Forgive… Sounds Good
“Forgive, sounds good. Forget, I'm not sure I could. They say time heals everything, but I'm still waiting. I'm through with doubt, there's nothing left for me to figure out. I've paid a price, and I'll keep paying. I'm not ready to make nice, I'm not ready to back down, I'm still mad as hell, and I don't have time to go 'round and 'round and 'round. It's too late to make it right, I probably wouldn't if I could, cause I'm mad as hell, can't bring myself to do what it is you think I should. I know you said can't you just get over it. It turned my whole world around and I’m still mad as hell.” – The Chicks
Why Forgiveness is So Difficult
By Dejaye Botkin, LPC
There have been thousands of publications written, including the Bible, that tell us we need to forgive to be free. Yet, forgiveness is one of the hardest acts of the ego to perform. When we are betrayed, we have no legal recourse. We rationalize our anger by saying, “They don’t deserve forgiveness. If I forgive, then I am letting them off the hook.” The reality is that “holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die”—quote from Saint Augustine From my experience, either as a survivor or as a therapist, when a person cheats we often go for the jugular of the person who stole our partner. We use words like “homewrecker” and “whore.” However, if we are able to separate ourselves from the emotion, it is our partner to blame—not the paramour. Don’t get me wrong, the paramour is the identified problem for sure, but the underlying cause of the issue is our partner’s inability to stay faithful. In my case, even though I am a therapist and I promote forgiveness as an essential part of healing, I still find forgiveness difficult to practice. My ex-husband’s mistress is an elementary school teacher, the epitome of patience and kindness, right? Ashley knew what she was doing when she slept with my husband and eventually forced him to divorce me. However, my ex-husband was the one who played with fire. He used lies to manipulate and fool us both. He told Ashley that I was crazy and that I didn’t treat him well. He told me that Ashley is a mistake and she doesn’t mean anything to him. The reality is that he believed both of these stories to be true and Ashley and I both wanted to believe them too.
In Greek culture, there is a belief that infidelity in marriage is like a cracked vase. A marriage may appear beautiful on the outside, but will never be the same after it has been cracked. Many relationships do not survive infidelity for the sole reason that after trust is damaged, one does not see the relationship (vase) as a whole or flawless anymore. The betrayed partner only notices the cracks. The deeper the crack in the vase, the more visible the damage becomes to everyone else.
In the case of my ex, regardless of how many times I glued the vase back together after he shattered it (metaphorically speaking), each time he was disloyal, the crack would appear more visible. When my ex tells the story of our break up, he says that I left him. He loves to play the victim card and make himself look like a loving, helpless man who was married to an evil shrew who left him and took everything. What he forgets to mention is that I could no longer stay in a relationship that had so many cracks. I gave him three strikes, and he used them all within less than three years. He used to say, "When you leave me, I am going to Tibet to become a monk." Shortly after I finally did leave, my ex's 'moving to Tibet' plan turned into buying a house with his mistress in Denville, New Jersey. (I am thinking he probably uses this same story with Ashley now because he often recycled many of the lovely things he says to women).
On the final night of our intact marriage, I intercepted a text message from Ashley and when I confronted him about the third strike, he finally admitted he was unfaithful excusing his behavior by saying, "We never had a real relationship anyway!"
After our breakup, I tried all different types of therapists and modalities. Being a therapist myself, it is so difficult to find someone I click with. I vividly remember the one session I had with a therapist in Connecticut. He told me to close my eyes while he put me in a hypnotic state and placed a piece of paper and a pen on my lap. He asked me to picture my body (from head to toe), and told me when I was ready to draw it on the paper, to do so. When I awoke from the hypnotic state, I looked at the paper and there was a figure drawn of my whole body with a huge hold in the middle. I had no idea what that meant or why I would draw that image. My therapist looked at the drawing and said, "That is a perfect image – you feel gutted." He nailed it.
Twelve years later, I still hear the words of the band formerly known as the Dixie Chicks play in my head and I feel the same way,” I'm not ready to make nice, I'm not ready to back down, I'm still mad as hell, and I don't have time to go 'round and 'round and 'round. It's too late to make it right, I probably wouldn't if I could, cause I'm mad as hell, can't bring myself to do what it is you think I should.”
Although the circumstances of my life have changed, my heart was damaged after that breakup causing me severe post-traumatic stress disorder. I am grateful for the lessons that relationship taught me and my empathy for other clients who have been betrayed is at the highest level, but I will never be the same. I recently watched the Netflix series Dr. Foster. I truly loved the way Dr. Foster was able to sabotage her ex-husband’s future by consistently exposing his faults to everyone she knew, including his mistress who became his wife, ultimately breaking up their relationship. However, at the same time, you feel bad for the character. You wonder why she is so preoccupied with redemption and cannot get on with her own life. To that I say, “Unless your world has been shattered by the person who promised you forever, and a stranger who has no shame in disrupting your comfort, you will never understand.” In the movies, or in songs like Carrie Underwood’s song “Before He Cheats,” revenge is easy and entertaining. It serves justice. However, in the real world, destroying someone’s car will only get you arrested. Similar to the Betty Broderick story, she was able to retaliate but it cost her life in prison. So we don’t have a choice, we have to move on and let go. Forgiveness for me is still a work in progress.
