How to Forgive Your Spouse
By Ken Robertson, Ph.D.

The Love Boat of Exasperation

Do you remember the day you were married, and you and your fabulous spouse embarked on a new path? In a sense, you boarded your “love boat” headed for eternal bliss.

At first, everything seemed to be smooth sailing. But then, storms hit your ship. However, working together you seemed to come through and survive the first big one.

As the winds calmed down, and the sun appeared once again through the clouds, you appeared to be back on track. But now you feel a strange sense of uneasiness about your progress, and something’s not right. As you attempt to chart your course, you quickly realize that your ship has been going around in circles for the past several days. You haven’t been moving forward at all.

After some exploration, you discover to your dismay that an anchor has been thrown out and tethered to your ship and all you can do is continue to make “one eternal round.” It’s an incredibly heavy anchor, so you decide to take drastic steps. You cut off the anchor line, and sure enough, you’re moving forward again toward your heavenly destination.

The question is: who goofed and weighed down the ship with the anchor? After some investigation you discover to your amazement that it was you!

But why would you do such a foolish thing?

The Anchors that Halt Progress

Anger and resentment are the anchors that keep marriages from moving forward. They weigh us down, prevent us from being reconciled to our spouses, and promote our own selfishness and pride. As part of our “natural man” we succumb to our deeply held desire to justify ourselves by blaming others. Such blaming feeds our ego and drives us to hold grudges and resentment.

On the other hand, we may in fact have been justifiably wronged by our spouse in some way. Either way, we refuse to forgive, holding onto our anger and pain as if we need to feel “one up” on our spouse.

By holding onto anger and resentment, we make it impossible for our spouse to be reconciled to us. This is simply because as long as we fail to forgive, nothing our spouse tries to undo will ever be enough. All attempts to promote the relationship will never satisfy or bring joy to the person who will not forgive because the person who fails to forgive will not allow himself to fully receive such joy from his spouse.

What Does It Mean to Forgive Others?

Forgiveness means putting aside desires for revenge. Instead of simmering with anger, you cool down by placing other, more constructive thoughts about your spouse and your relationship to the forefront of your mind (more about this later). Forgiveness does not mean trusting, but rather a willingness to allow the other person to earn your trust back. It does not mean to forget, but rather to shift your mental focus when dealing with the person (over time this may lead to forgetting, but forgetting is not necessary).

Forgiveness means to open your heart to the Spirit of the Lord, who can help you love and forgive as the Savior loves and forgives others.

The “Forgiveness Reality Check”

If a person has hurt us in some real way, we feel anger and need to seek forgiveness. But sometimes what we experience as “hurt” is not really justified, but caused by our own overreactions. Sometimes we don’t need to forgive others at all; instead we need to face our own insecurities or what I call B.O.O’s – Buttons Of Overreaction.

We take offense unnecessarily, making mountains out of molehills. Elder Bednar, who spoke about the issue of taking offense at the last general conference, said the following:

Before we seek to forgive others, we must first make what I call the “Forgiveness Reality Check.” Seek an honest answer to the question: “I’m I overreacting?” If you can honestly say “no” to this question after a true appraisal of your heart and the situation, then your feelings of hurt and anger are rational, and it’s time to move on to forgive the person who hurt you.

The Four Steps to Forgiving Others

As a psychologist who works with couples, I have seen how anger and resentment can stop couples from moving forward. The most difficult part about this is that people want their pain to be heard and understood. Couples find it hard to move past resentment and grudges, even though they may feel their spouse understands how they’ve been hurt.

I realize that it is important to communicate our hurts and difficulties to each other in a loving relationship, but I also have become convinced that once understanding has occurred, the person who was hurt must begin to seek forgiveness in his heart in order for the relationship to progress positively.

In my experience, I have come to recognize what I believe are four basic steps to forgiving others:

The rest of this article will be devoted to explaining each step.

Step One: Be Proactive

When we make the decision to forgive, we decide that desires for revenge or “justice” will no longer be at the forefront of our minds when we think about the other person. Instead, we will focus on what we can do to prevent the offense from occurring again in a manner that is least disruptive to our relationship.

Anger, which is a signal of injustice, should be transformed into determination and commitment. The key is to discover ways we can reduce the possibility of the offense happening again. Stop focusing on what you feel the offender “owes” you, and focus instead on what you can do to prevent this from reoccurring. The most basic thing you can do is to promote understanding with your spouse (he cannot change what he does not understand).

