The ability to forgive is getting a lot of hype these days from self-help gurus, spiritual leaders, mental health professionals, and talk show hosts.  Their message: giving forgiveness is a healing, releasing act that allows the one forgiving to be healthier and happier.  The act of forgiving as defined by Webster's Dictionary as "to cease to feel resentment against (an offender).  Not an easy task when one feels they have been mistreated, offended, or ignored.  The destructive part of disagreeing or arguing is not the act itself but, rather, the harboring of anger and resentment.  When one or both lacks the ability to forgive and move on, the relationship is in trouble.   

Certainly there are situations when forgiveness is not so difficult.  Your husband forgets to pick up the cleaning on his way home.  You forget to give your husband a phone message from his mother (probably for the best!).  Or one of you forgets to pay a bill.  None of these are a big deal.  Other situations are not so easy to forgive and forget.  An example that comes to mind relates to a young couple I know.  Six years ago I attended their wedding.  They were a perfect match: good-looking, motivated, secure jobs, a new home -- all in all, a promising future.  Two years into the marriage, to their delight, they had a son.  All the benchmarks for a happy, long enduring marriage were in place.  The bride's parents had been my neighbors and best friends.  Both sets of parents had married as high school sweethearts, and each couple could celebrate more than three decades of married life.  And, had one incident not occurred, the odds were good that this young couple would have followed suit -- an enduring long marriage.  The wife's "good" unmarried friend was not too concerned about the boundaries of marriage nor enduring marriages.  

One evening as the young wife was upstairs, her friend who was visiting, came on to the wife's husband. He had been out drinking with the boys, and came home very inebriated.  They were found in a compromising position in the couple's family room by the wife.  The young husband begged to be forgiven.  He insisted that he had no idea what had happened, that he had blacked out.  He went to counseling, he pleaded for another chance.  His devotion and love for the wife and son had never been in question, but there was no forgiveness to be given for his stupid, drunken, one-time action.  A divorce was quickly processed, leaving the young son to miss day to day interactions with his dad, and the young wife to take on the tasks of a single working mother.  Both set of parents were devastated by the divorce.  More than three years later, both remain single, and from all accounts they still love each other.  And the girlfriend, unscathed, is still coming on to other women's husbands.

A colleague of mine experienced a bitter divorce more than 11 years ago.  Although a good number of years have passed, a remarriage to a wonderful woman, neither years nor new love have lessened his resentment towards his first wife.  Whenever his grown children relay to him some "insensitive" action of their mom towards them, he is on a rant again.  His former wife lives 1800 miles away, but still has the ability to rile him.  When is he going to let go and appreciate that it was best that this unhealthy marriage ended?  His ongoing resentment only affects him, and his relationship with his new wife.  The ex-wife feels no pain from his words or emotions.

One very personal example of ongoing "non-forgiveness" comes via my mother.  For over 50 years, she has lamented the 20 years that my dad served in the Navy.  Every three years, he would be out at sea for nine months.  No doubt, and I do remember, it was a difficult and lonely time for her.  It could be said that she was the first of what is now classified as "single moms."  Technically she wasn't divorced, but trying to keep all the balls in the air: finances, parenting, maintaining a home but for nine months.  We all survived those years, grew up to have careers, marry, bestow grandchildren on them, and, I even volunteer for the USO!  So here we are, five decades later, and my mother is still expressing unhappiness at the "years lost" due to my dad's career choice.  She makes it clear my dad was to blame for what was, and continues to be, an arduous time for her.   

Forgiveness in each of these examples seems to be difficult for those involved.  The gain from being able to forgive in each situation is worth their efforts.  In each example, the harboring of past resentments is preventing each person a happier existence.  Of the nine couples whom I interviewed for my book, Successful Second Marriages, I noted only three persons who were continuing to have ill feelings towards former spouses.  Those who have chosen to forgive former spouses have discovered the following: holding onto your anger, your animosity, and your resentment only comes back on you, causing emotional and physical discomfort for you, decreasing the quality of your life.  

Your offender, most likely, could care less.