Episode 72. Is Forgiveness the F Word? The Real Truth About Letting Go

Jul 29

The Healing Power of Forgiveness in Marriage

Forgiveness can be one of the hardest things we do in marriage—but it can also be the most liberating. It asks us to let go when everything in us wants to hold on. It calls for courage, not weakness. And while it might not change the past, it has the power to transform the future.

As a researcher and educator studying couples' dynamics, I've seen firsthand how forgiveness can shift the trajectory of a relationship. It doesn't mean forgetting or excusing harm. It means choosing peace over bitterness, healing over rumination, and freedom over emotional imprisonment.

What Forgiveness Isn’t—and Why That Matters

We get a lot of mixed messages about forgiveness. But here’s the truth:

Forgiveness does not require forgetting the offense.
It does not mean reconciliation is automatic.
It is not a sign of weakness.
And it certainly does not leave you open to further harm.

These myths keep couples stuck—either holding grudges or rushing past their pain. But real forgiveness honors the truth of what happened while choosing not to be defined by it.

Your Mind on Forgiveness

Letting go of resentment isn’t just good for your relationship. It’s good for your mind. People who practice forgiveness show:

Lower anxiety and depression
Less stress
Stronger emotional resilience

A 2020 study by Toussaint and colleagues found that forgiveness traits are directly linked to fewer mental health symptoms—including PTSD.

Forgiveness = Stronger Marriage

Marriage is messy. You will hurt each other. But forgiveness is what turns those moments into catalysts for deeper connection. Dr. Frank Fincham's research reveals:

Forgiving spouses are significantly more satisfied
Forgiveness predicts long-term stability
Intimacy increases when forgiveness is present

The Science: Letting Go Changes Your Chemistry

In one study, couples were divided into three groups: no training, communication training, and forgiveness/empathy training. The couples who focused on forgiveness showed lower cortisol levels and fewer toxic behaviors like criticism and stonewalling.

Translation: Forgiveness doesn’t just feel better—it literally lowers your stress.

How to Practice Forgiveness in Real Life

Even if forgiveness doesn’t come naturally, it can be cultivated. Start here:

1. Pause for Self-Reflection
Ask, "What’s my part in this?" Owning your role doesn’t excuse the other’s behavior—but it creates space for honest healing.

2. Talk About the Hurt
Don’t bury it. Speak it. Creating safety for hard conversations is part of building trust.

3. Lead with Empathy
You don’t have to agree with your partner’s actions to try and understand their mindset.

4. Get Support if Needed
Sometimes healing requires help. Couples therapy can be a powerful place to rebuild trust.

But What If It Was Abuse?

Forgiveness should never be confused with permission to stay in harm's way. If you’re in a relationship that threatens your physical or emotional safety, your first step is protection—not forgiveness.

Forgiveness Is a Process, Not a Moment

You might forgive once. Then have to forgive again tomorrow. And next week. That’s normal. Forgiveness is layered and nonlinear.

But every step toward it is a step toward peace. Toward clarity. Toward connection.

One Last Thought

Forgiveness won’t make you forget. It won’t erase the scars. But it will loosen resentment’s grip and free you to build something beautiful again.

Ask yourself today: What would my marriage feel like if I stopped carrying this burden? What would it look like to forgive—not for them, but for me?

When you're ready, forgiveness will be waiting.

Check out this week’s Episode 72 of Marriage iQ to hear some of history’s… and our own… best stories about forgiveness.