There may be other things you can do as well to help reduce the likelihood that the offense will happen again. For example, after some honest thought, you might discover that there were things you did that helped the offense occur (for instance, maybe you miscommunicated). In any event, move from feeling to action — from anger to determination. Be proactive.

Step Two: Be Prayerful

It is the Lord who can soften our hearts, so it is important that we come to him in prayer as we seek to find forgiveness for others. Our prayers should focus on two things.

First, we should begin to pray that the person we are angry with will be blessed by God. If we believe that God knows what is best for us all, then we need to trust Him. He has told us that we should “pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” (Matt. 5:44).

Christ-like love has been defined by some as the “desire for another’s best good [as defined by God].” In order for us to feel forgiveness we need to start praying specifically for the person who offended us. Ask that God will grant your spouse blessings and bring him/her the “best good.”

The second thing our prayers should focus on is our own hardened heart. We need to accept that it is our “natural man” that keeps us from forgiving, and that we need the Lord’s Spirit to change our hearts. We need to confess this to the Lord and ask that He will help us to “yield to the enticings of the Holy Spirit” (Mosiah 3:19). We need to pray that God will help us put the anger and resentment aside and focus on treating the our spouse with Christ-like love. Doing so will help us with the next step.

Step Three: Act “As If” Forgiveness is Complete

Acting out of a pure heart is a great thing. But often we must work to get ourselves to a “pure heart” way of being. When we are trying to forgive, we may have mixed feelings — anger one moment, and a desire not to be angry the next. Trying to forgive then, may feel artificial or insincere at first. We cannot let our mixed feelings prevent us from moving forward when we’re trying to forgive. The surest way to overcome insincerity is to repeatedly do that which the heart is not yet fully committed to.

The Lord expects us to show love to everyone. That means we must treat our spouse with common decency and respect (the bare essentials of Christ-like love). We must withhold the nasty comment, the disgusted look, the evil eye, the judgmental and harsh voice. To move to forgiveness, we need to seek to serve our spouse (in ways that do not support mistreatment), and show kindness and gentleness, even if it feels unnatural, hypocritical, or artificial. For many, this may be the hardest step of all. But there is one last step that can prove to be the biggest obstacle.

Step Four: Face Your Own Sins

You must come to the Lord with a repentant heart and consider your own mistreatment of your spouse. This may seem counterintuitive. You may think “It’s not my sins that caused the problem, but my spouse’s sins.” But the issue here is not what caused the problem, but how to forgive your spouse.

In order to gain a soft heart of forgiveness, you must examine the relationship in terms of your own weaknesses. This can be the hardest thing to do, because the “natural man” in each of us is blinded by what I call the “Universal Denial.” Simply put, all of us are in denial of the fact that we can always love another person better. We refuse to examine how we mistreat others. This is particularly true when we are full of anger and resentment towards another, because our focus is on their flaws and their weaknesses.

In the Gospel, we are taught that one of necessary steps of repentance is restitution (trying to restore what was lost or taken because of our sin). I personally believe that the “restitution” step of repentance also includes trying to restore all of our relationships by seeking to forgive others (when we become aware of our grudges). I believe that this is consistent with the words of the Lord’s Prayer when he said: “and forgive us our debts (offenses), as we forgive our debtors (offenders)” (Matt.6:12).

For me, the second principle of the Gospel of Jesus Christ — repentance — must include seeking to forgive others. Repentance and forgiving others are inseparably linked, and one is necessary for the other. Without repentance, there can be no fully experienced forgiveness. Without trying to forgive others, repentance cannot be complete.

As you come before the Lord, consider how you have mistreated your spouse. What things have he/she quietly (or sometimes not so quietly) put up with from you? In what ways have you made the relationship less joyful? Honestly examine yourself, and as you repent, your ability to forgive your spouse will grow by leaps and bounds.

Does it Make a Difference?

If you’re struggling with your spouse, finding forgiveness will help free you up to make changes you need in yourself. That in turn, will create a better environment for change so that your spouse can move in more positive directions as well.

In my own private practice, I have been able to see real joy between spouses grow as they learn how to forgive each other more effectively. If you’re not currently struggling, finding forgiveness is a great (and I believe necessary) factor in preventing real struggles in the future.

And finally, remember the Lord’s promise (Matthew 5:7-9): “Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God.”

What greater joy can there be?