https://www.listennotes.com/e/adf9e68f40834d19998a36f4b8842a69

There's something about you that I can't.

Help but smile when you smile and laugh when you laugh. Something's around you.

Welcome to the Human Intimacy Podcast, Dr. Kevin Skinner with Marianne Michaelis. Marianne, it's springtime. How are you doing with this beautiful weather for you?

Oh, Dr. Skinner, where I live, my bees are buzzing still and all the flowers are popping. orchards are just full of flowers and it's a great time of year. The sun's shining for me today. So really, I guess we get a weather commentary every time we're here.

But yeah, we start off with the weather and I really want to talk about our weather. It's been unforgiving. We've had ups and downs, we've had frost and we've had 80. So unpredictable. So our topic today is actually forgiveness. that was a good tie-in unforgiving. But what I want to start off with just to our listeners, think with me for a second in your life, maybe people you've had conflict with, people you fought with, people who you maybe still hold grudges against. And maybe it's your spouse, maybe it's a child, maybe it's a parent. But in all relationships, we bump into each other in ways we hurt each other. this is not, it's inevitable. When you live with somebody, you're gonna do something, say something that's going to be hurtful. And the question is, is how do individuals and couples and families repair when there has been issues that have prevented them from overcoming, from getting back together, from resolving? And so our topic today is forgiveness. and maybe some steps that we can take to work towards forgiveness and maybe times where we misunderstand forgiveness. And I wanna lean into that a little bit today as well, when we misunderstand the concept of forgiveness. So with that being said, Marianne, that's our intro. Your thoughts.

I love where you were going with maybe that misunderstanding. I'd love to start with that misunderstanding. I have so many clients come to me and they might say, you know, we'll say, what are your goals? What do you need to work on? And oftentimes they'll say, well, I've got to forgive. Or especially when we're talking about betrayal, I know that I went to a church leader and was like, I need support. And they're like, well, you just need to forgive. And it's like, well, wait. So I want to just start there kind of working on weeding through that just a little bit. I think it's so important to do some delineations and distinguish what forgiveness is and what it isn't in a broad sense of term. What I mean by that is oftentimes we get confused about what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is not, I want to be really clear on this, forgiveness, love and trust. They are three separate principles. They are three completely separate things and Just because I forgive you doesn't mean that I trust you. Or just because I love you doesn't mean that I trust you or that I've forgiven you.

And yet, Marianne, how many times in your office have you heard the statement, then you haven't forgiven me?

Yeah.

If you don't trust me, you obviously, can't you just move on? Can't you forgive me? that, I mean, that's the phrase that we have heard over and over in our office from different clients or things that have been said to our clients. So what is the difference there? You're talking about love, you're talking about trust, you're talking about forgiveness, and you're saying they're very separate things.

So trust, the way that I like to talk about trust with my clients, I love Brené Brown's analogy that she uses of a marble jar. Trust is built, you know, in third grade when we're good and quiet, our teacher puts a marble in the jar. We earn the marbles and then we get the class party or whatever. But she, Bernadette tells about her daughter sharing a story with her, sharing something with her friends, and it went through the whole class. And they came back after lunch and everybody knew her story. And she, Bernadette says it's just like the whole jar of marbles. It's just the whole thing gets upended, it's gone. And then we have to begin building that trust one action at a time. So trust is when I do what I say I'm going to do, when I show up, when I say I'm going to show up, where I'm where I'm supposed to be, when I, and when we are looking at intimacy, we're looking at that foundational basis of that, like the psychological, are you there for me? Can I rely on you? that is trust. And when you have hurt me or betrayed me, that marble jar of everything that's been built up, it's gone. So we built one thing at a time.

You're saying trust is earned.

I'm saying the trust is a daily acts of, yes, being reliable.

And if it's earned, that means I'm predictable. That means I'm reliable. And I think we can often look at this, it goes both ways in a relationship. In every relationship, we build trust. The opposite of that is a term that I heard many years ago called blind trust. When I just inherently trust you, even though I may not even know you, blind trust is just putting it in and saying, I'm going to accept, I'm going to believe, I'm going to believe that you're going to do what you say you're going to do. no matter what.

And you know, one thing that I've learned from working with you, Dr. Skinner, is I'm sure you don't remember this, and because I can't even remember when you told me or what instance it was, but I remember you saying something about, you know, when I meet with clients, I'll say, you know, I don't expect you to trust me. I need to earn your trust. But just because we've just met, I don't expect you to trust me. You don't know me and I don't know you. And so this is something that has to be built.

