How to Forgive My Spouse for Lying

Throughout my years of counseling, I have had many wives and husbands plead with me to requite them the wordplay to how to forgive their spouses. Many times the reason is that they finger betrayed or tightly hurt by dishonesty, but desire to be reconnected with their spouse in the way they felt before. As I am sitting here, it occurred to me that it would be helpful to provide this information to others I can’t reach through counseling.

When others lie to us, we finger tightly hurt. Lying can rationalization many other problems in marriage as I detailed in this POST. I recognize that this is the reason you are probably reading this blog. Others might think that it should be easy to “get over” a lie. However, many times, lying is chronic and tends to be multiplied in relationships over years. In other words, you have had your spouse lie to you increasingly than just once. The compounded hurt and unravel of trust over time is the reason most people struggle with understanding how to forgive their spouse when they lie.

Forgiving your husband or wife when they are quack is not easy or instant. It takes time, resulting effort on both spouses’ part, and a desire to see your partner for who they are and not through the vision of your hurt. You can forgive your spouse by choosing to forgive your spouse no matter how you feel, knowing who they are despite their behavior, and understanding how love and boundaries work together to subtract remoter pain in the future.

What is forgiveness?

Forgiveness in essence is to stop feeling wrongness toward someone and to release them from owing you something. Many authors have stated that forgiveness is increasingly for the person who is doing the forgiving than for the person who did the hurting.

When you forgive someone’s dishonesty towards you, using this understanding of forgiveness, you are telling yourself that you are releasing your wrongness and resentment toward that person for hurting you.

What does the Bible say well-nigh forgiveness?

Biblically, Jesus says it is important to forgive 70 times 7. That’s a lot of times. You may be asking, “Does that midpoint I have to forgive someone every time they lie to me if they are constantly dishonest?” Unfortunately, this is the wrong question to ask. The wordplay though would substantially be, “Yes!”

However, a largest question would be to ask, “Why should we forgive every time?” The reason is that the Bible says that unforgiveness leads to bitterness and loss or forgiveness from God. We are told we must forgive others so that God will moreover forgive us (Matthew 6:14-15). It turns out there are many other reasons that forgiveness can be beneficial.

Why should I forgive my spouse when they lie?

Understanding forgiveness from a Biblical view, I hope you see that forgiving your spouse is essential to keeping bitterness, anger, and hard-heartedness away! Besides that, losing your connection with God would not be desirable.

A person can protract to hold onto hurts for a long time. It’s easy to stay mad at someone. However, holding onto those hurts can rationalization other issues. Research has shown that health concerns such as stress, tension, depression, anxiety, and other health-related issues can evolve from wrongness and bitterness. Forgiveness will indulge you to release resentment and thus subtract health-related issues, at least to some extent.

Also, when you forgive you put responsibility where responsibility is due. You stop holding the other person hostage and stop taking responsibility to transpiration them. It is not your job to stop your spouse’s dishonesty. It is their job. The longer you stay wrestling and resentful, the less likely they are going to change. There are many reasons why they might be having trouble waffly their behavior, but your wrongness and bitterness might just be one of them.

In short, when you are wrestling and have not forgiven them, they may finger fear, anxiety, and hurt within themselves. These feelings lead to people protecting what they love most, which in turn may lead to remoter dishonesty or hurtful behavior, although it may seem counterintuitive.

How can I forgive my spouse when they lie to me?

I would say there are several factors to alimony in mind when you work through the process of forgiving your spouse. The pursuit would help you forgive your spouse.

Ask your spouse why they lie

When things are calm, I encourage you to ask your significant other why they are stuff dishonest. You may finger like lashing out, yelling, screaming, cursing, or many other wrestling actions, but those behaviors won’t help. Understanding why they lie can help determine what the next steps are and will help in the process of forgiveness. To understand increasingly well-nigh why someone lies, you and your spouse can work through my workbook HERE.

There are many reasons people lie, but until you know the reason, it would be unwise and irresponsible to act in anger, plane though you are hurt. There may be a reason for the lie in your partner’s perspective that seems right to them.

I understand that there are no good reasons to lie. However, in a moment when your partner is making a decision, to tell the truth, or lie, they only have seconds to choose. Their nomination will unchangingly seem logical to them when they only have a split second to make that choice, plane if they know it is wrong.

They are usually trying to segregate between what they believe at the moment is the largest of two not unconfined choices. Later, they may realize that their nomination was not the correct one.

Understand who your spouse is despite their policies and your feelings

Another helpful way to move towards forgiveness is to try to remember and understand your spouse’s personality, heart, and behaviors when they aren’t lying. It’s possible that less than 1% of their policies is dishonest, and 99% is loving, kind, or at least of good nature. Think well-nigh your own choices through this lens.

