This is one of my favorite definitions of forgiveness.

I don't know about you, but I don't think there is anything easy about forgiveness.

Neither the betrayed or unfaithful spouse can get very far into the recovery process without having to confront this issue. For the betrayed, they must choose to ultimately offer forgiveness for what seems unforgiveable. But what does a betrayed spouse do when they keep getting hurt? How do you forgive when someone seems to care less about you?

For the unfaithful (and that would be me), forgiveness gets pretty complicated because it requires me to look in the mirror. I have to choose to face all of the seemingly "unforgiveable" things I have done and said and ultimately choose to forgive myself.

I personally found the biggest stumbling block to my own forgiveness has been pride.

It took a long time (almost two years) for my husband to forgive what I have done to our marriage. He admits to me he has always wrestled with his pride. Pride told him that he did not deserve what was done to him. Pride also told him he shouldn't forgive me, because there was to be no guarantee I wouldn't do this again. Pride told him that he had a right to hold onto his anger and make me pay for what I had done. It was only God who quietly kept asking him to exchange his pride for forgiveness.

It has taken equally as long for me to accept and believe his gift of forgiveness. I first have had to forgive myself. Which looking at what I had done, seemed impossible. Because I have to admit, when I first started to accept the reality of the awfulness of my choices, all I wanted to do was run and hide. Shame was my ammunition to fight pride. It took a lot of months for the fog to lift and once I became curious about my own actions instead of judgmental towards them. Once I started to let go of some of the self-hatred, I was able to see and release myself all of those things I had actually been running from for so many years. Pride was the ugly little voice that kept whispering lies that I was somehow better than what I had done. Pride was behind the mask of my pretending.

Both the unfaithful and betrayed will wrestle deeply with pride. I think to be human is to be prideful. And I once heard, if you have no idea what your faults are, it is likely pride.

Like a cancer, pride can be a secret, destructive force that slowly eats away at our relationships…whether we stay married, we are separated or end up divorced. Pride is the ugly, silent, contemptuous whisper that says "I am really better than you because..."

One of the reasons I can't wait to meet Jesus face to face someday is that I am fascinated by the idea that we will get to encounter someone that has absolutely zero pride and ego.

And another reason I can't wait to meet Him is that He is able to offer complete forgiveness. Scripture tells us that God is able to look at us and not remember our sins at all. He doesn't see them. While I thank God for that, it is unfathomable to me because as mere mortals, we each have this thing called a memory. We have all heard that you can forgive, but you can't forget.

Which is why one of the most helpful concepts I have learned of late has been the idea of "redemptive forgiveness". And this is the idea that we can (and must) simultaneously acknowledge what happened AND forgive. The memory of our affairs, the turmoil, the aftermath and the pain will always be with us. For all of us reading articles like these, infidelity is likely one of the most devastating things we will ever face in our lifetimes.

Only when I am able to forgive myself, I can say "never again to I want to be in such pain and agony nor cause such pain and agony". Therefore, I choose to offer forgiveness of self AND receive my husband's gift of forgiveness. Today I am really grateful for that gift.

Elizabeth