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All that led me to wonder how does forgiveness play a role in our healing as the BS? Does it matter if we forgive — as part of reconciliation?

Are we less happy if we do not forgive?

This is a tough one.

Firstly, thank you to Bigger for relaying your thoughts on changing your mindset from unforgiveness to pity. I found it practical and helpful.

I have long reflected on this subject. I do think that my unforgiveness and its close cousin, bitterness played a part in the failure of our ill fated attempt at reconciliation. It was a poison that tainted everything. How could it not? Fueled by anger, unforgiveness was strong within me.

There are those who say that forgiveness is not necessary for reconciliation, only acceptance. My experience was that unforgiveness and bitterness were a very large impedance both to my healing and to any reconciliation effort. It was part of the toxicity that flooded my soul in the aftermath of betrayal by the two people I trusted the most and trust did not come easily to me in the first place.

There is a concept that helps me with the idea of forgiveness. I do believe that it is necessary for healing ultimately. The concept is that of the past, present and future perfect tense. What I mean by this is that I dont see forgiveness as a moment in time. As a "once and done". I see it as a continious process, as a lifetime series of choices. In that vein, I have forgiven (past), I forgive (present), I will forgive (future). This helps me. Anytime bitter thoughts crop up, I have the option to choose forgiveness in that moment.

And, now I do. I keep choosing to forgive and it has helped me to move on.

[This message edited by DobleTraicion at 1:52 PM, Wednesday, August 27th]

OK ... except that my prejudice is that bitterness does more to obstruct R than lack of forgiveness. Is that your sense? Or do you think lack of forgiveness was a big obstruction, too, in a different way than bitterness was? (Genuine question. Feel free to ignore.)

I would not say that forgiving my W in itself made me happier, though I was definitely happier not dreaming up punishments. The thing is, In the 1.5-2 years between deciding I couldn't come up with a punishment for my W that didn't add to my pain, I had 1.5-2 years more of consistent open, honest, loving behavior from my W. That consistency certainly added to my happiness and to my willingness to forgive. Recovery is more general, rather than specific, cause and effect in my experience. YMMV, which is why I asked DT about his approach and experience.

The article I read this morning defined forgiveness as "the point where you no longer seek revenge even though you could act". I thought this was funny at first but then wondered if this is true.

There are so many definitions of forgiveness on this site alone, which results in people talking past each other all the time.

If you adopt that quote as a definition, then it is true (for you).

A lot of people put a lot of energy into not-forgiving. They keep the not-forgiveness and the resentfulness alive through their thoughts and actions daily. They are wary and alert for any signs of forgiveness, and nip it in the bud.

If the cheating spouse wants forgiveness, then that means they want something from the BS, and that puts the BS in a power position. It is hard to give that up.

There are two concepts that are distinct, but often get mixed up:
1. Can I or do I want to forgive them?
2. Do I want to stay married to them?

It is easier to forgive someone that you are divorcing. First, they are no longer a part of your life, and you can look at them from a detached point of view. Second, your lack of forgiveness no longer is able to manipulate them in a way that it could be before. Energy put into not-forgiving is wasted.

If you don’t want to forgive them, and in fact, you want them to suffer for what they did, the best way to do it is to stay married and make their life miserable.