Right, and that's the really different differentiator here. I know we're talking about forgiveness, but the concept of trust is I need to be able to trust an individual. And when trust is broken, then we have to address a concept. I feel offended, I feel hurt. Now I've got to figure out where forgiveness fits into my hurt.

Yeah, but before we go there, I want to make sure we talk about and I know you wrote it into one of your assessments, it is sometimes it feels like our trust meter is broken because I can look at my partner in the eyes and they can flat out lie to me while looking me in the eyes and saying, no, I didn't do that. And they did. And so recognizing sometimes it does feel like our trust meter is broken and that's really hard. So as we're just talking about that aspect of it, It's tricky. And when there's been betrayal, I think it's even harder.

And the byproduct of that, if we really step back and say, because trust is broken, because I don't know if I can trust you, if you're reliable, if you're dependable, and if I, for example, if I tell you, Marianne, I'm going to do this and I don't do it, then you're not going to trust what I said I was going to do.

Right.

So if I take it the next step, now you have to respond.

Yeah. So let's look at that. Like even showing up for us to do this podcast, it's on the calendar. We're planning on it. You don't show up. I'm sitting here going, well, I thought he said, I thought he said we were going to meet. I thought we were going to do this. Where is he? Did I get it right? Hold on. Let me go through my text. No, no, we talked about this. So where is he? So I'm questioning myself. I'm trying to figure out, wait, wait, did I get it wrong? Is there something that I missed? And then I'll go through that and then I might shift and go like, okay, well, you know, if I want to give him some compassion, you know, worst case scenario, he's in traffic or something, there's an emergency, I might go there, but then I might get angry. I might have some resentment. I might feel frustrated, like, well, my time is just as important as his time. and that would be where some resentment comes up. There's a whole process that we go through with this.

A wide range of emotions.

And the next time you say like, hey, let's do a podcast, I'm gonna be, is it gonna really show up? Do I really want to plan my day around that? Because maybe he won't. Yeah.

Well, and let's just say that I'm gonna give you two different responses. Let's say that my first response was, oh, I'm sorry, I forgot, man. Will you forgive me?

Notice the language. yeah.

Okay, now let's go the other direction. Oh, I thought, oh, no, I don't remember that. I mean, did I miss something? I mean, I. I think we just kind of. Kind of talked about it, but I don't think we said anything in stone. Yeah.

So now I. That's what we call gaslighting or crazy making, because then I'm going like, we texted about it. We had a conversation about it. What do you mean?

Oh, yeah, I must have forgotten that. Yeah, I don't. I mean. I mean, that's not that big of.

A deal, is it? Oh, and I feel so small and so unimportant and so unseen.

And so unseen. And so now again, we have to lean into what does that do to you feeling unseen? How do you respond when you're unseen?

Yeah. So I usually, if I'm, you know, if we're talking about what we all do, we usually go into what, fight or flight? Either I shrink, I avoid, or I attack or I reach out. I mean, healthy would be like some healthy communication. But when you're gaslighting me, it's really hard to say, Hey, let's have some healthy communication when you're gaslighting me.

So give me two or three responses in each of those.

So what I might do, like I would probably just my personality would be like, Hey, Dr. Skinner, can we talk about this? Here's what I thought. Here's what I was expecting. Did I get this wrong? And what can we do in the future to make sure this doesn't happen?

Okay, so that feels like a healthy response of, Hey, let's talk about it. Let's bring it to the forefront. Then how I respond is going to influence how you feel about it. Yeah, for sure. I feel bad about it. I didn't put it on my calendar and I need to respect your time more.

Yeah, and so you're taking ownership and responsibility there.

Yeah, game over, right? I mean, you likely would rebuild trust and we would start to build that foundation again.

Yeah. And what I would want as the hearer, what I would want from you would be for you to say, I'm really sorry. I know you were probably waiting or that was confusing. That wasn't my intent. I will work really hard to make sure we communicate better on that next time. And that's not saying like, will you forgive me? You could use those words, but it's repair language that you're using there that would be helpful. And the next time I might be a little bit, little gun shy, like just a little bit like, let's see, let's see, is this a consistent pattern or is he sincere?

Yes. All right, so now give me the other response, the fight response.

My fight response would be, how dare you? I can't, like, I could text you a really mean, angry text. I could cut you off. I could, oh gosh, there's so many snarky little things that I could do.

Yes, I could tell you just wanting to see him, right, Marianne?