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Welcome to Marriage iQ, the podcast for the intelligent spouse.
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I'm Dr. Heidi Hastings.
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And I'm Dr. Scott Hastings.
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We are two doctors, two researchers, two spouses, two lovers, and two incredibly different human beings coming together for one purpose. To transform the stinky parts of your marriage into scintillating ones. Using intelligence mixed with a little fun.
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Hello, everyone. Welcome back. We are so excited to see you again and we just love you so much. Welcome. You know, here at Marriage iq, we want to grow.
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Yeah.
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And we need you. We need your help. This is a very valuable, totally free resource for you and your friends to use whenever you want.
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Could be instead of therapy. If you can't afford therapy, it could be combined with therapy. If you need some support between and want some research based ideas to help you with what you're learning in therapy.
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That's right, Heidi.
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Could be great for those couples who are doing really well, don't have major problems, but they just want to be more scintillating.
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And because of that, we do. We run off the power of seeing you gain insight.
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Yeah, we love that.
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This is a passion labor of love. Can you just do us a small favor right now? I hate to interrupt you, but we'd just love it if you could follow us. Leave a rating, a review on Spotify, on Apple podcasts, Audible, anywhere that you listen to our podcasts or if it's on YouTube, if you could subscribe and like our channel. If we don't deserve that five star rating, let us know first. Email us@hellorriageiq.com and tell us and we'll be sure to respond to you.
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Also, give us suggestions for episodes that you'd love to hear.
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If you can just think of one person right now who might like our unique, quirky, intelligent approach to living your most scintillating life.
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And if you like hearing Scott sing almost every episode, then copy a link.
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To this episode and send it to them. That's all we ask. Just push that pause button and do it now. We'll wait for you. So we want to get into our topic for today, Heidi. We're real excited about talking this today. It's really deep, very personal as it usually is.
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Yeah. I want to start out by telling you about one of the most fascinating interviews I had when I was doing my research was a woman who was in her 70s who got gonorrhea just after her 70th birthday. And that was her introduction to finding out about the hundreds of prostitutes that her husband had been with over the years. And as she was telling me about this. She told me that a neighbor or somebody had dropped by a book on forgiveness and left it sitting on her front porch. And it created such visceral responses in her. She'd been so greatly betrayed to the very, very core when she thought for her whole marriage that she had a wonderful marriage, and it hurt her so badly. She said, forgiveness is the F word. The fact that I didn't get out my truck and run over him coming and going and leaving him dead, he should consider himself forgiven. And, of course, I laughed at that a little bit. But I've thought about that a little, about how visceral a response can be to the word forgiveness, and I know full well that it may be that way for some of you who are listening to this episode as well. The idea of forgiveness can be, for some people, very taboo or controversial. It triggers resistance and anger, especially in those who've been betrayed or in abusive situations.
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Wait, you're saying that forgiveness is controversial? It.
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It can be, yes. That woman was so insistent that forgiveness is not going to be part of her program, that it's not part of the way that she's going to handle this situation. He needs to pay with that. We acknowledge that this topic is very challenging. It's very personal, and it's very emotionally complex.
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But we, your loyal hosts @marriage IQ, do not shy back on controversial, hard, complex topics. We tackle them.
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And we know that a lot of our listeners, including ourselves, have cultural or moral pressures or teachings that teach the importance of forgiveness. It's just a little bit more complex than that. And so today, we are going to dive in to some of the more complex parts of it and what some of the benefits of it are, and.
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We guarantee you will not hear anything like what we have today. So I want to talk a little bit about what you touched on, Heidi, about morality, because when we think of morality or morals, I think it's kind of a religious connotation. But, yeah, let's be honest, people. We all have religion. We all have morals, our own different morals. Even atheists, people who don't believe in God, trust me, they have morals.
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So what are you saying, then? What's your definition of religion when you say we all have religion?
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Well, we all have belief. We all have faith. You gotta have faith, faith, faith. You gotta have faith, faith, faith.
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Ooh, faith in science or faith in God or.
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That's right.
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In our partner. Or faith.
