Couples Can Choose to Forgive Lies or Hurts in Their Relationship

As long as we hold on to that hurt then it keeps us stuck in the negative feelings that eventually eat away at us until we become very negative or cynical.  In couples counseling or marriage counseling, we spend a good amount of time exploring the hurts plus the choices for resolution of those hurts.  Each person in a relationship gets to make the choice of how we allow what someone else says or does to affect me. We have no control over other people’s choices but we do get to decide the meaning we assign to it. The meaning we assign to it then decides the feelings we have about it. For example, when a person isn’t honest with us, we can say “they lied to me!” Or we can say, “they are a liar!” Or we can say, “they weren’t honest about that.” We decide what their lying means to us and that decides our feelings about it.  Sometimes people get stuck in the anger or hurt in their marriage. Maybe we are getting something from not letting the hurt go.  Maybe it is safer for us to be angry rather than be vulnerable when we tell our partner that we are really hurting.  As long as we stay stuck in those feelings then we are giving power and control to our spouse or partner.  Forgiveness is one choice that each of us can make. It is not an easy choice for a lot of people, but it is a choice that is available to everyone. We will talk more about forgiveness in the next blog. 

Putting the Pieces Together (So We Make Sense of Ourselves, Others and Our World)

Lois Zsarnay, LMFT, CEDS, CCTP, EMDR, BCPC, RD

Couples Therapy Ventura, California

(805) 650-0507

©2014 Lois Zsarnay, LMFT, CEDS, CCTP, EMDR, BCPC, RD