, well that's not good but it is repairable and just means the two of you need to pay more attention to each other. If you mean he cheated with someone else and had an affair but didn't technically have intercourse, well that's still cheating and still hurtful. And to answer your question, yes you can forgive infidelity. You can even save your marriage and return to a state of wedded bliss where both of you are happy. But forgiveness doesn't always equal 'forget and act like it never happened'. It requires that the spouse who cheated recognizes the great damage he or she has done, is truly repentant, and willing to work to re-establish trust in the relationship. Otherwise you may not be able to save your marriage. But even if you end up sundering your marriage, remember that at some point in the future, a healthy person will forgive. Forgiveness is better for the forgiver than for the person being forgiven. I really believe that if you don't forgive something, you are simply holding onto pain, anger and resentment (and none of those things every made anyone happy).

Answer 3

Yes. My ex-husband cheated on me. I was eventually able to forgive him, but I never forgot it. Certain things would come up that would remind me of what he had done. I think I always held resentment in some way. We never had counseling for it though, which is a good idea. I think you will be able to get past it if you two really love each other and he is genuinely sorry for what happened. Trust is hard to rebuild and I don't know if it ever comes back 100%, it didn't for me. If this continues to hurt you then I don't know if it can be worked out for you. A year and a half is a long time to still be hurting over it. Is it once in a blue moon or all the time? I think you will always hurt from time to time, but if you hold resentment to a point to where it causes problems then you need to rethink everything and weigh your pros and cons.

Answer 4

Hello, well for me and my husband we have been together for 6 yrs and we both cheated on each other me more than him.. it was hard at first to understand all the pain and hurt we put each other thru.. i know this may not be what u want to hear but God is what has brought us through it. i learned from reading the bible that God says to forgive because we have done nameless things that only God has seen and he stills forgives us if we ask..The thing was having a personal relationship with God has helped me so much to forgive my husband we truly have started a new chapter in our marriage. We don't bring up the past and if it comes up in my mind i ask GOd to help to no dwell on it and move on... God Bless and pray God knows your every need...

Answer 5

well its not my husband but my bf for 6 years. u can always forgive but never forget thats the problem if u really want things to work u have to try and try not to bring them up cuz if u keep bringing it up it just going to start trouble. it hurts real bad to think that some one u love so much can do that to u but what can u do it the past. all u can do now is hope and pray it dont happen again. the best advice i can give is try to think about all the good and not the bad! good luck

Answer 6

as the saying goes 'its easy to forgive but hard to forget!', in marriage before you say enoguh, do your best to save it. since you're on your way to marriage recovery try not to dwell on the past. pray that wounds would heal and hearts would melt again from the love you've shared and sharing still with your hubby.

Answer 7

If the spouse stops cheating.