I can be really passive aggressive. That's probably a lot of times I think we go to this passive aggressive place where, oh, it's really not that big of a deal. Or I might say something, it is really a big deal, but I might not use those words, but I'm carrying that resentment, that hurt and anger with me.

And when we go that direction, then that influences how I might respond, right? You know, why are you making such a big deal of this? Right? I mean, it was one time. I mean, everyone makes mistakes. Can you not forgive?

Yeah, that feels so yucky.

But here we are, right? Because again, if I feel attacked, I might come back with it.

And you get defensive, yeah. Right?

And so now, again, notice my language. Can't you forgive?

So what are you talking about, Dr. Skinner? Like, why are you gaslighting me about this? You didn't show up.

And what do you mean gaslighting? It's a one-time thing, right?

We had this set up. We talked about it, we texted about it, and you didn't show up. and you're saying it's not a big deal. Well, my time is a big deal. It is a big deal.

And it was just one time.

No. Right.

And we could go on and on in that cycle, right? We could go on and on in this cycle. By the way, to our listeners, this has not happened. We're just role playing. We're just simply role playing. But there's a really important thing that we're trying to bring up here. Every couple has to deal with things like this. Every family has to deal with things like this. Well, you said, well, I thought you said, I heard you say, I saw you do this. And now we have a chance or not a chance to respond. I could go quiet too.

Yeah, and I think that's what a lot of times we do. We don't know how to deal with it. I know sometimes I'll, you know, I'll go to address something and I'll text, I'll work out a text or I'll work out an email. It might take me an hour. It might take a lot of time. And sometimes I've hit send. What I've learned is I am not allowed to send any emails usually to people after midnight because those 3:00 AM emails that I've worked for three hours on, those are never a good thing to send at that time. So giving ourselves some time to let things settle, usually I'll type something out and then I'll come back to it. But I process through words. I write things down to make sense of my emotions. But a lot of times, so that other part is we would avoid. So when you, so you might reach out to me or text me and maybe I don't respond. Maybe it takes me a long time to respond or the next day or I, when I see you, I avoid you. I don't want to meet your eyes. I don't want to look at you.

So there's the distancing, what we would call the flight response, right? And in situations like that, then I'm turning away because I don't like conflict and I don't want to fight and I feel hurt by you and I, okay, that was your chance. You had your chance and you blew it.

And so when I would normally engage with you, maybe I'll hold myself back and I won't.

I won't, right? And so in that situation, I can still carry the burden of my resentment and now I resent you because you did, you hurt me. and now we build upon this resentment. And soon I'm carrying this tremendous frustration and anger, and I don't want to even see you anymore. I don't even want to talk to you anymore.

Yeah. And at some point, that's not who we are. At some point, that hits up against our value system of. I'm not a person who carries grudges. I'm not a person who. I don't want to avoid you all the time, but I don't know how to have a conversation to get us. back to where we were. I don't know how to do all that repair work because it may have been months or years.

And now I'm dealing with a whole different scenario of I don't know how to do this. How hard is it to acknowledge I've been carrying this burden of anger, I've been carrying this frustration inside of me. That's a really, that takes a lot of energy to acknowledge the hurt, the pain, and then to come talk with you about it, because I don't even know how you're going to respond. Cause I've built you up in my mind as the enemy.

And let's talk about you on the other side of that. Like the other person might be like, well, wait, things have changed. Why have things changed? I don't understand why things have changed. I have no idea. I wonder why you chose to not be my friend anymore. Yeah, that that's all about unresolved.

And that's where I find most individuals and couples and families, when they get into these places, they don't know how to solve them. assistant: and so we get to a point where we disconnect, we pull apart, and we don't know how to solve it. We don't know what to say. And we live below our relationship connection potential.

Say that say those words again. Those were good words.

Relationship connection potential. In every relationship, we have an opportunity for connection, what we might call human intimacy to be seen and to allow others to see us. But I'm not to allow you to see into my world. I'm not going to connect with you. I'm going to create an environment, a thought process in my mind where I, you are not safe. I have to protect myself from you. I have to.

I love, I love looking at that, that what's the potential of us to be able to connect? And, but as I hear you say that, I also, in the back of my mind, I'm hitting up against There are some relationships that are toxic to us. There are some relationships where we do have to put boundaries, where we have to say, I can't engage with you at a level that maybe I want to or that you want to because this isn't healthy for me. And so I want to shift back for a minute. I remember doing my EFT training and I had a light bulb moment. I still remember sitting in the room and the presenter said, that sometimes we don't forgive people because it creates a barrier or a boundary that actually keeps us safe. It keeps us in that, I'm not gonna get too close because you aren't safe for me.

