“Can I Forgive My Parent?”

Seeing my father making efforts to gain back my mother’s faith in him made me believe he was sincere in asking for forgiveness. And once I realized that I’ve been forgiven for all of my sins, how could I not forgive my father for the hurt that he caused?
- Brenda, 33

One time my mom did ask for our forgiveness. We were eating dinner, me and my brothers and her, and she said, ‘I made some mistakes…’ but I didn’t feel like it was very heartfelt. Maybe it was, I don’t know. I remember she started crying.
- Grace, 25

I’m not sure if I really did forgive my father. I went through the motions of it, and I thought I did at the time, right before he died…but I feel a lot of frustration because I never really got to understand why he did it.
- Jane, 59


Forgiving is not condoning. Nor is it an agreement to ignore wrongdoing. Forgiving is about accepting human frailty, even in your own parents whom you look to as your primary role models. But in order to come to that acceptance, as an older child or adult child of infidelity you must go through a process of understanding, expressing, and letting go of your resentments: understanding your family’s infidelity crisis and how you were affected by it; working through and expressing your feelings about it; and then finally relinquishing your anger and resentment toward your parent or parents.

If you are a child of infidelity who wants to forgive a parent, you will need to confront such difficult questions as these:

• Can I accept that someone I love and trusted has done something wrong?
• Can I accept that my parent failed to live up to his/her professed moral values?
• Can I accept that my parent unintentionally hurt me, yet still loves me?
• Can I accept that one parent deeply hurt the other?
• Can I forgive the parent who cheated even if my betrayed parent cannot?
  

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You can get more useful tools and tips in my new book "Parents who Cheat".