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Forgiveness Here is a really interesting story. The author, Carlos Cuauhtémoc Sánchez, in his book La Ultima Oportunidad, illustrates this story. There was a man whose marriage crumbled because he was unfaithful to his wife. The man went through a whole spectrum of emotions, but when he finally realized what a huge mistake he had made, he went back to his wounded wife. She had heard about his infidelity weeks before, and when he came back to ask for forgiveness, she had already made a decision. She told her husband that an infidelity was simply something she could not forgive. She informed him that because of the well-being of their three children, they would continue living under the same roof, but that their relationship would most definitely not be the same. From that point on she denied him any physical contact and made their marriage very difficult. In family dinners and get togethers with friends, she would make fun of him and humiliate him. Time kept passing them by and life in their marriage was infernal. As the years passed, their children married, and they found themselves alone, just the two of them. The wife felt alone and nostalgic and one day she said to her husband: “Do you remember when you where unfaithful to me? I have decided to forgive you!” The husband laughed and said: “No thank you, you can no longer forgive me; I have endured humiliations, insults, jokes and disdain because of my mistake. I accepted it because I knew I deserved it. However now, you can’t forgive me simply because I have already paid for my blunder!” Forgiveness is like a scar that becomes prettier over time. It is an undeserved gift that, much like love, cannot be a made into a prize. Forgiving is the only way that we can extract the venom that perhaps someone else has injected into our lives but only manages to harm or hurt us. You are not doing someone else a favor by forgiving them, you are helping yourself. When hate grows deep roots within your being, undesired grief invades you, but when you sincerely forgive, you obtain immeasurable peace. You are not punishing nor benefiting the aggressor with hate or forgiveness; you are punishing or rewarding yourself. In Renovación Conyugal we have seen many times the miracles that forgiving someone can generate. One of our volunteers, whose husband was unfaithful several years back, says that she began to be truly happy again and her marriage was happier than ever, when she decided to be happy and to forgive her husband. Difficulties in a couple, knowing how to approach them, make that couple stronger and better. Marriages that have learned how to confront crisis, come out of them strengthened. How many couples live years of unhappiness and in an unbearable environment because they have not made the choice to forgive? Forgiveness has some very specific conditions so that someone can reap the benefits from it. We will talk about that topic in our workshop in the conferences of: “Spiritual Divorce, Adultery and Forgiveness”. If you feel that the worm of resentment has been lodged in your heart, and you feel incapable of forgiving your spouse, we encourage you to invest a little bit of your time with us at “Renovación Conyugal”.
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