And so notice the word I said, relationship, connection, potential. When there has been hurt, abuse, gaslighting, betrayal, the potential initially is going to go down significantly. I don't want to connect right now, but the potential maybe over time with moving forward, building the trust, being predictable, earning what we talked about that trust, then yes, the potential can increase. But again, we're looking at this more of a concept of Can I respond in a way because now I'm carrying a burden because of your behaviors or because of the things that we did together that created conflict? I could build a story where I resent anybody.

Yeah.

I could, every one of us can build a story where we resent or we don't like somebody.

And let's normalize that a little bit more. I always quote you on this. I hope I get it right. I'm quoting you wrong, Dr. Skinner. I've been doing it for years. I need to apologize. But, and, and so please correct me. But I think in your book, healing from betrayal trauma or healing from sexual betrayal, I believe you use a phrase that talks about when we look at the world, when we've been betrayed, we might look at the world through, like, poop stained glasses.

Does that's, am I getting my quote.

Right with you there? Somewhere along those lines. Yes. So. if we've been betrayed, if we, when we've been hurt, we often look through the window of our own experience and it does impact. I trusted you and then you hurt me. And so what did I learn from that? My brain, which wants to predict, looks at a situation, says, oh, well, this happened before, so this might happen again. And so I'm looking through this predictive lens of hurt and pain.

And when I go into that space, it's for protection. And yet the protection, and this is the challenge that we face in our relationships, we build stories or we create stories about each other, about family members. And when we do this enough, then I begin to see you and perceive you in a certain way. You are, finish the sentence, unreliable, unpredictable, you're an addict, you're unkind, you're a yeller, you're a screamer, you're a drama queen. Whatever that story is, whatever that story is, and now I put a label on a behavior and I see you that way. Now the other side of that is, I might be right. You might be acting like an addict. You might be acting like a person who doesn't care or doesn't have compassion or that you don't have empathy as we often hear. I may perceive that, but who are we?

Yeah, as I hear you say that, My heart just hits this place of compassion of being put in a place that maybe does fit me because maybe I was that one time or sometimes, but maybe not all the time. But just trying to figure out how do you claw your way back from that? How do you get out of that space? You've created a story about me. How do I change that? How do I get out of that space?

And that's one of the beautiful things about the change process. It's absolutely beautiful. In recovery language, we call it rigorous honesty. In computer language, we call it what you see is what you get, is a wizzy wig.

I don't even know what those words are, Dr. Skinner.

In computer language, it's just what you see is what you get. It's a term and 1-0, 1-0, what you see is what you get. The computer language. The reality is, is when we build relationships, We have to be Wizzy Wigs. What you see is what you get. Because when I live in a world that is deceptive, when I live in a world of anger and I can't forgive and I can't move on and I don't show you that, it would be a whole lot better if I said to you, you, know what, Marianne? I don't know how to move on right now. I feel stuck. I feel distant. And I don't know if I want to get closer right now. that's a Wizzy Wig. That is a truthful statement. That is rigorous honesty. It's being truthful. And now in this relationship, you're not guessing what I'm thinking. You're understanding. I feel, I think this is what I'm experiencing here. That type of honesty allows us to be seen and to others to see us. I'm honest. I don't know if I can forgive right now.

Wow. Dr. Skinner, as I hear, as I'm just processing what you're saying, making sense of it, I think about the impossible, what seems to be impossible in this situation. If I am, if I've been struggling and hiding a porn habit or a sexual acting out habit since I was 11 years old, 12 years old, I am so good. at like putting on a false front. I am so good at letting people see what they want to see or what I want them to see. I am so good at controlling my image and it's probably become pretty second nature to me to cover up and to hide. And then if I flip that over and look at a betrayed partner, what one of the things the research tells us is with betrayal, one of the PTSD criteria that's one of the highest is that isolation and the avoidance. and there is usually so much shame. My betrayed partner's like, I can't tell anybody this because what will they think about my husband or what will they think about me? And so there's this deep internalized shame. I can't talk about this. I can't even make sense of it for myself. And. And so how could I even tell anybody about this? And so I'm hearing you talk about the wizzy wig, and I'm looking at this almost in. what seems or could seem almost impossible because I've got two people who may be so entrenched in holding on to or they've got patterns that are so deep of not showing up authentically.

