Rebuilding your marriage (3)

You must be willing to forgive the other person. Loving someone makes you vulnerable. When you give someone your heart, they can break it. A stranger can say something that would roll off you like water off a duck’s back. But if your mate says the same thing to you, it can stir up feelings of anger and resentment. No one stays married to anyone without some forgiveness involved. Think about it: your relationship with God involves needing, asking for, and receiving His forgiveness.

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us to say: ‘Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.’ Then He explained, ‘For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you’ (Matthew 6:12, 14 NKJV). The word ‘trespass’ not only means ‘sin’ it also means ‘going where you have no right to go’. And we do that to each other in marriage. Familiarity breeds contempt. When you feel continually taken for granted by your mate, it can build up and explode into an argument. Trespassing includes infidelity, among other things. If you don’t practise forgiveness in little things, it makes it much harder to extend and receive grace during a crisis. (However, if you are at risk in a relationship, it’s important to get help and be safe.) The art of forgiveness requires letting go of perfection and performance and grabbing hold of grace and gratitude.

When the Bible says that a man must leave his father and mother (including his culture, background, and family language) and be joined to his wife (developing a new culture, background, and family language), they begin to bond together and become one (see Matthew 19:5). But this bonding takes a lot of time and work. It also calls for focusing on what’s good in your mate and forgiving the rest.