How to Forgive Your Spouse? 6 Easy Steps
Forgiveness can be difficult when it's someone as close as your spouse. Whatever the reason for your own or your mutual anger, the hurt is greatly magnified. So how do you move beyond the pain and get started on the path of rebuilding trust?
Here are 6 steps that can help to get you there and maybe even to functioning better than you did as a couple before.
1. Spend Time Together
It sounds like a no-brainer but it's very important. Take lots of personal time together. Share a picnic or maybe even a hot bath. Take a trip somewhere and try new foods and experience new cultures. This will help to remind each of you why you got together in the first place.
2. Appreciate Each Other
Each of you has admirable habits or traits. Every person is unique and in a couple's dynamic, each has some important things that they bring to the table. Maybe one of you is the patient one. The other might be good with numbers. Try to compliment each other on these things whenever you can and when you truly mean it. People want to feel appreciated and this can help to bring you close again.
3. Team-Two!
Check in with each other when you can during the week and start to make a habit of it. Use this time to compare notes about each other's days and to see what you'd like to do in the evening. This doesn't have to be a long amount of time, even a quick hello to show you care and to make sure that you are on the same page can go a long way to building a couple's synergy. Think of it as a team meeting for two!
4. Work Together
In step 2, we talked about recognizing each other's skills and traits and complimenting them. Are you using them to your advantage? One of the best advantages a married couple has is that it's no longer one person against the world. Organize the things you have to do to meet your mutual goals according to the skills that you both have. Make sure that the work load is even, of course, and work towards your future together.
5. Symbolically, Let it go
Take an evening and write each of your grievances on a piece of paper. Make them as non-accusatory as possible. Then each of you read what the other has written and repeat it back in your own words to show understanding. Once you know the other understands, tear up or even burn the papers and put those problems symbolically behind you.
6. Remember to Say 'I Love You'
Hey, we said these steps are simple, right? People never say it enough, so don't forget to make sure that each of you knows that they are loved and appreciated. The three simple words can make all the difference.
We hope that you will use these simple steps to help yourselves in moving beyond those times of anger and disappointment and into the empowering stage of forgiveness.
As Alexander Pope said, 'To err is human, to forgive is divine.'
