One essential part of any relationship is forgiveness. Forgiveness applies most importantly in a marriage, as this relationship provides an opportunity for each party to become most like God. Naturally, we hurt the ones we love the most. We don’t intentionally mean to do that, but it often happens innocently, and sometimes purposely, because we often have high expectations of each other to regard each other’s feelings as priority.
Forgiveness is vital to a marriage’s success because when two entirely different people, raised in different homes and with a difference in learned behaviors, are trying to find unity and harmony, there is always bound to be conflict at some point. Miscommunications happen, misunderstandings occur, and misperceptions will arise. These things are inevitable because no two minds and hearts will think and feel exactly alike. However, unity and compromise can happen if forgiveness is applied, often.
Without getting too personal, there was an occurrence in my marriage several years ago when trust was broken with my spouse. My gut feeling was indicating there was some deception in my husband’s words and actions, but without proof, I mistook it for temptations from the adversary. Later, I would learn it was the warning promptings of the spirit helping me to see and preparing me for what would later occur. Indeed, my husband had done something that deeply hurt me and betrayed my trust. At first, he defended himself and made light of the situation, which made the wedge between us greater. But, as he witnessed my grieving because of his actions, he was humbled and very apologetic. I like to consider myself a forgiving person and I did forgive him for his trespass against me, however it was extremely difficult to forget the hurt and pain I felt. My heart felt trepidation just thinking about the situation and I wasn’t sure I could completely trust my husband in even small situations. Yet, as I included the Lord in our relationship, prayed for understanding, compassion, and a desire to forgive and trust him, gradually through the atonement of Jesus Christ, I found complete forgiveness.
Surprisingly, this empowered and strengthened our relationship. We had a renewed transparency in our marriage and an increased desire to be closer and more effective in our communication. We had improved our communication with one another, allowing the other to fully express emotions, even if they meant expressing pain or hurt caused by the other party. This allowed our love and understanding for each other to grow to greater proportions and made it easier to have forgiveness for the small offenses we would make against each other.
In Goddard’s book, Drawing Heaven Into Your Marriage, he talks about the importance of humility and repentance in a marriage, which is a great representation of forgiveness. He asks, “How do we use repentance to make our marriages stronger? The first step is the humility to know that our perceptions are very limited. We rarely know our partner’s heart or God’s purposes. Then we learn to call on God. Every day. Every hour. Very often our self-sufficiency gets in God’s way. In the spirit of humility, we listen to our partner and we listen to God. We replace despair with an enlarged openness to Christ-like goodness.” (pg. 81)
As we seek to apply the atonement of Jesus Christ in our lives for our own wrong doings, we will be more aware of using the atonement to apply forgiveness for the wrong doings our spouses will perform against us. It’s a beautiful cycle of extending the same mercy God shows unto us unto our spouses. All parties can feel an increase of love and closeness as they overcome the challenges of mortality together. And this is truly the miracle of forgiveness.
Marriage Matters 