Rebuilding your marriage (3)

You must be willing to forgive the other person. Loving makes you vulnerable. When you give someone your heart, they can break it. A stranger or casual acquaintance could say something that would roll off you like water off a duck’s back. But when your mate says the same thing to you, it can stir up feelings of anger and resentment. No one stays married to anyone without some forgiveness involved. Think about it: your relationship with God involves needing, asking for, and receiving His forgiveness. In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us to say, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Then He explained, “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you” (Matthew 6:12, 14 NKJV). The word trespass simply means “going where you have no right to go.” And we do that to each other in marriage. Familiarity breeds contempt. When you feel continually taken for granted by your mate, it can build up and explode into an argument. Trespassing includes infidelity, among other things. If you don’t practice forgiveness in little things, it makes it much harder to extend and receive grace during the crisis moments. The art of forgiveness requires letting go of perfection and performance and grasping hold of grace and gratitude. When the Bible says that a man must leave his father and mother (including his culture, background, and family language) and be joined to his wife (developing a new culture, background, and family language), they begin to bond together and become one (see Matthew 19:5 NKJV). But this bonding takes a lot of time and work. It also calls for focusing on what’s good in your mate and forgiving the rest.