How to Forgive in an Uncertain WorldFrom: Dr. Frank Gunzburg One of the biggest questions you face on your road to forgiveness is how you can move forward when you are afraid your partner might do the same thing in the future. You want to know that your partner won’t ever do anything like what he or she did to betray you before you are fully ready to forgive. You don’t want to be hurt again. You don’t want to be made to feel like a fool again. And you definitely don’t want to compound your own grief by forgiving and finding out it was all a lie. What you want is some assurance that your partner will never ever do what he or she did again. You want rock solid proof before you are willing to truly let go. On the one hand, let me tell you that in my office I always preface any statement about someone’s truthfulness, authenticity, or predictions about future behavior with, “I don’t vouch for anyone in here and I am an inaccurate lie detector.” In fact, studies of people in positions of having to determine someone’s veracity such as judges and police officers show that we are notoriously error-prone – not significantly better than chance. On the other hand, I understand why you would want this kind of assurance and why it feels like it is necessary to get some assurance before you can truly move on and forgive. However, I want to be honest and up front with you about one point. It won't be comfortable to hear, but it’s the truth:
There are actions your spouse can take that can help you improve your confidence. There are ways you can become more confident that the same thing won’t happen again. But as the old saying goes, there are no absolutes in this life except death and taxes. You simply can’t be positive, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that your partner won’t make the same mistake again. The truth is that he or she might. You simply can’t know for sure. But that doesn’t make you a “fool.” Remember, even people who are supposed to be “experts” in telling whether somebody is lying can’t accurately tell when someone is lying. I’m in the same situation. If somebody comes in to see me and tells me a story about how they have done x, y, and z, I don’t know if they’re telling the truth or not. I simply can’t tell for sure. I might believe them, or I might not. But I can’t be certain one way or the other. I was seeing a couple one time who were recovering from infidelity. They seemed to be making good progress. The person who cheated said, and re-enforced in a private session, that he wasn’t seeing the paramour anymore. They were doing a lot of exercises like the ones you have learned in this guide. And I thought they were making good progress. If I had to place a bet, I would have bet he was telling the truth. Then one day, the cheater missed one of his private appointments. Later, his wife came in to see me and told me that he had been lying all along. He still had the paramour on the side, and he was going through therapy with his wife as a way to appease her. He wanted to keep both relationships and was pulling the wool over everybody’s eyes so he could do that. This was the final straw for his wife, and they finally split up. On the other hand, I have seen a lot of cases where the offender makes substantial internal character changes, does the work necessary to repair the relationship, tells the truth, and the couple goes on to build a marriage that was stronger and happier than it was before the offense. I am telling you all of this because I want you to understand that even though you can’t have any absolute assurance that your partner won’t do the same misbehavior again, that doesn’t make you a fool. You aren’t a fool for wanting to work things out, and you aren’t a fool for having trusted your partner while he or she was lying to you. Even “experts” are not accurate at telling when someone is lying. You can’t expect yourself to be better than an “expert.” I also tell you this because I want you to know that while there is no way for you to be 100% certain that your spouse won’t do the same thing again, there is still hope for your marriage, there is still a way for you to move further down your path to forgiveness, and there are ways you can become more confident that your partner won’t betray you again. Dr. Frank Gunzburg is a licensed counselor in Maryland and has been specializing is helping couples restore their marriage for over 30 years. For more information about forgiving your partner and working through the past, please visit http://www.howyouforgive.com/ |