Marriage and Intimacy Tips for Christian Couples: Secrets of Happily Ever After
Have you ever wondered what makes the difference between those couples who absolutely LOVE to be together and the ones who merely tolorate each other in their old age? I always want to run up to the cute old couples who still hold hands while walking down the street and ask them all their secrets to relationship success. This podcast gives me the opportunity to do just that!
I'm Monica Tanner, wife to a super hunky man, mom to 4 kids, weekly podcaster and relationship and intimacy expert/enthusiast. I help couples ditch the resentment and roommate syndrome and increase communication, connection and commitment, so they can write and live out their happily ever after love story. If that sounds like something you want, this podcast is absolutely for YOU!
Each week, I'm teasing out the principles that keep couples hopelessly devoted and intoxicatingly in love with each other for a lifetime and beyond. I'm searching high and low for the secrets of happily ever after and sharing those secrets with you right here. Sound marriage advice for couples who want to live happily ever after and achieve a truly intimate friendship, because an awesome marriage makes life so much sweeter. Let's get to it!
Marriage and Intimacy Tips for Christian Couples: Secrets of Happily Ever After
How Do You Forgive When It’s Hard? A Path to Healing
This episode sheds light on the often challenging journey of forgiveness in relationships. Understanding how to forgive is crucial for moving forward after betrayal or hurt.
• Exploring the emotional journey of betrayal in relationships
• Importance of understanding personal willingness in forgiveness
• Discussing the withholding dynamic in relationships
• Actionable steps to effectively communicate needs for healing
• Viewing forgiveness as an act of personal freedom
• Encouragement to seek professional help if necessary
If you’re struggling with issues of trust and forgiveness in your relationship, please reach out for support. You can book a complimentary relationship breakthrough call here: https://tidycal.com/onthebrightersideoflife/call
Hello and welcome to the Secrets of Happily Ever After podcast. I'm your host, Monica Tanner, with my co-host, Nate Bagley, and last week we talked about breaches of trust and how to handle that if you have caused your partner pain in some way, big or small, and this week we want to talk about if you are the partner who has been hurt, how do you find it within yourself to forgive, even when it's really difficult?
Speaker 2:Amazing.
Speaker 1:And I'll just kind of summarize, If you haven't listened to last week's episode Nate and I did a role play, a scenario where Nate made a really bad error and he lied about where he was and we went through an entire role play where he apologized, he took responsibility for uh, for what his actions.
Speaker 1:He um did his best to understand my experience and why it would be hurtful to me. And then we worked together and he didn't expect me to just forgive him immediately. And then we worked together and he didn't expect me to just forgive him immediately. And then we worked together on some sort of way that he promised me it wouldn't happen again, like things that I could do, you know, whether it's to track his location or whatever how we could work so that I could rebuild that trust. And on this week's episode, what we want to talk about is when you've been hurt by your partner, which inevitably will happen in a long-term committed relationship they're going to make mistakes, they're going to do things, and how do we find it within ourselves to forgive, even when they're taking full responsibility, or maybe they're not, maybe they're not doing all of the great things that Nate exemplified, and we still want to forgive our partner. How do we do that?
Speaker 2:side that we talked about in our previous episode. A lot in the relationship world it's like how do you clean up your mess? How do you be responsible? How do you you know? How do you, how do you step up your game and make, make something right that you made wrong? We put a lot of focus on the person who is who has screwed up, needing to rectify their ways. But I've seen it over and over and over again If you don't, if the other person who's been hurt doesn't have a clear path to forgive, what happens is you.
