Why Should I Forgive After An Affair?

can we please give a big round of applause for Hasani Pettiford thank you good evening good evening how's everyone doing tonight you know in the words of one of my good friends from Texas I am elephant elated hippopotamus happy and peacock proud to be with you here tonight and I come to you with a very important question and that question is should we forgive after we've experienced the pain of infidelity and so the question becomes what do we mean by infidelity what actually does that mean perhaps it's the husband who goes away on a business trip and after a long day of work goes to the bar grabs a drink and sees an attractive woman from across the room and as soon as they make eye contact instantly there's a connection and they engage in a one-night stand because they both know they will never see each other again and no one will ever know perhaps it's that woman who's been in that long emotionless relationship for quite some time and even though initially there was passion and there was love and there was excitement over the course of time this couple transitioned from being soul mates to row mates to roommates the emotional disconnect statistically the average couple only engages in four minutes of quality conversation on any given day yet when we step into the workplace we have eight and nine in ten hours developing relationships and building rapport and having great conversation and oftentimes that co-worker the interaction that we have goes from being platonic to problematic because we're talking about things in the office and then we're talking about passions and interests in hobbies and all types of things and there's an instant connection that takes place and communication the foundation of all communication is intimacy intimacy in two mici when you allow a person to see inside your heart and see inside your mind and see inside your soul and as a result emotional entanglement begin to take place which ultimately leads to a full-blown emotional affair or perhaps it's a virtual connection on social media and it starts off innocently with a poke or wave alike even a share but then it graduates to another level and it becomes a friend requests in a private message maybe we've reconnected with an old flame or a highschool sweetheart and after 30 minutes of communication online the emotions that we once had are triggered again because our brain has an emotional memory and after 30 days of constant consistent communication our interaction transitions from online to offline and now we're meeting for coffee and now we're meeting for dinner and now we're meeting for an overnight stay perhaps it's all of these things and a whole lot more and so the question becomes does a marriage have to end when an affair takes place I dare say no for the last 10 years my wife Danielle and I have been traveling all over the globe working personally with couples who have been impacted by the pain of infidelity and the one thing that we've discovered is that when you're dealing with a couple both partners experienced some form of pain and that the only way to get from pain island to Pleasure Island which is where everyone wants to be they must go through a road of recovery that recovery is a marital recovery but it's also an individual recovery process because the pain of the her partner is completely different than the pain of the unfaithful partner and their journeys are very different and while the hurt partner is dealing with how do I forgive and how do I heal a hurting heart and how do I move forward in how do I trust again the unfaithful partner is struggling with how I forgive myself how do I overcome the pain and how do I overcome the shame and the guilt how do I rebuild this relationship I just don't know what to do it requires both a personal and marital recovery and in that process the only way to get to Pleasure Island is through forgiveness doing the affair recovery process the most important aspect of that phase is forgiveness but you know forgiveness is it's this term that we heard before and the preacher preaches it on Sunday and we read about it in books and we understand the principle of it but we just don't know how to walk it out we don't know how to incorporate it into our lives because most of us either participate in cheap forgiveness or the refusal to forgive and the refusal to forgive in a relationship is a tumultuous relationship where there's pain and bitterness and resentment and conflict in the pain that is harboring in my heart is now dumped to my partner because I want them to experience what I've gone through so there's a sense of revenge when you refuse to forgive but cheap forgiveness is that forgiveness that says the Bible says that we should forgive so I'm just gonna forgive we're not going to talk about it we're not going to have conversations we're just gonna move forward and the the pain that I'm moving away from is caring and following me everywhere I go then I begin to participate in passive aggressive behaviors because I really haven't released it from my heart and so many of us are struggling to know what true genuine forgiveness actually looks like and I reminded of a couple that truly experienced genuine forgiveness we've counseled many couples around the world with this particular couple together for 30 years married for 25 divorced for five but still yet together not only did they experience one affair but multiple affairs not only was it one spouse but it was both spouses and in the midst of this relationship both of them know what it means to betray the other and both of them know what it means to be betrayed by their partner so there's pain on both sides and in the midst of this relationship there were multiple Affairs there were multiple one-night stands and there were separations and there were times when they both moved out of the home into their own place connecting with other people and having long-term relationships in one particular relationship that the husband was involved in wind up being a deadly one because he was still vacillating back and forth as to whether