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I have. Yes. Faith in God. I have faith in me. I have faith in science. But even the atheists they don't. They just don't acknowledge it as something outside of biology and physiology. But they do have something. They have a faith, a belief. We all have that own level of morality, our own sense of right and wrong. And forgiveness plays a big role in this. This morality. That's why we're setting that up for you today. And whether our own personal sense of right or wrong has been violated and how we reconcile that with those who have wronged us. And so that kind of leads to forgiveness in and of itself. What is forgiveness, people? All of you out there?
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Yeah, I think everybody has a very individual and specific idea of what that entails.
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We'll kind of let you know what we came up with. Forgiveness is the intentional process of letting go of resentment, anger, or the desire for revenge towards someone who has harmed or wronged you, even if they don't deserve it or they don't seek it.
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If they don't ask for forgiveness. That's right, say they're sorry.
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Forgiveness is independent of all of that. It is a personal choice. And intentionality is one of our four cornerstones.
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Folks going to talk about that idea over and over of forgiveness being a choice.
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It's a personal, internal decision to release emotional burdens and choose peace over bitterness.
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Yeah.
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It can be expressed in various ways. Emotionally, spiritually, behaviorally. It can apply to both others and ourselves.
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Today we're going to rely a lot on the research of Dr. Frank Fincham out of the University of Florida.
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He's kind of the guru of forgiveness research. Right.
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For the last 20 years or so, he has produced a lot of research on this topic. And some of the research that we're using is most often on forgiveness within marriage. He, in several of his studies, has come up with several things that forgiveness is not. So we started with the definition of what forgiveness is, and now we want to talk about what he's found Forgiveness is not. Forgiveness is not having to forget.
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Wait a minute. I thought we're told to forgive and forget, right?
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Nope. We're going to talk in just a minute about the importance of actually remembering what. What it is that we're forgiving. The second thing he talks about is that forgiveness is not having to reconcile with the offender. You may. You may choose to eventually, you may choose to immediately, but you don't have to. You get to make that decision.
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Okay.
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The third thing he talks about is that forgiveness is not accepting that we're weak. A lot of people see forgiveness as the weak way out, that I'm not holding them accountable. I'M not holding responsible.
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I'm weak. Yeah, it's not that.
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It's not that. It also is not necessarily leaving us vulnerable to being hurt again.
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That makes sense. I think some people might say, hey, if I forgive you, that means I'm putting myself back in the same situation to get hurt again.
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Right.
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You're saying forgiveness is not being vulnerable.
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To that again, especially if we come with the understanding that I talked about a couple of points earlier, that if we're in a dangerous situation and we are forgiving, that doesn't mean that we have to go back into that situation. And lastly, he says forgiveness is not becoming less motivated to think and feel and behave negatively toward the offender. Sometimes we may still have some of those feelings. Sometimes we may continue to feel hurt or have negative things arise, and we have to realize that we're human and some of those things might happen.
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So I guess I need to reconcile a little bit what forgiveness is. It's letting go. Right. But it's not necessarily forgetting or even giving up some of these feelings of hurt that have happened previously. It sounds like it's. It's walking a fine line what forgiveness is and what it isn't. But I. I like the idea of just being able to let go in a way that it does not adversely affect my life anymore.
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It's more for my own peace.
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Right. And you know, what better example of letting go and forgiving than a historical figure in history? The Archbishop in South Africa, Desmond Tutu.
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Yeah, he was a Nobel Peace Prize winner.
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Peace Prize, Yep, winner and high up in the Anglican church in the 1980s, 1990s, during apartheid in South Africa. For those of you who do not know what apartheid is, it was the. The legal codification of systemic racism and discrimination toward black people, violence and abuse. And so basically, the government sanctioned this type of discrimination, and a lot of.
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Deaths happened during that time.
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You know, I was looking this up at least. Well, somewhere around 10,000 or more deaths during this period of time from discrimination, from racism. And so Desmond Tutu was assigned in this new government. The apartheid ended around 1994, and after that, he was assigned to be part of this Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which looked at individual specific examples of what happened and allowed people to tell their stories. Allowed people to tell their stories. You're right. You know, during one of these hearings, a former military officer confessed to torturing and killing an anti apartheid activist, Safio Makulu.