Speaker 2:Um, you get stuck in this constant state of anticipation, of waiting for the other shoe to drop. It feels like your relationship, you're in your relationship. You're just holding your breath, you're waiting for that partner to screw up again. You're like trying to will yourself into intimacy, but you're also just kind of constantly terrified that the thing that your partner did that hurt you, that that you're going to find out tomorrow or next week or next year that they're right back to doing that thing again, that they've or they've made another similar choice that's going to blind sides you and sends you back into that space of betrayal and hurt and sadness and distrust, and that's a scary thought and that is not a place for a marriage to be, where you have one person who is sincere and wants to be forgiven and the other person who's just holding their breath and they might even verbally say I forgive you, but if it's not meant like that, it's an icky place for both people to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and another piece of this that we talk about in relational life therapy, which is the program that I just finished, is we call this transmission reception work. So, whether it's a betrayal, or even just when you're working in therapy, when partner A starts giving partner B what they've asked for, a lot of times partner B will start to and work with partner B on receiving what is given. So, whether that requires forgiveness or that just requires accepting the offering that partner A is giving, it's really really, really important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've seen partner B often go to a place of like you haven't suffered enough, like I need to make you suffer longer. You need to be in the penalty box for for a longer period of time because hurt me and you need to feel that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't, yeah, and and and. That can be like when you're keeping score of of pain. That can be really um, that can prohibit both of your enjoyment of the marriage. And it's like how long are you going to keep your partner in jail before you set them free to be part of the relationship again? And like the dynamic and this happens a lot in marriage where when you feel like you're right, you go into a one-up position, a position of superiority grandiosity is another word that gets used a lot and whenever you do that, you immediately put your partner in a one down position, an inferior position, and nobody wants to be in a relationship where they feel like the other partner is just. This always has the moral high ground and they're always the one who's wrong and bad and mistaken and in the wrong. That's not a fun place to be.
Speaker 1:And the problem with grandiosity, any type of grandiosity, is it feels, so good it feels good to ride in the one-up position, so it's hard to get the partner who's gone one-up to come down because it feels good up there.
Speaker 2:It does feel really good up there. It feels justified, it feels very like I'm the good person and you're the bad person. It feels good to be the good person and I think it's just important to note that it is just as possible for the person who made the mistake and broke the trust in the first place that could end the relationship. That could end the relationship. But it's just as likely for the person who refuses to forgive and demands that their partner remain in jail for the rest of their marriage to end the relationship. It's just as possible.
Speaker 2:And it may not be like actually ending up in divorce or a breakup. It might just be like this is the end of the relationship as we knew it. We're never going to get out of this place where you're never going to trust me again and we're just going to be roommates. We're going to be stuck. We're going to be like we're not going to have that passion, that connection ever again, because you won't allow for it. You can't let go of what happened in the past and that type of ending the relationship is very, is very real and very present in a lot of relationships. So let's talk about how to not get stuck there.
Speaker 1:Exactly Because I just want to bring this out. You kind of said it, but the partner that is in unforgiveness, the partner that's having a hard time forgive, is often very withholding, and so that's a very-.
Speaker 2:Say more about withholding.
Speaker 1:So emotionally, physically, sexually withholding. So if I can't forgive you for something that you've done, I wanna withhold love from you. I wanna withhold attention. I'm not gonna-.
Speaker 2:You don't deserve it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not gonna follow your bids. I'm not gonna let you. I'm not gonna wanna be intimate with you. I'm not gonna want to do things for you. I'm not going to let you. I'm not going to want to be intimate with you. I'm not going to want to do things for you. I'm not going to be generous, right? So that's a very withholding position.
Speaker 2:It's a very contemptuous place to be.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly. So, one up, one down, both carry a lot of contempt, but it's just is the contempt turn outwards or is the contempt inwards? And so if you're riding in the one up position and you're feeling grandiose and you're withholding from your partner, it feels good, it feels, like you said, justified, and so today we want to talk about how do you come down, how do you forgive your partner?
Speaker 2:You want to know where I would suggest you start. Yeah, um, there is this. Uh, I want to give the person credit, alison Armstrong. Um, I'm going to read you the quote and then I'm going to explain what it means she says if you are not willing to be healed, the chances of you being healed by accident are slim.
Speaker 1:Um.