And so going back to our topic today of forgiveness, right? I've been hiding. I haven't been authentic. And I do not know what to forgive when I do not know what I am forgiving. And I do not know how to forgive. And we are in a world where we are living in this internalized conflict, and we may be hiding our own behaviors, our own emotions. So really a part of forgiveness is being able to see what is there, who you are, who I am, what we are as human beings.

-Yeah, I think the word that comes to my mind as you are saying that is congruency. We've got to find congruency and authenticity within ourselves. And then we've got to figure out how to start living a life where we're congruent with our values. We say what we do. And that's the starting place, I think, of building that trust.

Yes. And now I ask a question. Who needs to forgive? We all do. We all can take offense in many different ways. But at some point, we all have to learn how to forgive. Maybe we might even call it the art of forgiveness. And what I'm saying here is forgiveness is actually, and I think Janice Abram Springs talks about it really well in her book, How Can I Forgive youe?, because she talks about four different types of forgiveness. And the first type of forgiveness, Marianne, is cheap forgiveness, where I just simply move on. We don't talk about it, but I feel offended, but I don't talk about it because in this situation it might create conflict, a problem.

Yeah. And I, I'm so glad you brought up Janice Abrams Springs book, Dr. Skinner, because I remember buying it a couple of years ago because everything that I read in other texts that talked about forgiveness, it always came back and quoted her. And so I was like, I'm just gonna go to the source of this book. And, and I, I love the way that she presents it in this cheap forgiveness that you're talking about. I have clients who'll come to my office and say, oh, yep, I just have to forgive him. Or, okay, I forgave him. and, and that's that cheap forgiveness. I see it as just like this blanket. Okay, here it is. I didn't go through a lot of, I didn't process a lot of it. I didn't go through anything. I just, I know that I need to forgive. It's, it's a, you know, there's the rule. I need to forgive.

So, okay, I'll just forgive you. I'll just pretend like it never happened. And on the other side of that, we could also say that I, if my expectation is that you're just going to forgive because I've grown up in a world where that's just how it was, then I could simply say, well, can't you forgive me? Can't you move on? Almost expecting a cheap forgiveness as an outcome.

Yeah. And that cheap forgiveness, I think it completely bypasses any of the relational repair.

For sure. There's no work being done there. It's just almost like we're gonna put our head in the sand and hope the problem goes away.

Yep. Here's a Band-Aid put a Band-Aid on it. Can't see it. It's not there anymore.

All right, so that's type one. You want to introduce type two?

Yeah, the second type. And, and I want to, let me back up for just a second. There's a, there's a chart or a graph that I really like. I find it really useful in Janice Abrams Spring book. Her book is called how can I forgive you the courage to forgive the freedom not to. That's the book that we're referencing. So she talks about in each of these four types of forgiveness that she shares, she talks about three components. the first one is, does the hurt party come to terms with the injury? The second component is that the offender participates in the healing process. And the third component is whether or not this leads to reconciliation. And so in the cheap forgiveness, the hurt party, they don't come to terms with the injury. The offending partner doesn't have anything to do with the healing process, and it may or may not lead to reconciliation. so just, I think as we go through those, I want to kind of clarify how she, how she breaks those out. So the second one that she looks at is refusing to forgive. And we talked about that earlier, that that might create that, that boundary or that barrier to create protection for ourselves. But she says that when we refuse to forgive, like, I'm not going to forgive you. I am choosing to not, to not give you that gift of forgiveness. She says that doesn't bring me the hurt party to to terms with what happened. The offending person doesn't get to participate in the healing process and there's no reconciliation.

So the refusal to forgive isn't really forgiveness. It's a silent way of suffering in the relationship. When I refuse to forgive, I'm not moving on mentally, I'm not moving on emotionally, and the barrier between us is going to be consistent. It's not in any way forgiveness. It's actually holding the grudge. It's holding it. And again, I see this often in relationships. I've seen it in family relationships. I've seen it where people simply don't know, I'm not gonna ever forgive you. I've heard people say, I'm never going to forgive.

So that completely creates a barrier to the relationship progressing or growing.

Yeah, there can be growth. Until I consider the possibility that I'm going to emotionally move on. Because in many ways, forgiveness is me not carrying the burden. We misunderstand forgiveness so much. Forgiving another person, we typically say, but forgiveness is me not carrying the burden. And we'll get to that a little bit later on, which is really the next one, right?

Well, the next one is like the acceptance. Yeah. and it's accepting and saying, this happened. When I accept this happens, it doesn't mean that you have to be part of the process, but it is me accepting, hey, this happened and there's absolutely a part of surrender that happens there.