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You said that so well.
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And the activist who was killed, his mother, Joyce, listened as this officer described the horrific details of murdering her son.
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That must have been excruciatingly difficult. Instead of imagine.
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Yeah. Instead of hatred, she chose the path of forgiveness through deep grief and unimaginable courage. And when Desmond Tutu, who, again, he was on this committee, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, when he heard this, he was overcome with emotion, and he wept as he witnessed this act of grace, of forgiveness. And for him, it symbolized the heart of South Africa's healing. The forgiveness. It's not easy or abstract, but real and costly and powerful. And that's what we're kind of referring to today.
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I don't know how long that mother had had to process those emotions. I would guess it had been several years that had passed since her son was murdered. And I think it's important to recognize that forgiveness and coming to that peace within herself may have taken a lot of time.
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It may have. You know, Tutu argues that true reconciliation between former enemies cannot be achieved by forgetting the past.
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This is really important, not forgetting the past.
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You don't forget.
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You remember the past.
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We need to tell you the forgiven forget thing needs to be reprogrammed in our brains. We don't forget the past, but we confront the past with honesty, radical honesty. Truth and granting forgiveness.
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And perhaps the officer that was on trial had had many years to think through what his behavior was and come to a place that he knew he needed forgiveness in order to move forward with his life. This really hits home for me, Scott, because we had an experience this last week that brought this to the forefront of my mind. Okay, so our oldest daughter got married, and she's my daughter from my first marriage. As I anticipated seeing her father for the first time in many years, I was pretty uncomfortable with that. And knowing what I know now, that discomfort means I need to sit through and face something. I was a little curious about what that might entail. And the morning before the wedding, I had this impression that. That this could be the last time I ever see him in this life. So during our marriage, when things were very hurtful to me, I often would silence myself and not talk to anybody about it, not tell others to protect him, to protect myself from feeling like I wasn't good enough. And so I determined that I needed to be courageous and I needed to tell him how his behaviors had hurt me. But I also felt like it was really, really important to do it with compassion. And so I couldn't figure out how. How do I do this and be compassionate at the same time so it doesn't feel like I'm just attacking. And the answer came in the moment that the opportunity was there. So I was cleaning up some things from the wedding, and he walked by, and I just said, hey, can I talk to you for a few minutes? And I verbalized to him that there are some things that had happened with him that hurt me so deeply. They've kept popping up over the years in different ways that are hurtful, and I feel the need to let him know some of those ways. But then I also followed it with. And I also recognize this is a part of my behavior that I'm not very proud of. I didn't handle it very well when this was happening in your life, a specific circumstance. And I've got to say, I was shocked at how well he handled it and how he apologized. And that was the first time that had ever happened. And he was very sincere about recognizing his own part, and I was very sincere about recognizing my own part. And I left there feeling just on this high. I felt so courageous for the first time about this topic. I felt like I'd been charitable, I'd been kind. I think both of us felt like we'd come to a place of resolution. And I loved his words. He just said, I've got to let you know, I'm so glad you found Scott. He's been so good to you. He's been so good to our daughter. And I know he is such a great guy. And that was such a moment of peace, a moment of resolution, a moment of joy, really, for having come full circle with the steps of forgiveness. Even though I'd, in my heart, started to feel forgiveness about 15 years after the divorce. This is a process that took a really long time. Maybe I'm just a slow learner, but I can understand what Desmond Tutu is saying about we can't really move forward in life. Things keep holding us back without forgiveness.
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Yeah. And for me, it was interesting. It was more of a feeling of gratitude because had he not done the things that he had led to, the divorce, which why I wouldn't have been able to meet you. So that's cool. Good things can happen out of bad things. I'm just saying.
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Frank Fincham, his research talks about that forgiveness requires working through the hurt. It is hard work to forgive. It's not easy for someone who's been wronged. It's completely valid to feel resentment. However, true forgiveness requires engaging with that pain, not avoiding it. Forgiveness is not a sign of weakness. It actually demands strength. Because facing and processing emotional wounds like I did Last weekend. Take a lot of courage.
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On the other hand. Right. If you just avoid it, you don't want to deal with it. Sweep it under that rug.
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Keeps showing up. Keeps holding me back.
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Yeah.