Speaker 2:And the word willing is something that she really hammers home in her workshop that I attended or listened to. I can't remember where I heard this, but I wrote it down and it really stuck with me. If you're not willing to be healed, the likelihood of it happening by accident is slim. So when she uses the word willing, she clarifies she's like. Willing does not mean like oh, I'm open to it. If it happens, like oh, if it occurs and it takes me by surprise, I'll roll with it, like I'll accept it. She said willing in this context means you are engaging your will, you are going to will something to happen. Like think about I don't know, like when is the time in your life? Can you think of a time, monica, where you're like I'm going to, this is going to happen, whether it doesn't matter what anybody else wants, I'm going to will this into existence, I'm going to will this into happening. Can you think of a time in your life where you've willed something?
Speaker 1:Wow, that was like that. I mean, I can think of times when, yeah, when I needed to get back in shape, when I needed to rehab, like my knee or something like that. And you know, like I remember a time in high school when I tore my ACL. It was my senior year, I tore it very beginning of my soccer season and I was bound and determined. Nobody was going to stop me not the doctors, not my parents, not anyone who would tell me that I couldn't rehab my knee and be back for the state tournament Right, and I did yes.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Bound and determined Nobody's going to stop me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Ain't nothing getting in my way? No excuses, this is happening. That is what what she means by willing in this context. So you're not going to get healed by accident. So there has to come a point in your, in your, in this process, where you're like I'm done. I'm done making my partner suffer for the choice that they made, over and over and over again, I'm done holding this over their head. I'm done like getting, like feeling resentful and hurt.
Speaker 1:Yes, so that's so important. Let me make one distinction before we go into this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:You can't forgive what's still going on.
Speaker 2:Oh, for sure.
Speaker 1:So you have to be at a point.
Speaker 2:You have to have some evidence.
Speaker 1:Yes, where the breaches of trust or whatever is causing you to be hurt by your partner has stopped Like you have like, if. If your partner continues to do the same behavior over and, over and over again, that hurts you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You've got to get some help.
Speaker 2:Well, let's use let's. Let's use a. Let's go back to the example that we used in the last episode. So I know you recapped it really quick, but like, let's say you know I had I. I told you I was going to stay at work and then I ended up going out with my friends drinking. I came home the next day, we had a conversation and I told you I said, hey, this is really important for me to show you that I'm not going to make this mistake again. I realized I screwed up. Now let's fast forward three to six months, can?
Speaker 2:you do it again, you know maybe we've gone to therapy, maybe I've let you, like, track my location for a while, if that was something that you really thought was important. I have my own, um, my own opinions on whether or not that's something, but, like, whatever, let's say that's something that we did. Let's say, like, let's just say that we've been working on it for three, for three to six months, um, and it and I have shown a lot of evidence. I'm like honoring my word, I'm coming home, I'm being transparent about what's going on. I've stopped hanging out with those friends. I've prioritized the family. I've shown you I mean business. Maybe I went to AA meetings and I have a sponsor and I'm like really consistent and and you can just you sense, you can see the evidence that I'm I'm serious and I feel really bad for making that really stupid choice. And also, maybe for these last three months, you've been a little reluctant to engage, engage in that relationship the way that you had in the past, because you're protecting yourself from being hurt again.
Speaker 1:Okay, so now it's time for me to forget, right? Because it's not happening any longer.
Speaker 2:Right. So you have evidence that it's not happening any longer. We are not in an abusive situation where somebody is exploiting and taking advantage of you. You have a contrite, apologetic, earnest husband who knows he screwed up and is making an honest effort to make it right and to not rush you to that decision. But also he's kind of sick of being in the doghouse.
