“She will just keep this hanging over my head. I don’t think she will ever really forgive me.”
-Cheater to pastor
Cheater, focus on YOUR own part!
A wise pastor and Christian counselor will not take this bait to bash the faithful spouse. Instead, he or she will remind the cheater that he only controls his own behavior.
The wise pastor understands the real issue following adultery discovery is NOT whether the faithful spouse is capable of forgiveness for said acts.
The real Issue is whether or not the cheater will repent and thereby save his/her soul from damnation (see Hebrews 10:26-27).
The cheater is still trying to control his or her spouse when they float out the question of their victim’s ability to forgive them. This move needs to be called out and stopped.
It is foolish to take this bait. The cheater does not need reassurances that the faithful spouse will or MUST forgive them.
Rather, the cheater needs a reminder that he or she needs to start working on their own part–namely, repentance.
And I suspect, a cheater floating this idea struggles in believing their victim(s) could forgive them because they are not the “forgiving type” themselves. It may just be yet another cheater projection.
The cheater needs the reminder that he or she does not control their spouses’ response. What they control is their own behavior.
Whether the faithful spouse forgives does not change what the cheater MUST do according to God.
The Bible is clear as to what the cheater’s behavior needs to be right now. It needs to be behavior evidencing a turning away from this lifestyle of sin.
In other words…
Cheater, focus on YOUR own part!
My cheater ex’s goal is to try to make his daughter see why he did what he did. Someday, she will understand. There are certain parts of her brain that haven’t fully developed, he’s told her.
He made her 18th birthday all about him. He unknowingly gave her a card from the romance section, with a drawing of a man groping a woman’s breast and a quote about love.
He gave her a self-help book and wrote blurbs about how finding happiness and forgiving himself is important from the book in her card.
No mention about what a fine wonderful woman she’s grown to be. No mention how proud he is to be her father.
Even the few in person meetings they have had, he chose to make that precious time together all about him and how enlightened he’s become and how she can learn and grow from him.
He spends most of his time telling himself he’s a good person and that he forgives himself (because he’s been an entitled liar for so many years, I expect him to have to forgive himself for the rest of his life). Nevermind repenting or telling others he’s hurt that he’s sorry. No time for that. A narcissist’s happiness is most important.
To me, it’s another blame shifting tactic.
It takes the attention off of them & their need to confess & repent. They are now the victim of the faithful spouse’s unforgiveness …(even when we have made it clear that we want to forgive, help them & work towards reconciliation once they demonstrate Godly sorrow, humble themselves & begin the repentance process.)
DM stikes another chord with this topic. DDay #1 I got “you’ll never forgive me” in a panic melt-down, not “I’m so sorry I did this to you”. Since then, whenever the going gets tough or I hold my ground I hear the same thing. It is a big cop out. “You’ll never forgive me” means I can’t be accountable for my actions. You just need to forgive and forget. “You’ll never forgive me” means I am absolved of doing the work to earn back your trust. You’re the problem because you can’t forgive. “You’ll never forgive me” means the problem is not what I did, but you’re inability to forgive. “You’ll never forgive me” means I can ignore the boundaries and continue damaging behaviors. It means you and our marriage are not worth the effort it might take, and knowing it might fail, so why try. I’ll just let it fail and blame it on you. You’re right on Nyra – another form of blame shifting.