30 years of marriage presents times when you’re going to do something wrong to your partner. Whether it’s purposeful or inadvertent, the wrong has to be dealt with. There are apologies from the offender, but there has to be true forgiveness from the offended. It took us a long time to understand this and not hold grudges.
There are a couple of times where Missy has offered true forgiveness when I’ve wronged her and it meant a great deal in keeping our marriage healthy.
Biking ahead: Biking came late to our marriage, but when it arrived it came full force. We jumped into the activity and even incorporated biking into our trips out of town.
I took to it fervently. I rode every weekend, sometimes during lunch at work. Missy was an every other weekend rider, but was still as excited to get on the trails.
Her excitement sometimes lead us into the unknown, literally.
Yes, that is a forest.
The problem was my inability to ride with Missy instead of racing her. I’d push the pace, race ahead, wait and repeat. Quickly, I knew something was wrong with this and Missy told me so.
See, I wasn’t just being a putz, I was making Missy feel bad about doing something she liked.
When she explained this to me I apologized and she forgave me. Our biking outings are funner and more enjoyable now that we’ve moved on.
Exposing the personal: Even after 30 years of marriage there are still things we’re learning about each other. The latest was at the end of our 29th year. 🙂
As new year passed, we were in Cincinnati to support my mother during a medical procedure. The night before we headed home we were in our hotel room and I was doing what I always do; take photos and videos. For years I’ve done this and even put together monthly clips of slices of our daily lives. This is the one from January:
Notice the beginning of the video and the deletion of six days of video. This was a direct result of my videoing something in our hotel room I shouldn’t have. When I videoed it Missy was shocked and upset, but more importantly, hurt. I’ll be honest, I had no idea videoing when I did would solicit this reaction.
See, in the 29 years we’d been married I’d never paid attention to this specific thing and was ignorant of it’s importance.
In my haste to make things right with Missy, I deleted the videos, but mistakenly deleted everything from the first of the year through the sixth.
Ouch.
Missy couldn’t help but laugh at what happened even though I was struck with anger and fear from losing the photos and videos. I apologized to her, her to me and we forgave each other.
Even after 30 years we still have to remember the simple act of apologizing isn’t made whole unless someone forgives.