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Ultimately, how the person we forgive responds is their responsibility. And I'm really grateful for the way that my ex husband responded. That was beyond my wildest imagination. It was a little scary thinking how he might respond. But I was very grateful. It is important, though, to remember that forgiving someone doesn't mean automatically trusting them again. Trust has to be rebuilt over time. Forgiveness also isn't the same as being naive or pretending that nothing ever happened. You can forgive someone while still taking steps to protect yourself from being hurt again. Forgiving someone who abused you doesn't mean returning to the same harmful situation. That would be pretty stupid.
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Yep.
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And not necessarily even forgiving.
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Right.
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Like we talked about, the idea of forgive and forget is so misleading.
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Yep.
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As President John F. Kennedy once noted, we can choose to forgive those who wronged us, but that doesn't mean that we erase what happened from our memory. True forgiveness involves both grace and remembering. Doesn't mean that we are ignoring the pain or excusing harmful behavior or even removing the consequences from the person who hurt us. Instead, it stems from knowing that I am worthy of better treatment.
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I like that.
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To forgive is to let go of the desire for revenge, though. And revenge is that belief that the offender owes you something or needs to be punished or held accountable. And. And that may be true. Right. Well, I don't think it means giving.
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Up that they need consequences. Right. I think that what they said.
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But it may not be consequences imposed by me.
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Right.
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Is what I'm.
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Yes. My own personal consequences that. That you owe me anything.
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Right.
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He or she may have consequences of prison.
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Right.
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But. Yeah.
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Or divorce. Or divorce.
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Yeah.
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Lots of different things. But it does acknowledge that a genuine wrong did occur.
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Yeah.
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Forgiveness is never required. Rather, it's a deliberate act. It goes beyond what justice demands. So while it may never be required, it is a courageous decision to release resentment. And I love that. To release resentment while still holding onto the truth of what happened.
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You know, and that's why I talked about morality in the beginning. Because something that might cause me harm that you do may not cause someone else harm. They may not look at it at all as being harmed. And so they don't even think, why would I forgive if there's nothing to forgive over? And so we all have different ways of expressing what's harmful to us. What are our deepest values that goes back to identity, one of our four cornerstones. What are our deep values that also brings up to this paradox of life. I enjoy reading and thinking about paradoxes of life. There is a paradox of marriage, one of many. We get our deepest needs fulfilled in our closest, the most romantic, most intimate relationships in marriage. But we're also hurt, betrayed, wronged, or somehow let down by our spouse. Over and over, over and over, you will be hurt by your spouse. It's going to happen. It's probably happened. It's probably happened multiple times. That is life. There's not a perfect spouse who will not do that to you out there. They don't exist. Forgiveness needs to be available in that marital relationship because we share our deepest vulnerabilities with our spouse. That same vulnerability, which we talked about a couple of weeks ago, increases our chance of being hurt. That's a paradox, and it happens over and over during a lifetime. I can see why some people would say, well, forget it, I'm out. But those people who say, forget it, I'm out, they don't get to that deep level of meaning in their life. Just ask all the people who they interview at the end of their lives about what they say about intimate relationships. See your spouse for that whole person that they are. There's more to your spouse than just their offending behavior.
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See the good, too.
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Response to negative behavior is negative. That results in rumination. So if your spouse does something to upset you, results in rumination. That means thinking of that same thing that they did over and over and over again and not letting it go, which causes anger and the need to retaliate, to hold a grudge, revenge. All of those things are very costly emotionally. All these things, highly costly.
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I do have to again bring up, though, in cases of abuse and other very hurtful behaviors like that, those kind of emotions are there, I think, as a protection and have to be looked at. So we can't really look at really intense types of situations with the same lenses as those daily things that may bump up against our values, but not that physically put our lives at danger.
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Well, and timing matters. Sometimes it takes years, decades, sometimes it takes seconds. So we talk about the definition of forgiveness. Heidi, let's get a little bit more granular on ways to show forgiveness.
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Okay? So forgiving the small things typically isn't a problem. Maybe we had a run in on something, some conflict, and I felt hurt by what you said. And so I'm stewing, stewing, thinking, I'm just going to wait for you to come and say you're sorry and you don't. And I keep ruminating in my head about what you did wrong. And eventually I realized, hmm, he's not going to apologize. I can keep going on that way forever and it's going to damage the relationship. Or I can stop and think, okay, let me look at this again and see what was my part? Where did I go wrong? Whether it was in my response, whether it was in the way I approach things, whatever it is, those are some of the small things that we bump up against that if we continually have a tradition of just understanding that each other is human, we can repair fairly quickly.
