Forgiveness and reconciliation
in marriage. My name is Paul Friedman, I
founded The Marriage Foundation
and this is very deep stuff.
So settle down
open your heart open your mind so we can
talk about this.
The first one is forgiveness.
This is one of the most misunderstood
things in the world.
I can forgive. You can forgive
but when we take that on with the
meaning that is generally accepted
it puts us in a place of superiority
that we don't own.
We don't really get to forgive
only God can forgive. If someone
errors, and this is very important for
you to see it this way,
when you air, when you make a mistake
you pay for it. There's no way out.
You walk into a store, you touch
something
it falls to the ground and breaks. You
own it
that's sort of how karma is because
that's what we're talking about here.
No matter what you do, there's
cause and effect 100%
of the time so when you make a mistake
you have to pay for. When you do
something good
you benefit from it so it's not just
crime and punishment.
It's a balance in the universe. It's how
things work
so let's pretend you are
the wife. I know you might be a
man
watching this but let's pretend is a
wife
and as a wife, your husband
cheated on you and
boy are you mad and there's a lot of
reasons.
Why? There's betrayal
need I to go further
and now you've reached a point where you
go, "Well, I'm not going to give him up,"
for whatever reason. It might be because of
the kids. It might
be because you're very invested in
the marriage
a lot of years, maybe you still love him
so much
you can't stand it but he cheated on you.
So you know you need to forgive him
as a first step.
Well, let me tell you something
that you already know but I'm just going to
bring it to the surface.
He made a huge mistake.
He hurt you but he hurt
himself much more
because it's treacherous. He has to pay
for that
and he may not even be thinking that.
Most of us don't let's face it
but there's no way he gets out of
paying the price.
So the thing to do
and this is a workaround, we're going to
get back to the forgiveness which is
what you really mean
but the workaround is to
infuse your mind with
compassion for your husband
knowing that somewhere down
the road in his future
he's going to pay.
You want to pray for him that he becomes
a better man --
that's selfish. That's not even close to
forgiveness.
Pray for him that he learns
so that he doesn't get burned again and
again and again by making the same
mistake --
that's cool. So you need to really
see this from up here.
You've got to take yourself out of the
victim
role in this scene
and see him more objectively and
understand
that he stuck his hand in a beehive to
get some honey.
And he got a little honey but he's also
getting stung, and there's no
avoiding it. There's no getting around it
for him.
He will pay.
Now some women go, "Good."
That thought creates bad karma for that
woman
because worse especially if it's your
husband,
you promise to love him
for the rest of your life
to be of service to him,
didn't you? And if you're that woman
who says good, he's going to pay for it --
not good. So the act of forgiveness
which is what you're talking about is
you're really saying,
"How do I get past this?
How do I take him off the hook in my
mind?"
Well, what we just talked about
is one way that you
understand what he did he didn't do to
you. He did it to himself
and so replacing this feeling
of being victimized in the feeling of
wanting revenge,
in the feeling of wanting him maybe not
revenge but you want him to
come clean.
No, don't want those things.
So now the next question is, "Well, how do
I not want those things?
I'm only human."
It's a very interesting thing that we're
moving into. We're going deeper and
deeper
in this subject and it's necessary.
We are not taught ever
in our lifetime until we seek it later
in our lifetime maybe.
We're not taught that the mind
is a possession of ours. We are souls.
We're not the mind. Some people who are
atheists they go, "Well,
I'm not a soul." Fine, you're consciousness.
The point is the mind is a possession
how it thinks, how it perceives
how it responds, reacts
all of that is up to you because you
have free will.
So the first step in the healing
is for you to start gaining control
over your reactions
because even when you say,
"I'm not reacting, he did this
a year ago." You're reacting to the memory
is the stimulant and the habit
reaction is the problem.
You have to gain control over that or
there is no way to forgive him.
You have to learn how to control your
mind otherwise, you're just stuffing
things
which is not cool.
Okay, reconciliation.
Most people have an expectation
that the one who did the dirty deed
should come clean, asked to be
forgiven blah blah blah.
No, no.
Again, that sets up your relationship in
a very bizarre way.
You agreed to be together in love,
harmoniously sharing your love,
harmoniously sharing the happiness
and what happened that you need a
reconciliation at all
is that neither of you knew what the
hell you were doing.
Look, how dare I say that you didn't know
what you were doing?
Come on! Where did you study marriage?
It's complicated. Would you take the keys
to an
airplane and you've never flown an
airplane before and
take off? And yet people get married.
It's amazing the divorce rate is only
50% although it's a little above
that
but, how many people are so unhappily
married because they have no idea how to
be married?
You know you're supposed to gain the
benefits,
the treasures, the promises of marriage
when you get married. Most people don't
even know what those
are. Number one
you got married in order to be happy
and I'll tell you frankly, most people
don't even know what I mean when I say
that. Happiness isn't
like you get a new car or a new dress
or a new suit. Happiness is
something that you feel
not temporarily but you feel it.
It's deep and when you get married you
got mary literally
to be happier every single day of your
life,
happier than the day before. Didn't you?
Sure, you never articulated that because
we're not taught anything like this
but that's why you got married. Where
does that happiness come from?
I'll tell you right now because that's
the second
and it's the coolest thing.
We all crave love
because we are love.
We crave love and we get married so we
can experience
ever-expanding love
constantly ever-expanding love until the
day
we die.
No one knows that much less knows how.
It's okay. Now you can learn about it
so that's what's going on
and that's how you do it.
Subscribe to this channel. Learn more
about marriage.
Get in touch with what i am sharing with
you
because i've done the work. I've done the
research,
I understand marriage deeply.
It's an amazing institution and you have
not lost it.
Now you're standing on the ledge and
you're going, "I want
what I wanted in the first place,"
but you have to recapture it. It's not
just going to happen by
itself. You can't just have a vision
and it materializes.
This is not a Walt Disney movie.
You have to do what you have to do to
achieve what you want to achieve.
You can do it. It'll bring you happiness,
love and joy
all along the way but you have to do it.
Take a look at my books. Take a look at
the reviews
on the courses for men as separately
and of course for women -- they're separate.
Take a look. See how
thousands of people have used our
courses.
See what other people say about it.
I think that if you're asking this
question it's something you should
consider and
whatever you do, I hope only the best for
you.
I want you to have that love. I think
it's so cool.
So blessings to you, blessings to your
spouse, blessings to your family!
Thank you for spending the time! Like the
video,
leave a comment. I love communicating
with people
who leave comments and it's fine if you
can say, "Thank you very much."
I especially like those comments.