he should be with his girlfriend or reconciled with his wife and that internal conflict took him from one household to the next and because she was a very possessive woman she did not want to think about her him reconciling with his wife so he sent she sent him many warnings one of those warnings was a letter that was received at the home that was a threat the second warning resulted in vandalism the third warning resulted in arson that ultimately burnt that house up until it came tumbling down to the ground but he was living with his girlfriend at the time so they did not know who burnt the house down even though it was her she conspired against him and so her her last warning to him as he was laying in the bed one night she creeps into the household with three men in masks she grabs a butcher knife from the kitchen stands at the foot of the bed and begins to stab him and speaks in a dark voice explaining to him that he cannot go anywhere and if he thinks about reconciling with his wife it's over and as she begins to stab him one of the other guys with the mask has a gun pointed to his head he cannot move he cannot talk he can't do anything he's gripped in silence and fear the girlfriend then goes to the other room and opens up a safe and handles a bunch of money and gives it to one of the guys and masks paying him for what they're about to do to the boyfriend the husband in the midst of their exchange there's an argument there's a fight and they're fighting over the money and ultimately one of the guys in a ski mask takes the knife slits the girlfriend's throat stabs it in her chest as she bleeds on the ground in the bedroom next to the boyfriend for fear that they may get away what happens is they take nails and hammers and begin to crucify the boyfriend up against a 2x4 piece of plywood in the bedroom so he cannot get away could you imagine the pain that the wife feels when she discovers this on the 10 o'clock news they reconcile once again but there's more pain there's more agony and months go by and they're empty and months go by in their shallow months go by and they're trying to figure out is it worth even saving the marriage and so suicidal thoughts begin to enter into their mind they feel like throwing in the towel they feel like calling it quits they feel like giving up but in the midst of that recovery process they've gone to eight in nine counselors and nothing would work in their favor until they walked into our office and we took them through a process of true healing and when we brought God into the equation see God has a way of healing hearts God has a way of reaching places that none of us can reach and they were able to find their freak their true freedom and restoration and healing and slowly day by day they began to recover see one thing about forgiveness when you hold on to unforgiveness it can literally destroy the relationship but when you release the pain and you understand that every day is a new day and you no longer look at the partner that you did have but the partner that you do have you have the beginning of a great new future many of us struggle because we're looking at our future through the lenses of our past and every time we see our partner were reminded of the pain that they've caused in that relationship but when God allows you to truly heal in your heart it begins to restore the relationship like never before in through our recovery process dealing with the pain of the affair finding a sense of healing the couple began to reconcile and day by day things got better and better and better they decided that they now wanted to make their divorce they've been divorced for five years they wanted to make it official by coming back together in a committed relationship called marriage and after a year of counseling and after recovery I was given the privilege of wetting them and now they're husband and wife together today after all of the pain that they had dord live in a new day and because of their story they've now turned their pain into passion they've turned their mess into a message and they now have an organization called commitment keepers and now they become a beacon of light and hope to a world that no matter what you've gone through healing is available for you no matter what you endured forgiveness is something that you can all have and when you embrace it you can have a relationship that you've never had before and so we are honored to have them here in this room tonight Todd and Alicia Taylor please stand so that we can give you a strong round of applause for your excellent example [Music] and now commitment keepers is making an impact all over the world forgiveness is not the goal forgiveness is not the destination forgiveness is the process that you have to go through to get to the destination what is the destination bliss in your relationship true intimacy true passion a relationship with this true integrity an intimacy that allows you to go from where you are to a higher level true forgiveness allows you to embrace a relationship that you never thought was possible for you true forgiveness when you experience it no one can see the residue from your past failures when you've embraced true forgiveness you truly know that number one God has truly forgiven you true forgiveness says I can truly receive the forgiveness from my partner and I can truly forgive myself when you've reached that place you have a relationship that you've never had before and every day will represent the beginning of the rest of your life thank you [Applause]

Channel: Hasani Pettiford - Infidelity Recovery Specialist

Views: 564,757

Rating: 4.7946935 out of 5

Keywords: marriage help, realtionship guide, relationship expert, couples academy, hasani pettiford, danielle pettiford, td jakes, why should i forgive after an affair, infidelity, cheating, affair, 100huntley, joycemeyers, esther perel, esther perel ted talk, ted talks, how to forgive a cheating spouse, how to forgive someone who cheated on you, infidelity in marriage

Id: ylxdy9wjFFk

Length: 13min 38sec (818 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 14 2017