In some situations, that acceptance, you might not even get it with that person. They may be dead, they may be gone, but I've come to accept that, yes, whatever happened happened, But I feel like I can move on from the feelings of animosity, anger, hatred, whatever's inside of me. And I'm moving beyond that because I don't want to feel that. I don't want to give you the power over my emotions, over who I'm going to be, of how I'm going to be, of how I'm going to show up. Because really, when we can't forgive, we're carrying the burden. Yeah.

And you know, years ago in my recovery Journey, I remember coming across some words that said, forgiveness is a gift that comes with healing. It's often towards the end of the healing process. And I think it's really important. Sometimes it's. It's. We can't just be like, Serenity now or forgiveness now. We just can't pull it down. And here it is. And I will now forgive it. It is a process. at least in my experience, it's a process. I spend a lot of time working with my higher power, letting go and sorting through. What did that mean to me? And what did I interpret once again, going through those stories in our head? And oftentimes I do need something bigger than me to help me maybe see it in a different light or to be able to let go and give it to my higher power to address because I can't.

And that's part of the acceptance is I can't do it by myself. I need support. I need help. But I'm really what I liked about the concept of acceptance is a part of forgiveness is I'm not accepting the behavior. The behavior that was hurtful is still hurtful. The person's behaviors is still inappropriate. And but I've come to an acceptance that that burden is no longer going.

To be something I carry.

And I may doesn't mean I'm gonna have a close relationship with you necessarily. because in order for us to really move on, there needs to be what she calls genuine forgiveness, where there's two people who are working together to rebuild and repair something that's been damaged.

Yeah, before we jump into that genuine forgiveness, I think I want to point out with that acceptance place, especially when we're talking about addiction and betrayal trauma, I think that acceptance part of being able to say, You know, I may be married to somebody who has an addiction and they may take years to get to a place where they've worked through their recovery and things are in a healthier state. And part of the acceptance is maybe even just seeing things clearly and recognizing this is going to take some time.

Well, that's so hard to hear, Marianne.

Yeah. Right.

Because you're saying it's going to take time. And so the acceptance is still not accepting the behavior. Accepting that it's gonna, there's a process of change that takes time. And I'm gonna watch and observe and see if you're engaging in this process, but I'm accepting where we're currently at, that's hard to do.

Well, and she calls it a radical choice. And it feels radical. It feels so hard to say, can I see this how it really is? That it isn't okay, but I'm going to accept that this is a person that I care about and that I have hope for them. and that's not where they're at right now. And so maybe that's where I do need to use boundaries and I do need to focus on my self-care and my supports. But my radical acceptance is saying, here is the situation. What can I let go of? Yeah. Yeah.

And what really is important there is recognizing that you have to take care of yourself when you may not be able to be fully into this relationship the way you'd like to. and you're almost saying, I'm gonna weather the storm and see what comes out of it. But that's a different emotional state than me carrying this grudge, yelling, put downs, criticism, belittling, because that's not reparative. So the acceptance is, I'm gonna sit back as an observer and I'm gonna see what happens here. And I'm not making a commitment either way towards the marriage. I'm gathering information. I'm accepting this is where we're at. and then we're going to see what happens as you play the recovery cards. And are you in recovery? Are you going to do that or you're not?

Yeah. So I'm accepting my reality of where I'm at. And it's a really hard place to be. It's not where I want to be. And I may not be ready to make life changing decisions right now. And so I'm sitting back and just accepting that I've got some pain and a lot of emotions that I'm going to have to work through and I'm going to assistant part of the acceptance. So I hear you saying this. I hear you say that this marriage or relationship is important to me, but I see you consistently acting out and that gives me some conflicting information. And so the acceptance might is really looking at the reality of what, what the behaviors are, what's happening, where things really are.

All right, moving on to step four.

Okay.

Or, or forgive type, fourth type of forgiveness is a better way to say that.

Yes.

She calls it genuine forgiveness. What does that mean to you? What does that mean as she describes it?

I love this, this as she breaks it down into these four parts because we've got that cheap forgiveness. I just forgive you. Then we've got, I won't forgive you. Then we've got, let me accept where things are. Let me work on my own stuff. But the genuine forgiveness, this is the one where she talks about the hurt party. They come to terms with the injury. the, like, the biggest part of this, the biggest part of genuine forgiveness, as she shares it, is that the offending party also participates in the healing process. That means me coming to you and saying, I was hurt by this. And that means you coming back and saying, oh, okay, I want to fix this. And you making efforts, and it's an ongoing conversation, and it goes back and forth, and it's collaborative. It's not just, I'm forgiving you. or are you saying you need to forgive me? It is a unified process that's going back and forth between the two. And this may or may not lead to reconciliation, but it's a two party process and that's where healing happens because now we can repair.