Speaker 1:Yeah so how do I find it within me to forgive? What are the steps?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the first thing is is you have to be willing and needs to start with like I'm ready and ain't nothing getting in my way of of me having the marriage that I want, which means I need to let go.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So what would that look like for you, like at what, let's say, you start to see this evidence, talk to talk me through this, this perspective shift. For you, like at what point do you get to this place where it's like, oh man, how long am I going to, you know, let this go on.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think for me, I think probably a first step would be gosh, that is really hard. A first step for me would be to to let. I think if I was unwilling to forgive you for hurting me, I would have a. I would hold a really tight grip on my story. My story is I can't trust you because you lied to me and you went out that night and you know I've got this whole story about how you don't care about me and you do things behind my back, and so I think the first step for me in really finding forgiveness is to loosen my grip on that story and let it be, nate made a mistake.
Speaker 1:He didn't mean to hurt me. He didn't realize you know what type of effect that would have on me. Maybe he is really sorry and maybe he's never going to do it again. So you just, piece by piece, loosen the grip on that story that you're a dirt bag and you're just going to lie to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's great. So so you're starting to loosen your grip on that story? Yeah, that's great. So you're starting to loosen your grip on that story.
Speaker 2:The next step that Alison Armstrong has in her process mirrors that a lot, she says the second step after you decide you need to be healed is if they have to justify, explain or rationalize to you why they did what they did to hurt you.
Speaker 2:So if they're spending all their time and energy explaining like, look, this is why I did this, or whatever, then you're never going to get the healing that you need, because it's going to be about them and not about you. It's going to be about their need to feel, um, to feel like off the hook, or or to help you understand why they did what they did, and not not the focus on, like what do you need to be healed? And so, um, the best way to do that is to assume that they had a good reason for doing what they did, assuming that they assume that they were doing the best they could given the circumstances that they were in, that they weren't, they weren't blatantly misbehaving, they didn't have a specific vendetta against you. Like they're there, they didn't make that choice because they were trying to hurt you, that they were trying to destroy your relationship. They were making that choice for a reason that made sense to them at the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that is that chunk that you just said is really important it made sense to them at the time.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:The reality is, you probably just weren't thinking about me. You probably were just thinking about yourself, which happens sometimes to us as humans thinking about our own stuff and we don't think about the repercussions for the people that we love. Yeah, and so that probably is very valid. You were not thinking about me at the time. You were being very selfish and you just did the thing you didn't realize.
Speaker 2:In some cases it's selfish, in some cases it's not. Yeah, you're trying to protect me.
Speaker 1:Maybe you're trying to protect me from knowing you know that you had a drinking problem or whatever.
Speaker 2:whatever the case is, or like I mean and it might help to be curious about this Maybe you have conversations about this over time to gain an understanding of why the choice got made, without being accusational, just like maybe that's what we talk about in therapy is like hey, you know what made you feel like you needed to hide that from from me? Maybe it's we have a history of you getting really angry at me when I want to do something for myself and I never, ever get a chance to go socialize and have guilty or so the only way I can cultivate a friendship outside of work is to lie about it.
Speaker 2:That may not be the case. Maybe the maybe the case is. I have a history growing up where if I did something wrong, my parents would just like lay into me, and they would. They would. They used a lot of shame to make me feel small and bad and wrong. And what I learned growing up was that if you do something self-indulgent or a little a little selfish, that it's better to hide it than it is to be honest about it, because you'll just get punished and that's a good than it is to be honest about it, because you'll just get punished, and that's a good thing.
Speaker 2:It doesn't excuse the behavior, but it's an understanding of like. Oh, he wasn't doing this to hurt me. He was doing this because of.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so the reality is is you made a mistake? Yeah, and you are willing to do what it takes to make it up to me.
Speaker 2:Right, I'm willing. Now can you be willing to let it go?
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly. Can I be willing to allow you to make that mistake and then, you know, be forgiven and get a blank slate Right. And I think you know, if you're listening to this and you're you're religious, you know that makes sense Like the like heavenly father forgives us. We should be able to forgive others, right.
Speaker 1:But if you're not religious, then just realize, as humans we make mistakes and if we don't want to be, you know, on the hook for every single mistake we've ever made, we better learn how to let people off the hook when they let us down or make a mistake because it's going to happen.
