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FORGIVENESS; TO WHAT EXTENT???
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Submitted by OLVOIL
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I have been with my boyfriend for 4 yrs and about a month. I love him to death, he was my first and only and the only man I have ever loved....
When were are together it is great, but when apart that’s another story......
Well here it goes... We were both in the military and we were on different ships and he went out to sea for 3 months and well he ended up cheating on me....
When he came back he had the courage to tell me, but the thing was she was married and pregnant. He didn’t love her but she was gonna have the baby.
Anyways long story short, he got out of the military and its been almost 2 1/2 years later and I can't trust him to anything, when he’s away from me, I go nuts over where he’s at and with whom. And I keep thinking he’s gonna leave me and get with someone else. I honestly can’t imagine not being with him.
But yet I feel like I’m going nuts and I know that if I continue to stay with him, I will be worse off then I was. I know what I should do, I know it sounds childish and I used to laugh at the girls who would stay with a cheater, but look at me now.
I know that he would not cheat on me again, but there is always that "what if" you know, what if he gets tempted. Please help, I have been holding things in for a while and would really like some feedback. Thanks
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COMMENTS
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Situations like these are never black and white.
You HAVE to make a decision and stick to it, if you decide to stay, then stay whole-heartedly and without reservations. If you decide that you cannot do this, and that doubts are always going to linger, then leave for the sake of your own mental health.
There was a story I heard once which might help you here.
Two monks were making a trek from one monastery to another through harsh country. They belonged to a sect that strictly forbade contact with females, they could barely even look at women much less touch them.
While on their way, they encountered a woman at a river crossing that was washed out due to heavy rain and the woman could not cross due to the strong currents and the heavy load that she was carrying. She desperately needed to get across so she could get food to her family.
The older of the two monks being the stoic person that he was kept on walking and forded the stream alone, he was strong enough to do it without problems. The younger monk went against all the older monk's philosophies and picked up the woman on his back, took her over the river and deposited her on the opposite bank.
When the older monk saw this, he started to berate the younger monk, constantly yelling in his ear over the rest of their long journey. The younger monk, ever serene, just kept on walking, never raising his voice back to the older monk.
As they neared the end of their journey, the younger monk turned to the older monk and said, "Drop your woman, you'll be a better monk for it, I dropped MY woman back at the river."
The moral of the story is that to live one's life the way it should be lived, you need to drop the "issues" in your life and forge ahead. We don't have much time on this earth and we owe it to ourselves to either quit a bad situation or drop the issues and move on with a clean slate.
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It's an interesting question you pose as your heading. Have you ever really heard of partial forgiveness? It's an all or nothing deal.
Your heading should be "Trust to what extent?" and the answer is the same...completely.
You can't continue to question his faithfulness because eventually you'll drive him away with your speculation and distrust. If you love him you must learn somehow to trust. If you can't trust then you need to let him go or accept that his love is true even if he isn't physically. You can't hold him tight enough to guarantee he won't cheat on you. The only way to potentially earn his undying faithfulness is to trust that he loves you and won't hurt you again.
Remember too that his faithfulness or unfaithfulness is not a reflection of your self worth and it does not reflect on you. His unfaithfulness was and is a reflection on him. I hope he's learned his lesson and that he deserves your devotion!
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