Defying Pride, Embracing Forgiveness In Marriage

Have you ever thought in your mind, “How am I ever going to forgive that person for the terrible things they have done to me?” Have you ever let a loved one go on for a long time, thinking that you will never forgive them? Have you ever thought, “I will forgive that person in due time, but for now, I am going to keep reminding them of what they did wrong that offended me so badly?” Did you ever think, “I am wrong for not forgiving this person, but it just hurts too much?” Sadly, I can say that I can answer yes to all of these questions.

There were many times I wallowed in my own self-pity and self-absorption. I would think such things as: “Why doesn’t my husband get it?” How come he is not listening? Doesn’t he know that I am having thoughts of separating from him? I can make it on my own! I am growing and learning and moving forward in life. He is living a stagnate life and not progressing. How can this marriage last, if I am succeeding and he is not?”

I am aware that my problem wasn’t trying to forgive my husband,  my problem stemmed from me. My problem was… I had too much pride. This week I had a personal revelation. I realized that we can think of forgiveness in a whole new way. When there are times we are feeling hurt or downtrodden by those we love, we might need to think of something else besides forgiving them. Maybe what we need to do is look at our “prideful ways”.

 

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This pride that I speak of is the pride that keeps us from progressing in our relationships with those that we love.  Please don’t misunderstand me. I know that people can emotionally hurt and possibly even physically harm us. With those terrible moments in our lives, we need to stand back and call upon the Lord to help us endure those moments. We need to seek His direction on how we handle such matters. Forgiveness may be necessary, but more importantly, we need to make sure pride does not get in the way of our forgiveness.

President Ezra Taft Benson taught: “Pride is a sin that can readily be seen in others but is rarely admitted in ourselves. Most of us consider pride to be a sin of those on the top, such as the rich and the learned, looking down at the rest of us. There is, however, a far more common element among us- and that is pride from the bottom looking up. It is manifest in so many ways, such as faultfinding, gossiping, backbiting, murmuring, living beyond our means, envying, coveting, withholding gratitude and praise that might lift one another, and being unforgiving and jealous.” (Beware of Pride, 1989)

C.S. Lewis also stated:

 

I remember a time, when I was having a very difficult time in my marriage. I had felt neglected by my husband, but not in the manner of him paying attention to me. We talked.  My feelings of neglect stemmed from a different source. He was unemployed for several months and I had felt that he had given up on trying to find a job completely. During that time, I worked full time and had chosen to go back to school to finish my college education. I felt that I was the only bread-winner in the family. I felt that he was neglecting his duties as a provider of our family.

Over the next several months, I became extremely busy in my work and schooling. I now recognize that I chose to become busy, to avoid the stress in our marriage.
During this time, I grew resentful that my husband wasn’t “progressing” like I was. He wasn’t working. He wasn’t going to school to better himself. I began to think I was going to surpass him in life. (This wasn’t a far stretch to think this way. My husband’s parent divorced after 25 years of marriage. There excuse for the divorce was that one had progressed further than the other in their job and in schooling. It always sounded like a reasonable and logical reason to get divorced.) During this time, I felt lonely, unloved and afraid to talk to anyone about how I was feeling. I was deeply involved with my “pride”.

Then one day a miracle happened. I had an “Intervention” so to speak. My husband's  two wonderful sisters came and took me to lunch for my birthday. That lunch changed my life. They began to tell me that they loved me very much and that they didn’t want to see my marriage end with their brother. They could relate to the difficulties that I was having. They just sat and listened to me as I cried out my feelings of desperation. This was such a remarkable blessing in my life. They had both experienced pain in their life. One of my sister in laws had suffered a very bitter divorce and the other was about to get a divorce from her husband.  These two unlikely sources, one’s who marriages had suffered through much, were there to help me save mine.

A few days later it was my actual birthday. My family has a tradition of always going to a nice restaurant for dinner for our birthdays. One of my favorite restaurants is on the Las Vegas Strip. It sits across the street from the world famous Bellagio Water Fountains. After dinner we walked across the street to watch the water show.

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The thing that happened next, I will never forget. My husband put his arms around me and told me he loved me. At that very moment I felt all that “smothering pride” leave my body. It was as physical as taking a 100-pound backpack off of my shoulders. I felt nothing but a newness of love encircles us. It didn’t matter what our problems were, what mattered was that we worked through it together. What I truly recognize is that forgiveness wasn’t what my husband needed, it was me letting go of my pride. It was choosing to be humble. It was choosing to be happy.