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Sometimes the things I do, I don't think are wrong. Right. And you do.
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And so based on my own.
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Based on your own values that are different than mine.
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Right.
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Part of being your own strong, flexible self. And so you're expecting an apology which isn't coming because I don't think I did anything wrong because my values might be a little different. And so that's where I think maybe this more superficial level of forgiveness comes in. Right. Is we're just giving each other grace for being human beings.
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Exactly.
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As being spouses together, we're giving grace. Hey, he thinks differently than I do. She thinks differently than I do. I can let this go. This is not a big deal.
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And this is a great place to bring up our thanos tool F A N O S that we talk about in episode 65. Go back and listen to that episode if you haven't. Because that gives us a way to process some of these smaller types of needs for forgiveness on a daily basis. But then there's also needing to forgive big, huge things that.
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So that's the deeper level of forgiveness.
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Right?
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Not as superficial.
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And we may say, I forgive you. But then it keeps coming up over and over. Different aspects of it are triggered through things that happen. And this takes a lot of intentionality. It takes sitting through things and often it'll take the help of a therapist to work through. And it may take many years to forgive some of those big things, but by doing so, there's peace.
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You know, I'm really glad that, I guess, gift of being able to forgive easily. Me and my buddy Nephi, we talk about frankly, forgiving people.
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That's funny. I think one of the most difficult forms of forgiveness is actually self forgiveness. It involves letting go of harsh self judgment that bring feelings like shame or toxic guilt that linger for a long time after we've actually taken responsibility and trying to correct a mistake. Self forgiveness means that we are owning what we've done wrong, but choosing to respond to ourselves with compassion, with kindness, and with grace. Realizing that we're human, taking responsibility, but trying to grow and learn from it instead of condemning ourselves. With that said, self forgiveness can be misapplied too. If it turns into avoiding accountability. It's healthiest when it's grounded in something that's even greater, whether that be a belief in God or a higher power, or being surrounded by people who model empathy and forgiveness and understanding.
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Let me see if I get this straight, because this is walking a fine line. Learning to forgive ourselves, avoiding shame, this toxic guilt of I'm just a bad person, I'm, I'm just doing wrong all the time. I can't get out of it. Getting through that self forgiveness, but not going overboard and not taking responsibility for these actions, that, that can be hard to balance. Right, right. But it sounds to me that helping this balancing act individually is strengthened through some kind of a relationship with a higher power.
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Absolutely. And Frank Fincham's research found that also having those anchors can make the journey toward inner healing more authentic and enduring. And he calls that divine forgiveness. If we believe in forgiveness by a supreme being or a higher power, if we see a higher power or God as compassionate and as forgiving, maybe holding us accountable, but not being punishing and angry, but being compassionate and merciful and giving us chances to keep trying to learn and change, it has all kinds of benefits for our ability to forgive ourselves and to forgive our partner, our spouse, when they do something that's hurtful.
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But Dr. Hastings, what if I don't believe in a higher power?
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Well, you can forgive to whatever level you can forgive. I don't know. Research just shows that this makes it.
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More meaningful, which I do believe in higher power for those who are questioning. But I, I, I think this is a good question. And I think it's probably appropriate to think of the universe or Mother Earth in that context.
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If you don't believe in God or something, believe in something greater than yourself, than yourself.
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And that brings up something I'm really passionate about, just how we're inborn.
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These traits coming back to identity, genetic.
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DNA wired within us. And we talked a little bit earlier about how it's, it's probably a little bit easier for me to just, frankly, forgive people. I don't experience that deep injury as some others might. Again, genetic. Maybe I grew up with it, I don't know.
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Or your experiences have been a little less traumatic, perhaps?
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Maybe, yeah. The environment I was placed In. But all I know is I'm. I'm grateful for this gift.
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Yeah. And I'm grateful for that gift too, because I mess up all the time. And you are very forgiving. It is really a blessing to our marriage.
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So thinking about these things from a genetic standpoint, I think is important. That is a good point to, to discuss those possibilities.