Speaker 2:Yep. So first, be willing. Second is, assume they had a good reason for doing what they were doing. And then the last step in this process is you need to tell your partner what you need from them or want from them in order to heal you. And most often, um, it goes back to, uh, what I've noticed in my life and you can tell me if you're wrong, if I'm wrong here, if you don't share this, but, um, oftentimes it's just there's, there's a certain, there's words that I need to hear, and if you can say these words, if you can say the words to me and say and mean them, then, like something magical happens and and it just lifts this burden off my shoulders, like really interesting because for me it's a feeling.
Speaker 2:I need to feel something from you, I need to feel important to you, I need to feel um considered by you it's not necessarily the words, but it's a feeling so you've seen this evidence of me like making you feel important over the last couple of months, and then we sit down to have a conversation and you can say like, hey, I, I'm ready to move past this yeah, yeah, um. Yeah, um, here, here's what I just. I just. This is the last thing I need. I just need to tell, I need you to tell me that I'm the most important thing to you in your life.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I need you to mean it and I need, I need you to tell me that, like that, I matter to you and that you're not going to. You're not going to, you're not going to make a big choice like that again, without talking to me and being honest about it in the future.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And if you can, if you can tell me that and mean it, I think I, I don't know, maybe I'm like putting the words in your mouth, but what in this situation? Like what, what?
Speaker 1:would be. That's really interesting, cause it's different for you than it is for me, right, it's. It's about words and sentences. For you that you know, being able to feed somebody those sentences is that's great, right. For me, it's a feeling like I need to feel that you care about me, you know for me to you know be, able to restore that trust in you.
Speaker 1:But I think, no matter what, what that is, what, no matter what it is that you need to be able to feel healed from it.
Speaker 1:I think forgiveness is always an act of faith and the reality is and you know, you learn this when you're little kids and you know, I've heard it a million times but it is really, really true. Forgive like, uh, you know, holding a grudge or, you know, not letting go of something, is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Like we have to be able to for ourselves, like for our own sake, be able to forgive. And I really want to like send this message out to anyone who's listening, like you know I hope that you know, if you're listening and you're carrying something in your marriage that's really hard, that's hard to forgive. That's something that's still going on. I just I want to let you know that, even though you forgive, you can still. You still have a choice. You can forgive your partner for lying to you repeatedly. That doesn't mean you have to stay in the marriage. Yeah, you always have agency. But to be able to forgive is to free yourself to make a good choice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, forgiveness is not an endorsement of the behavior. Exactly, forgiveness is not continuing to punish them for the choice that they made a long, long time ago.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Or a short time ago.
Speaker 1:Is it something that you can live with and carry on? Do you want to to mend that relationship and that trust, or do you want to forgive and move on to another relationship or to another? You know situation but either way, being able to forgive before you make the decision whether to stay or whether to go is going to be really healing for you.
Speaker 2:And help you make a better decision for yourself. And I'll just want to reiterate, or maybe say in a different way, what you said at the beginning this process only works one in a situation. That's not like if the person is still actively making a bad choice. That's that doesn't work. And also if somebody is intentionally hurting you. That's a different situation entirely Like. This process works largely for people who in a situation where, like I, made this choice yes, I was selfish, but it wasn't with the intent to harm. I wasn't doing this like maliciously to try and hurt you. Specifically, I made a choice that might've been selfish or absent-minded or whatever, and it impacted you in a harmful way and caused you pain. But my intention wasn't to cause you pain and I would be very cautious of um of I think forgiveness is possible but I would be very cautious of engaging in this process with the intention of moving forward with the relationship, uh, when it's with somebody who has that intention to cause you harm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think the bottom line is whether you are the one who made the mistake or the one who's doing the forgiving. If you need help, please reach out. There are therapists, there are coaches who are trained I am one. I mean, this is what I help couples do all the time is to forgive, to ask for forgiveness and to be forgiven. Like to help couples through this process. So there is help. There are couples who have survived massive infidelity affairs, addictions, all kinds of, even abuse, and even seeing that makes my heart clench just a little bit, because abuse is a very, very, very difficult thing to forgive. But I've seen it happen and so you know there are trained professionals that can help. So don't carry this on your own.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I agree, I'm going to. I'm going to recap with a couple of myths about forgiveness, because we've kind of hit on a few, but I want to hit on a bunch of them so that people just up up up front. This might clear up some misconceptions. Forgiveness does not mean that you can don't hurtful, hurtful behavior. It is not just about moving on from hard stuff. It's not like that.
