Forgiveness and acceptance: keys to a great marriage
If you’ve lived in the same house for years, you probably have a lot in storage. No matter how well packaged it is, anything you haven’t used for over a year is probably a burden rather than a blessing. Similarly, you likely have old things hidden in the corners of your marriage. It’s wonderful to dust off your great memories to remember and enjoy, but what about old resentments and perceived affronts?
Forgiveness is essential to a great marriage. The longer you’ve lived together, the more important is that they don’t build up resentments that tempt you to turn to them in times of disagreement. Vow to keep disagreements limited to the current topic. Avoid sentences that begin, “You always …” or “You never …”, such as “You never remember my birthday.” If something happened a long time ago, forgive and forget. Even if it happened yesterday, consider granting forgiveness for yourself and your partner. Forgiveness is especially a blessing to the person who forgives.
Let today be the day you do an emotional cleanse of your marriage. Gather up all your old emotional baggage and throw it away. Unlike your grandmother’s wedding dress, your leftover emotions are of no value to anyone. Better yet, hold a fire ceremony, either alone or with your loved one. Write each past wound on a small piece of paper and release your attachment to that emotion as you feed the paper to the cleansing fire.
What could be better than forgiving your partner? For forgiveness to be necessary, there must have been a perceived offense that triggered feelings of resentment and anger, but imagine never getting angry or resentful in the first place. Suppose you simply accept all of your partner’s actions. In the presence of acceptance, there can never be resentment or anger, and therefore there is no need for forgiveness.
Your reaction is likely to be, “But he did something wrong. She hurt me. It’s her fault. She made me mad.” Hmmmm … Can anyone really MAKE me mad? I do not think so. We get angry when someone acts in a way that conflicts with the way we prefer them to behave, nothing more.
Should you accept your partner’s behavior? If your actions are violent or threatening, certainly not. If you feel in danger or even generally unhappy with your marriage, consider ending it. But in the context of a generally happy marriage, accepting your partner exactly as they are is a recipe for creating an even stronger and happier connection.
Consider being more receptive to your partner’s behaviors. It is unlikely that they are intentionally aggravating you. Most of the time, they are simply doing what they think they should do. Try to set your own rules about how they should behave and adopt a live and let live attitude. Your marriage will become stronger and happier if you do.