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It gives us a little opportunity to look at ourselves, to inspect our own, the ability to forgive, and see where we might lie in that area.
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You know, this guy Fincham, he keeps showing up. I'm telling you, he's the guru.
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He's great.
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Of forgiveness in marriage and relationships. He found that for health benefits. He found that those over time who have anger, hostility, vengeful thoughts. In other words, not learning to forgive, it leads to heart disease and early death. The lack of forgiveness is literally life threatening.
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Wow.
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So we implore you here on Marriage IQ to find forgiveness as a way of life, even if it doesn't genetically come easily for you. Work on it. There's another study by Toussaint. Another. He had a lot of studies too. And 2020, it says, a summary of research on forgiveness and health and those who exhibited the trait of forgiveness that's associated with better health, like fewer psychological symptoms. Anxiety, depression, post traumatic stress disorder.
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So you're saying forgiveness impacts our mental health?
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It does.
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Wow.
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Mental health and depression and anxiety are. Are the biggest ones. Let's be honest. Those are huge.
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Everything else, ptsd, it would be pretty huge too, right?
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But I mean, I'm talking about mental health disorders in general. The anxiety and depression are enormous. They probably take up 90%. And so as we practice forgiveness and we develop the trait, whether it's inherited or learned, we not only live longer, but we have less anxiety, less depression, our blood pressure is better. We have fewer chronic autoimmune disorders and immune diseases, infections.
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That would be a really interesting study to look at.
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There is another study in 2015, Fincham, again. They looked at 179 couples and they put them into three groups. One was a control group. They did nothing. That's control. Another group was. They did a nine hour course on communication and conflict resolution.
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Okay.
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The third group, they did a nine hour course on forgiveness and empathy. And then they tested salivary cortisol levels. That's just taking some saliva out of your mouth. And they check cortisol, which is a hormone produced by the adrenal gland. It can serve as a marker of stress over time. And they checked it at 1 month, 6 months, and 12 months. And they found that cortisol levels were lower, meaning lower stress levels at one month and six months in the treatment intervention group groups. Those are the groups again. The first group in the intervention, the communication, communication and conflict resolution. The second group was forgiveness and empathy. Right.
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Okay.
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And then of course the control group had nothing.
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Okay.
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So they, they also looked at levels of the, of behavior, negative behaviors toward each other in these couples, including criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling, things like that. And they found that the control group, the, those behaviors deteriorated over time because they did a final follow up at 12 months.
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So basically their relationship is getting worse when they have no ability to navigate conflict and no ability to forgive and be empathetic with each other just after.
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This, this one course.
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Okay.
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And so the important thing here folks is that we are teaching you here at Marriage IQ about both ways. We've talked about conflict resolution over and over in the past communication styles and now we're talking about forgiveness and empathy. And if you do both, just think how much better, how much more scintillating your marriage is going to be.
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Right. Last week's episode is giving you some tools for conflict resolution.
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Tools in your toolbox.
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This week teaches the other side of that. So these are ways to help you have those better long term relationships.
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You know, we also found that from a flip side, people who engaged in regular aerobic exercise and or stretching were more likely to forgive more easily than those who didn't.
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That's crazy. Why would that be?
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I don't, Well, I don't know, but it's super cool.
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It's a correlation.
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Yes. That there's a. People who exercise more, they find it easier to forgive.
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Maybe they're letting some of the stress go through the exercise.
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So another reason folks to regularly exercise, not just good for your heart and your brain, but also your relationships. Forgiveness. I love it.
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Yeah, I did see on there that either people who exercise way, way, way too much or who don't exercise at all just really struggle with forgiveness. And maybe it's that our body isn't in its best state.
