What forgiveness means to me: forgiveness is freedom. Freedom from all the hoping that the past can be different. Freedom from the burden of taking on the responsibility of making sure that justice is done. It’s recognizing that in the end, only “the Universe” or a “Higher Power” can take care of the enormous debt I’m owed.

But I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I didn’t always feel this way about forgiving someone that has done immeasurable harm to me and my children. And I don’t think it would be “normal”, after what my first husband put us through, to have an evolved attitude towards forgiveness without the years of painful struggle and growth between the time he abandoned me to now.

I recall screaming to my first husband when he left after discovering his affair and 12 years of a secret sexual life, “You’ve ruined my life!” Like the victim of a terrible snowboarding accident, the starting point of my forgiving journey was like laying on the snowy ground with every bone in my body broken, not sure I would ever walk again. You would no more ask a person in that situation to get up and walk down the hill to the waiting ambulance than you would suggest forgiveness to a woman that has just been abandoned and has discovered years of lies, manipulation, betrayal and deception.

Forgiveness is a very advanced concept for someone that is experiencing betrayal trauma, and yet, people seem to forget this (or not understand this) and bring it up far too soon, further traumatizing victims.

I get that the people close to a woman that is losing her marriage over betrayal issues find it difficult to see their loved one suffering, but I found suggestions from family members that clearly just wanted to see the whole thing resolved and fast forwarded to the part where I had settled into a new life, healed and moved on, to be selfish and completely unrealistic. For example, my father, a very peaceful man, that might have had concerns about my ability to fund a long legal battle, and the emotional wear and tear it might have on all involved, suggested that I should not fight in court for child support at all. It felt like he just wanted me to bypass the messy parts of my story. This also made no sense to me considering I had been a stay-at-home mom for nearly 10 years, we had four children ranging in ages from four to thirteen at the time my first husband abandoned us and paying child support for the care of the children you’ve participated in bringing into the world is THE LAW! It was bad advice. I was facing the reality that I would need to get out into the world, jump start my career and try to provide for the needs of my children for many years, starting from zero because we lost EVERYTHING when my first husband left (a story for another time – let’s just say it was a very poorly planned divorce if there is such a thing as a well planned one). There was no way in hell I was going to finish raising our children alone without at least holding my children’s father accountable for his financial obligations. Deep down, I knew all along, as badly as I wanted him to be held accountable for what he did to our family, making sure he didn’t get to just walk away and leave his kids with no financial support was the ONLY real justice I had the ability to seek.

So, I did hold him responsible for what I could, and have had to pour my time, emotional energy and resources into doing so, but I don’t think it hindered my progression towards being able to forgive for one reason: the financial debt (child support owed) could be calculated and looked up in a table. I was backed up by the legal system. Unfortunately, that’s where justice ends for victims of betrayal trauma – for our trust, love and commitment, women and their children are rewarded with many years of suffering with no way to make things right when a man chooses to abandon his family.

This is the part I found the hardest to swallow. I saw him on Facebook, travelling, partying, spending money he should have been using to paying for winter clothing, bus or lunch money, soccer and dance classes while I willed myself through day after exhausting day for years doing the best I could to provide for my children and keep myself from succumbing to the stress and exhaustion. It just felt so unfair.

Speaking of introducing the topic of forgiveness too early…I was assigned a counselor, provided by my faith community’s counseling services, for several sessions beginning within only a couple weeks of my first husband’s leaving. I didn’t discover my first husband’s affair until he had been out of the house for 3-4 weeks. I was in counselling at the time I found out about the affair, so the counsellor saw me when I was in the worst possible way – the emotions were extreme to the point that they were almost unmanageable. Probably about a month after discovering the affair, my counselor pointed me to a passage in our religious text that suggested that when someone has wronged us in an extremely egregious way, and has absolutely no intention of admitting it, taking responsibility or even trying to apologize or make restitution (which has been the case with my first husband), that all one can do is turn the situation over to God and allow God to be the judge. I felt settled by that..clearly, I was not the perpetrator in my situation.

but, as the years passed and the offences piled up (the harm doesn’t stop just because you’ve separated or divorced), and I struggled with feeling like my life felt like such a nightmare at times, and I couldn’t understand if I was always trying to be a good person and loved God, why was there so much apparent injustice in my situation. During those times, forgiveness seemed impossible, and I realized how long it was really going to take to reach that place of peace, a place of forgiveness and freedom. I realized that the counsellor’s suggestion that I even think about forgiveness so early in my experience was badly timed. On top of everything I was going through, I felt guilt all the time, that I just couldn’t “get there”.

I read books about forgiveness, I talked to counsellors about it, I worked at it, I latched onto ideas such as “forgiveness is not permission” and “forgiveness is letting go of all hope that the past can be different”. In the end, it took time and effort to create distance between the life I thought I had and the new one, the real one, that I was creating for myself; and recognizing too, with the passage of time, the many ways “the Universe”, or Karma had balanced the scales of justice. In the end, though poorly timed, my faith community’s counsellor’s advice to turn the problem over to my Higher Power, was where I was finally able to put the burden down. I had created enough new good in my life and admittedly, recognized enough deserved consequences take shape in my ex-husband’s life, that I could honestly say, if given the choice, I would choose the life I have now and all that I’ve learned over the fake life I had before. I’ve let go and let God handle it and now I’m free.