It's a maturing process. And I don't think this is where most couples begin. I think when we see couples heal, I think that's what we see is genuine forgiveness. We have more mature conversations. She actually uses a term in there that I really liked. It's like a dance where the person who's offending party is they're making amends, they're making restitution, they're doing the best they can, and the person who's been hurt is allowing, and I'm gonna use that word, allowing that effort to be manifest and in some situations even validating it. Thank you for saying that. That means a lot. Now we have a couple who are doing a dance and it's not over, she says. It is a continuous effort that takes time. It takes energy and it's not one thing, I thought you had forgiven me. It is, oh, I see how this pain is now manifesting because of my actions in a new way, a way that we hadn't considered. And so I'm not becoming defensive. If I'm the offending party, I'm continually working to make amends.

Yeah, and Dr. Skinner, I think about couples sitting in my office and turning to each other and sharing this really hard, vulnerable, either this is how I felt when this happened and this is what I really needed, and the other partner hearing that and participating, saying, oh, this is what happens for me when I hear that. Here's where I go. In those moments, there's so much vulnerability, but that is where the attachment comes up. And so having the conversation, here's where I'm at. Oh, wow. I can see that. Here's what happens for me. It is that building process. And as you said, it is a process. It is a very mature conversation. And I would say it's a, it layers and layers and layers. It builds conversation on conversation on conversation on conversation.

Yes. And that's the important part. It is a journey that's going to take time, as you said, this process. And if we could add to it for a second, in many ways it creates a humility. When I've hurt somebody to come and say, I need to own what I've done, the pain I've created, I need to acknowledge it, and I need to be aware of the pain it's created in you. and I'm willing to listen if you want to share your thoughts and your feelings. And what's interesting there, and I've actually seen this happen, Marianne, I've seen it when a betrayed partner says, Are there resentments that I've created in you that I'm not aware of? And I, the first time I witnessed that one, I thought, wow, that was so incredible because they were in a place where he then was able to say, and he was the offending party, He said, I felt you got so distracted with the kids and with other things, I felt like I didn't matter. And then I turned to inappropriate behaviors and you didn't deserve that. And that awareness in her situation was, you know, I really wish we could have talked about that, because had I known, I think we could have of course corrected earlier. But I want to acknowledge that you felt that way.

Can I clarify on that, Dr. Skinner? Yeah. I'm wondering where that conversation happened. Was that after she'd done a lot of individual work already on her own?

Oh, yeah, for sure. For sure. Because there was a point where, you know, it was just so hard to have that conversation because typically it feels like blame, right? You're blaming me for your acting out. But it was a mature enough conversation where he was able to say, This was my thought process. I literally pushed away from you because I didn't think you were available. You weren't, you, I didn't feel like a priority. And him acknowledging that was wrong, her ability to say, I wish we, I could have known. And I also want to acknowledge that we were busy and that I might not have been available just to communicate or talk or be available when you came home. Those are the types of conversations where I see a lot of reparative process and maturing because it's not about blame. It's about perception.

However, take that conversation and put that into a month into betrayal.

It doesn't work.

No, you couldn't because that conversation would have felt and been heard as total gaslighting or blame. Blaming her that you're the problem, you were too busy and this is why and she would have had such a hard response with that as well or receiving that. And so I, what you're saying, like, that's a beautiful conversation, but we have to do some work before we can get there to even be soft enough to be able to hear it. And in that, that's a rose of betrayal. That's not usually right where we are to hear.

And no, and that's why I'm saying it's a mature conversation, because they were able to both explore the other person. their perceptions in a way that I don't feel like I have to defend myself or protect myself. And in that situation, he said, I chose wrong behavior, which was really his acknowledgment. That was a bad coping mechanism. Here's what I was thinking. Here's how I got down that pathway. That was a turning point because he was still owning it, but he was owning the erroneous thoughts, the cognitions that were mistaken, and his spouse could hear that. not as a blame, but here's how I worked through this in my mind. That's what happened. Genuine forgiveness is a dance that we get to a point where we can have those types of conversations and frequently we're able to resolve them because we're understanding each other on a deeper level. I see you, human intimacy. I see into who you are, what you're thinking, what you're feeling.