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Well, and I think, yeah, those who, who go excessively to exercise, they may be dealing with some other compulsive issues that they don't, you know, how to regulate things like that. Maybe some addictions that are underlying. So we're talking about moderation here folks. And for 90 plus percent of the population it is not over exercising, it is under exercising.
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That's right. Well, let's talk too about some of the relational benefits that come from forgiveness. Dr. Fincham, had several studies on this topic. One showed that forgiveness is tied to greater emotional intimacy for couples and resilience. Another study showed that spouses who are more forgiving report higher relationship satisfaction. They're more happy with their relationship, more satisfied with their relationship. Forgiveness is one of the most powerful predictors of long term marital satisfaction and stability. Forgiveness interrupts those cycles of resentment, and it reduces hostile behavior towards each other. It promotes more effective conflict. Forgiveness, again, cannot be forced. It must be fundamentally and freely given of our own free will and choice. And this brings us back to Archbishop Desmond Tutu. In his book no Future Without Forgiveness, he explains an African term, ubuntu. Ubuntu means I am, because we are. We are interconnected. My well being is deeply connected to Scott's well being.
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Isn't that enmeshment?
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Well, enmeshment is when I give up who I am to fold into you, and I don't know who I am anymore. And I am just expecting you to behave in certain ways because I give up who I am.
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It's important for everyone to recognize that.
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Difference, that there is a difference. So this interconnection is when we hurt each other, it hurts the relationship. And if we don't forgive our spouse, it ultimately will harm me too, and our relationship. So being able to forgive helps both our marriages and our world. Living in Ubuntu, it's changing our own heart from a heart of war to a heart of peace, because both of us are being accountable. Both of us are looking for our part and facing it and communicating about it.
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I love that part of being a scintillating marriage is looking at yourself. So, okay, this week, folks, ask yourself, sit down with yourself. Am I naturally more forgiving? Do I have a hard time forgiving? Can I begin to exercise regularly with aerobic exercise and stretching to increase this ability? Can I start looking at God or a higher power or something bigger than myself? Can I intentionally plan to go throughout my day and practice daily forgiveness as a couple? Sit down, have a meeting, a couple's council we talked about so long ago. Is one of you more just naturally more forgiving than the other?
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And how do you navigate it?
[00:42:24 - 00:44:07]
Yeah. How do we look at honesty and truth from a radical viewpoint? None of us want to suffer emotional turmoil and fallout from upsetting our spouse, disclosing something very personal and private to them. It's scary. But marriage is the great laboratory of life. It's an opportunity to feel what it's like to forgive in radical ways, in safe ways. And to soar to greater heights. We simply cannot do that. Living a single life, I'm sorry, that requires marriage. Let's turn this back to our four cornerstones. We talked about all of them today. Identity. Do I have a personality trait that makes it easier or harder to forgive? And how does complete honesty play a part in my identity? Intentionality Sit with your spouse. Make time with your spouse. Be intentional with making that time during your week to discuss this together with them. Insight. Talk about what is my part. Where am I wrong? We talked about the three most important words in a marriage. Am I wrong? Seek forgiveness for that from your spouse. And intimacy. You know, all this may actually end up killing your old marriage and creating a brand new one. And it might be a lot better than the one before one based on radical truth, transparency, honesty and forgiveness.
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The ability to talk about what those hard things are instead of just letting them slide. We hope today that you've learned from Dr. Frank Fincham, from Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his example of radical forgiveness, and our own life experiences that we've shared the value that this one simple behavior mindset can bring to a marriage. And again, we remind you, if you're in a violent marriage, if you're in a marriage where you're being hurt, please worry about getting safe before you worry about forgiving. Too many women just feel like it's their duty to forgive and they're in a very unsafe kind of a relationship.
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We learned today that's not true forgiveness.
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That is not true forgiveness.
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Forgiveness means you're emotionally intelligent and you get out right?
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So that's a wrap for this episode of Marriage iq. We hope that this is a really great episode for you to return to as you start to get a little better idea of what it takes to be a truly forgiving person.
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And remember, an intelligent spouse knows that a scintillating marriage starts first with changing themselves.
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We're posting lots of content for marriage IQ on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, so we hope that you'll check those out, follow us, interact with us there.
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Sign up for exclusive tips@marriageiq.com and please, please, please, please take a moment to rate, subscribe, follow Marriage IQ wherever you listen or watch. If you have any questions or problems with our content, please reach out. Our email is hellorriageiq.com and we will answer you.
[00:45:58 - 00:46:09]
We really hope that you'll invite your friends, your co workers, your family members to join the Marriage IQ community too, and we'll see you next time. Time on Marriage iQ.

Heidi Hastings https://www.drheidihastings.com