Speaker 1:I will just move past this. Do not sleep under the rug.
Speaker 2:It doesn't mean you forget what happened. It doesn't mean that you prop up your partner and put them in a one-up position and put yourself in a one-down position, or vice versa. Forgiveness is not a natural process. It doesn't come naturally. It very rarely happens by accident. It's an intentional choice. This is another myth I want to throw on there, that resentment is a bad thing. Resentment is a great signal that there's something going on in your relationship that hasn't been dealt with. So you know, don't?
Speaker 1:judge resentment.
Speaker 2:Resentment is, is a side effect of. So if you're feeling resentment in your marriage and you're guilting yourself about it, it's like, ah no, get curious about it, figure out what has gone unaddressed in your relationship and then, um, the last one is like you can feel your way back to trust. I just don't. I don't think you can feel your your way back. I think you, you need to make an active choice. It's a process.
Speaker 1:So yeah, but it is. It is like any journey of faith. It's like stepping out into the darkness and letting the light follow you. You know, it's, it's really about you know, following this, these steps that you laid out.
Speaker 2:Engage your will, alison Armstrong, this is Alison Armstrong's framework. You have to be willing. So you have to say this is going to happen. I'm ready. I'm ready to stop punishing my partner and not and and and, punishing myself in a way by not letting me have the marriage and the relationship that I want. Like, how long am I willing to hold us in this, in this frozen, hold your breath state? Where will we? Won't we? Are we going to move past this? Are we not going to? How long am I? How long am I going to decide that we're going to stay here? It's like okay, this has to end at some point. I get to make the choice. When it is so, it's a willing choice that doesn't happen by accident.
Speaker 2:Number two is you have to assume your partner had a valid reason for doing what they, what they did. That made sense to them at the time. It doesn't need to be a good reason, but there's a valid reason that made sense to them in that moment. And you can get curious about that, what that was, or you can just assume that they did have that, or you can draw the conclusion yourself. But you got. You got to let them off the hook because if they have to explain and rationalize why they made the decision, you will not be healed. And then the last is.
Speaker 2:It's like what we talked about in the complaint episode You're not allowed to complain about something you never asked for. You need to. You need to tell them what you need from them in order for you to forgive them. And once they've given it to you, that's when you make the choice. Whether that's words, whether that's actions, I need you to show me over the next three months that you're going to show up this way for me. I need you to distance yourself from these friends. I need you to make a. You know, I need you to help me feel safe again. And here's what will help me feel safe. Whatever that thing is, you need to ask for it and then, when they give it to you, you need to make the choice and let them know through your actions and your words.
Speaker 1:Yep, we knocked it out of the park. That was so good.
Speaker 2:It's a hard thing to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you're going to want to listen to last week's episode and this week's episode, and if you need help through this process, please reach out.
Speaker 2:Yep, I've got a seven day workshop I can send people through, or maybe five days, I don't know, but it's like. I think it's like the trust workshop or the trust challenge. You can find it at the Epic Marriage Club or, if you want, like hands-on help, monica's amazing. But this can be a really difficult process to go through. I empathize with anybody having to go through it. I've, we've, all been through it. The more you practice it, the better you get at it.
Speaker 1:So true, so true, and it's part of the human experience, it's part of being here on earth is learning how to forgive even when it's really hard. So thank you guys for listening, and we will be here next week with another great episode. So until then, happy marriaging.