Your partner has cheated on you. You confronted them with undeniable proof, and they had no choice but to finally tell you the truth. They have lied their way into this, and now they are at your feet, begging for your forgiveness.

Forgiving infidelity is crucial if you want to continue in a relationship with your partner. But forgiveness might seem like the last thing they deserve!

After all, they lied to you about something very important, and only when they were confronted with it did they bother to come clean. You will have questions about how long the affair would have gone on, had you not stopped it in its tracks. You will wonder if they would have ever come clean, or if they would be happy to keep you in the dark forever.

Does such a conniving person really deserve your forgiveness?

Here’s the trick about forgiveness. It’s not about letting your partner off the hook. It’s not a way of saying what they did was okay, and now it can all be forgotten. That’s NOT what forgiveness means!

Giving your forgiveness to the person who wronged you is giving yourself permission to move on. It is saying you will try your best to understand the causes behind the infidelity, and you will work with them to make sure it doesn’t happen again. It’s a way of letting your anger GO while you decide whether you want to hold onto the relationship you have.

Remember, forgiveness is not the same as forgetting. Just because you have forgiven someone doesn’t mean you forget what they did. You will remember what happened, and the future of your relationship will be better for it. You won’t walk into that kind of heartache again, and your partner – if they really do care about you – won’t let it happen again.

Forgiveness opens a door to reconciliation, but it doesn’t immediately restore your trust. Forgiveness is given freely, because you WANT to give it – trust has to be earned back by the person who lost it in the first place.

Forgiveness is about YOU. It’s about easing some of your burden. It’s about admitting we are all human and we all make mistakes. By forgiving your partner, you are inviting them to earn back your trust. You are saying you want to give the relationship every chance it deserves.

Forgiveness is hard. It takes time. But as the anger slips away, the need to forgive will come. You will know when it’s time to forgive – and then you can work on making your relationship stronger than it was before the cheating started.