There are four stages that one goes through on the road to forgiveness. Each stage is healthy and normal. Although the feelings associated may feel anything but normal. To review, I have listed the stages below.
Stage one: The first stage is hurt. When someone causes you deep pain as a result of betrayal or loss of trust, the natural response is to feel hurt. This stage is the result of feeling that you have been treated unfairly by someone you care deeply for.
Stage two: The second stage is anger. The memory of how painful you feel turns to thoughts of anger. You may even think about how you wish the other person would suffer as much as you are. Unlike hurt, which can leave you feeling vulnerable, anger can be very empowering. Some people may experience thoughts of revenge. This is also normal, it is when thoughts turn to actions or behaviors that can cause a person to do or say things they later regret.
Stage three: The third stage is healing. To arrive at healing, you will need to have gone through the first two stages. Stage three requires seeing the person who hurt you from a different perspective. Here you might try to see things through the other person’s eyes, trying to understand why and how he could have done the behaviors he did. Empathy is a necessary step to healing.
Stage four: The final stage is forgiveness. Forgiveness is when you invite the person who has wronged you back into your life. Although this doesn’t have to be in the literal sense, it can just be in your heart and mind without the other person being present. For most people the stage of forgiveness is very difficult to reach. Here you realize that the other person is fallible; that in a loving relationship each partner will hurt the other from time to time. This doesn’t mean you are a doormat, it means that you are able to rise above the behavior to see into the heart of the other person.
Your boyfriend/girlfriend is in stage 1 where you are at stage 4. This is why he/she is grieving and you feel helpless. In order to move forward, it will be necessary for you to join him/her in stage one. You can do this by setting aside some time when the two of you can talk without being interrupted. You can begin the process by telling him/her what it felt like for you to watch him/her choose others over you. Reliving the unpleasant emotions will not be an easy experience. Try not to avoid the painful feelings by jumping to stage four. Instead, allow your boyfriend/girlfriend to hear how his/her behavior affected you. Give him permission to tell you how he/she grieves over the knowledge of causing you pain.
After you both have shared your painful experience, you can then move to share with your boyfriend/girlfriend what it was like for you to be angry with him/her and his/her lover. Allow him/her time to understand your feelings. He/her may even have had similar feelings toward you for how he/her perceived you behaved and for him/her at how he/her perceived feeling trapped. It may be hard for each of you to hear the other’s experience, but it is a necessary step towards forgiveness.
After each of you have shared your own emotions and have heard the other’s experience, you are then ready to move on to stage three, healing. Stage three may take longer to move through then the first two stages as healing requires each person to ‘let go’ of the past and focus on the present. Also, stage three is an opportunity for the two of you to go through together. In order to go through this stage, talk about what steps or ritual you both will use to demonstrate healing. How will each of you mark the ‘letting go’ process? What steps will be taken to avoid this kind of situation in the future?
The experience of going through the stages of forgiveness with your boyfriend/girlfriend will bring the two of you closer together. By sharing feelings, showing empathy for the other, each of you has an opportunity to re-establish trust which can only strengthen your relationship and your love for each other.
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