Do you overly react or make bad choices? Do those choices determine who you are? Do they identify you as a person? By understanding increasingly well-nigh your spouse and focusing less on the policies of dishonesty, you will be less likely to identify them in a negative light and thus be increasingly unshut to forgiving.

Should you pinpoint your spouse by the lie?

I touched on this in the previous answer. I think it is very important to not pinpoint your spouse by their behavior. You would not want people to pinpoint you by your worst or mildest faults. We tend to pinpoint people by their worst behaviors all the time. Unfortunately, we lose out on possible connection, closeness, and enjoyment by doing this.

This focus moreover keeps us in the visionless well-nigh what the real issue is. It’s not lying that is the problem. There is unchangingly increasingly to why the person lied than what is known at the moment. So defining someone by their quack policies keeps you from focusing on the real issues, and keeps you from stuff worldly-wise to forgive someone who needs increasingly understanding from you, despite your pain.

Understand that it is a choice, not an emotion

Dishonesty is a nomination that is painful to those who are lied to, but forgiveness is moreover a choice. You don’t have to “feel like forgiving” to be worldly-wise to forgive. You either segregate to forgive, or you don’t segregate to forgive. It’s pretty simple.

Forgiveness is the visualization to not hold onto the hurt and stay wrestling or resentful anymore. It’s the visualization to not require justice for the wrong washed-up to you.

Now I know that is a nonflexible choice, but knowing that it is a nomination and not a feeling, makes forgiving easier. You CAN forgive, but you may not finger like forgiving.

Are there times when you don’t finger like doing things, but you do them anyways? I don’t finger like going to work some days, but going to work is a unconfined thing in many ways and would be the weightier decision, unless I am truly sick, of course. Don’t let feelings dictate your nomination to forgive and self-ruling yourself from bitterness and resentment. It will only be hurting you, not your spouse, in the end.

Weigh the financing and benefits

Forgiveness has benefits and costs. Let’s talk well-nigh some of them. The financing of forgiving your spouse might be unfurled hurt, feeling like they got yonder with their negative behavior, or them not waffly their policies considering you didn’t hold them subject with your anger. These are all possible financing of forgiveness. There might be others.

Some of the possible benefits are self-rule from bitterness and negative feelings, the possibility of healing sooner than if you don’t forgive, and the opportunity for deeper understanding, growth, and connection with your spouse. Also, if you forgive in the right way, with love, you may plane see changes and remorse in your spouse.

True remorse by someone who has hurt their spouse has been stated to be one of the 2 things that help in the healing process of treachery per Dave Carder in his typesetting Torn Asunder: Recovering From an Extramarital Affair. Trammels it out HERE on Amazon.

Set healthy boundaries

When a spouse does hurtful things, it is important to communicate with them well-nigh your pain and your needs. You can work on healthy and unscratched liaison by getting my workbook HERE. However, when you communicate your concerns, you want to be worldly-wise to talk to them well-nigh rules and boundaries.

Rules and boundaries will protect you and alimony the relationship healthy. Sometimes that entails strict boundaries and consequences for breaking those boundaries. You need to finger unscratched if you are going to rebuild trust, affection, and love.

By setting healthy boundaries and having your partner stipulate to them, you will create a safer undercurrent in which to forgive your spouse. Safety is important to finger as if you can move forward and heal in the relationship.

Choose love

Choosing to love your spouse despite their policies is probably the weightier way to forgive. When you segregate to love, you are deciding to do the previous 6 things discussed. You are moreover working on patience, kindness, keeping no records of wrongs, demonstrating grace, and all the other things discussed in 1 Corinthians 13.

You are choosing to indulge God to judge and not yourself. By releasing justice to God, you increase your worthiness to do what you were made to do, to love freely and deeply. Love does not grow without hurt at times.

When we love others for who they are based on who God created them to be, then it becomes easier to forgive. It’s not our place to judge. It’s our place to love. To love others into growth and greatness!

Conclusion

As a marriage and family therapist, I work all day to love others into the weightier version of themselves. I encourage you to do that with your spouse. You can only do that if you segregate to forgive others. You must requite God the hurt and pain. You must let him be the judge. Indulge yourself to see how he can work through your nomination to forgive, despite the pain. Healing is flipside subject I talk well-nigh in my post well-nigh rebuilding trust, but forgiveness is part of the process and helps you get one step closer to healing.

I hope that this has been helpful. I have given you information that you can go when to when you need it. If you have any remoter questions or need help, please email me or trammels out some of my other BLOG POSTS.