Although the person whom it may be most important to forgive may be your spouse, your spouse can often times be the hardest person in your life to forgive. The intimate nature of marriage makes spouses vulnerable to each other. A spouse who knows you better than any other person has the most ability to offend you. And, because you share a life together your spouse also has the most opportunity to be a repeat offender. When the person you are supposed to be closest to refuses to see how his or her actions hurt you or if they continue to hurt you in the same manner over and over again it can seem that forgiveness is impossible.

There is no doubt that forgiveness under these circumstances can be very difficult. However, clearing up some common misunderstandings about forgiveness may help the process along a little.

One of the misconceptions implied by a lack of forgiveness when a spouse is not willing to apologize is that if you forgive your spouse you are somehow doing them a favour. You may be doing your spouse a favour in terms of strengthening your relationship together in the long run and if that is a bad thing you may not want to practice forgiveness.

However, forgiveness certainly does not mean admitting that your spouse didn