Why You Must Find Forgiveness In Marriage
Forgiveness is an essential part of marriage for many reasons. Why? Because the impacts of NOT forgiving in your marital relationship have far-reaching consequences. The same is true in all relationships by the way. To forgive your spouse is to let go of an offense and release it to God. A very important clarification here, forgiveness is not ignoring and repressing your pain, shoving an issue under the rug and pretending it never happened.
Rather, with forgiveness, you:
1) feel the pain of the offense,
2) express your feelings to your spouse,
3) share your fears and emotions that resulted from the offense,
4) ask God for help releasing the offense, and
5) express your choice to forgive.
This is unbelievably freeing, both individually, and within your marriage.
For me personally, forgiving a serious offense is rarely something I can do naturally. I have to surrender it to God and ask Him to supernaturally help me forgive. Often times, people try to forgive on their own yet find themselves constantly thinking about the offense or needing to “forgive again.” This is usually an indication that you never truly forgave, or you never actually healed from the pain of what hurt you. This is when it’s imperative to go before God and ask for His help with healing and releasing it.
Dangers of Unforgiveness
What happens when you don’t forgive? The result is bitterness, resentment, a decrease in positive and loving feelings, a lack of trust, desires for revenge, and more harsh reactions. A marriage cannot survive, let alone thrive, these conditions.
In Ephesians 4:31-32 we are told “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
Kind. Tender-hearted. Forgiving. Is this how you are being toward your spouse right now? If not, perhaps you’ve been hurt and have not yet healed and forgiven. You will notice this verse points out the opposite of forgiveness: bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander, malice. These are harsh and biting words, which also serve as warnings of what takes place in a marriage that lacks forgiveness.
A very important thing to note: yes, we are called to continually forgive, as Jesus mentioned in Matthew 18, but this does not mean to ignore repeated offenses. If your spouse is repeatedly hurting you in the same way this is a huge indication of a deeper issue that needs to be addressed. Sometimes we can be guilty of using God’s Word to get out of dealing with difficult things. I’ve heard many people say things like “oh, I can’t talk about that because I have to forgive” regarding a painful offense. Avoidance is often lot easier than facing something painful, but that is NOT what’s best for our marriages. Instead, we are called to have courage; face the offense, heal, forgive, and take steps for healthy change.
Think for a moment about your relationship with God. What if you believed He did NOT forgive you for your sins? How would you feel about Him, and what might you believe He felt about you? Would this impact the way you connected with Him? For me, this would cause significant impact. I know without God’s forgiveness I couldn’t even approach Him, and I would be undeserving of His love and presence. The same is true in marriage.
When I haven’t forgiven my husband for something I feel unloving and less interested in being around him. And when it seems he isn’t forgiving me for something, I feel unworthy of being around him and less loved. When there is forgiveness everything changes. In our relationship with God. With our spouse. With others.
How to Find Forgiveness
So what to do? It could be that you can easily identify things you need to forgive your spouse for and heal from. But sometimes these things are hidden beneath the surface. If you sense bitterness or any negativity toward your spouse and you’re not sure why, set aside some time to pray and ask God to reveal what’s going on. Ask Him to show you if there is something you have not dealt with, then ask Him for the courage and strength to heal and forgive. He will help you, I promise.
Sometimes you might not want to forgive. It might feel good to be angry and to seek revenge against your spouse. Understand that in doing this your marriage will suffer and so will you. There is a reason God requires that we forgive. First and foremost, we forgive because He forgave us.
Additionally, unforgiveness has a negative effect on a person emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Bitterness and anger open the door to the devil and bring about spiritual vulnerability. Trust me on that. I have personally helped people who were dealing with spiritual oppression that linked back to bitterness and resentment. After forgiveness took place, there was spiritual freedom. Back in Ephesians 4 we are warned to not give the devil place in our lives through bitterness and anger.
If we really think about it, we’ve all caused those we love pain, we ALL need forgiveness. This is a gift we both give and receive, a gift that changes people and relationships for the better.
Unforgiveness will keep you and your marriage in chains. Forgiveness does the opposite.
I encourage you today to choose to give the gift of forgiveness to your spouse so your marriage can be free to be what it’s meant to be and so you can fully love your spouse the way God intended you to. The way Jesus loves you.