OOPS! I Did IT Again!!!

I must admit that I had a rough weekend….I’m not proud to say that I behaved in a terrible way on Friday night. I reverted back to some of my old behaviors and as a result, I really hurt my husband. I can honestly say that I saw myself doing what I didn’t want to do but I did it anyway. I knew the outcome was going to be hurtful and that we would need to recover from it but I chose to behave poorly anyway. As a result, it took a little time for us to recover and I spent my Saturday feeling sad that I had not made a better choice. I found it really hard to forgive myself even after my spouse had forgiven me. That’s the hardest part for me; forgiving myself. You would think that I would be better at forgiving myself since I’m a believer and work with others to learn the art of forgiveness. Nope…..not an easy thing for me to do because I have a personality that doesn’t want to make mistakes in the first place so when I do, it’s easy to beat myself up and not want to forgive my mistakes.
Have you ever done that? Have you ever behaved in a way that you didn’t want to and knew you needed to change what you were doing but you did the wrong thing anyway? Do you find it hard to forgive yourself even after your partner has forgiven you?
I think we all find ourselves doing that in relationships. We start with the right intentions in mind but old habits die hard and we find ourselves doing something we know won’t help the relationship. After we have hurt the other person, we allow guilt and shame to keep us from forgiving ourselves and this makes the recovery from the situation more difficult.
I find that the recovery from making the wrong choice can be tough. It puts a “scrape” in our relationship and it takes time to heal the wound. The good news is that relationships are resilient and though at first, it may seem as if the brokenness can never be repaired, people have a marvelous ability to forgive. The tough part is holding on through the rebuilding phase while consistency replaces doubt, time reduces discomfort and forgiveness replaces hurt.
Where is your relationship today? Do you need to ask your spouse for forgiveness? Do you need to forgive yourself for something you have done? Today is a good day to start the “rebuilding” phase in your relationship. Today is a day to start fresh and try again.