There is no married person that will say that they have not either offend or be offended by their spouse. Even siblings do quarrel much more two individuals from different background.
Offending and forgiving each other is normal in marriage. Yes, there might be times it might be too difficult to forgive your spouse especially if the offence is a recurring one.
For instance, it is always very difficult to forgive a spouse that have cheated, most especially if its not the first time after haven promised it will never happen again. This is an instance when it takes divine grace to forgive the erring partner.
Without forgiving your spouse, you will not have a happy home and stability in your relationship because when you are hurting and does not want to forgive there is no way your relationship with your spouse can function properly. You will barely communicate with each other and when there is no regular and loving communication the bond in the relationship starts to dwindle.
Another thing is that if you don’t forgive your spouse, you might get irritated each time you see your spouse and before you know it you will start avoiding your spouse which can compound the problem as your spouse might start seeking for attention and affection elsewhere and by the time you come around it might be too late.
There is nothing wrong if you decide to be angry because of what your spouse has done, it is normal afterall you are human but just as the bible says ” do not allow sunset rise over your anger” which means you can be angry but do not carry it over to the next day.
Furthermore, just as you kept forgiving your siblings when you were growing up, you need to also extend such forgiveness to your spouse. Instead of not forgiving your spouse, discuss about what your spouse has done and take a firm stand against such going forward.
Forgiving an erring spouse its not the easiest thing to do but you can do it especially if you value your relationship and want stability and peace in your marriage.
Checkout what MyMarriage Podcast says about Forgiveness in marriage.
The points mentioned by MyMarriage Podcast that should influence your decision to forgive are:
Love: if you truly love your spouse you will look beyond the shortcomings and forgive.
Respecting Your Vows: being faithful to your vows “for better for worse” should make you forgive your spouse as that offence is part of the worse in your marriage vow.
Imperfection: You should forgive your spouse because your spouse as well as you are imperfect and as such you will both keep stepping on each other’s toes.