Yeah, I want to add on to that one more element. I believe when we get to that place where we can have those conversations, those really mature conversations with genuine forgiveness where we're both participating in the healing process, I believe then like the next natural step of that, it's, it brings us into empathy. So now when I do something in the future, I am aware of how that impacted you in the past. and I can have a lot more compassion and I can notice and say, oh, hold on, I know that in the past when I did this, this is how this impacted you. And so I can recognize it. I can validate it.

Yes.

The natural byproduct, I believe, of that forgiveness process.

And I want to conclude today with just this thought from me and then I'd be interested in your final thoughts, Marianne. Forgiveness is like letting go of a burden that you've been carrying. Forgiveness is a personal experience. The concept of I'm forgiving another person, really what I'm choosing to do is I'm not going to carry the burden any longer of what's occurred between us. I can see it different. I can feel it different. It does not mean I'm going to stay in the relationship or I'm not going to stay in the relationship, but my forgiveness is my ability to move through this and not carry the weight and the pain that I've been feeling because another person's behaviors. And I have seen that in many cases that I just couldn't make sense of. And let's just take it from maybe one of the most historically powerful moments, Marianne, and I take it to Christians and I take it to the Savior, Jesus Christ. I often wonder how On a cross when he's being spit upon, ridiculed, mocked, a crown of thorns. How in the world do you take that scenario and how do you say, Father forgive them for they know not what they do? How do you do that? And when I contemplate on that concept, Marianne, it's a model that is beyond my understanding, but it's a model I want to follow.

There's so much that you said there in that model. Forgiveness is something that we can't do on our own, that we need outside help with letting go of. Not sure where to go with that, but what I would like to share as we wrap up is what I've learned from my own personal journey of betrayal is that forgiveness is a process. and it takes time and it takes work. At least for me, it takes work. It takes a lot of time for me. It's been turning to my higher power and saying, help me through this. Help me make my way through this. Help me move through these. This hurt and this pain and help me find peace within myself and peace with this other person in my own personal Journey. What I found was it came when I wasn't expecting it. It came as a gift. It came. But it was something that I kind of had to put on the shelf and just say, I'm not sure when this. I'm not sure when. When this will come. And then it came as a surprise. And one of our colleagues, Karen Strange, she shared an exercise with with me years ago that I really love. She calls it the field of grace. And I'd like to share this with our listeners today if this might be a tool that might be helpful for you. And it's just a visualization. And she shared that we just visualize seeing ourselves walking into a space where there's a field. It can be a field of flowers. It can be filled with grass, can be filled with wheat, whatever you want it to be. Usually I ask my clients to bring in all of their senses to smell the air and feel the temperature if there's a breeze for the sun. feel their feet as they're walking and hear all the sounds, but walking into this space and in this, in this space of grace, this, this is a field of grace is what we call it. It's a place where we can let go of the things that we've been carrying, where we can let go of the resentments, the hurt, the pain, and we can give that to our higher power and let our higher power carry that for us. And, you know, as I've done this with clients, sometimes my clients will say, I don't want to let go of it. It's really hard to take off that backpack of rocks that I've been carrying around for a really long time. And, and I want to acknowledge it. It is. It can be really hard to let go of because it feels like it protects us. And so I want to validate that. But there is freedom when we can come to a place where we can lay down the burdens and allow something greater than us to take them. I am so grateful to have had this conversation today because I think forgiveness is such a misunderstood topic and I think there is so much shame. We often feel shamed. My betrayed partners often feel shamed like I was told I have to forgive, but I'm not ready to and so there must be something wrong with me. And so I just want to express compassion to our listeners and invite you, our listeners, to give yourself space and time and compassion and know that forgiveness, it is a process and it's a gift that comes with healing and it will come.

Thank you. Great exercising, great final words to our listeners. Our hope is that you'll take away from this conversation things that you can apply in your life, things that you can contemplate on. How do I best do this? I would encourage you to take some notes. things that you learn and put them into application. Because at the end of the day, you can listen and apply. And when you listen and apply, you'll find more meaning, more connection, and more internal peace. So with that, we want to say thank you for participating with us and being a part of this human intimacy podcast. It's always a blessing. Thank you. And one more thing. If you're liking the podcast, please share it with others. Marianne, thank you so much.

Thanks for being here, Dr. Skinner. And laugh when you laugh. Something's around you.

It's like you're shining, you're soaring.