Page 62 - The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts

The best thing we can do with the failures of the past is
to let them be history. Yes, it happened. Certainly it hurt.
And it may still hurt, but he has acknowledged his failure
and asked your forgiveness. We cannot erase the past, but
we can accept it as history. We can choose to live today
free from the failures of yesterday. Forgiveness is not a
feeling; it is a commitment. It is a choice to show mercy, not
to hold the offense up against the offender. Forgiveness is
an expression of love. “I love you. I care about you, and I
choose to forgive you. Even though my feelings of hurt may
linger, I will not allow what has happened to come between
us. I hope that we can learn from this experience. You are
not a failure because you have failed. You are my spouse,
and together we will go on from here.” Those are the words
of affirmation expressed in the dialect of kind words.

HUMBLE WORDS

Love makes requests, not demands. When I demand
things from my spouse, I become a parent and she the
child. It is the parent who tells the three-year-old what he
ought to do and, in fact, what he must do. That is necessary
because the three-year-old does not yet know how to
navigate in the treacherous waters of life. In marriage,
however, we are equal, adult partners. We are not perfect
to be sure, but we are adults and we are partners. If we are
to develop an intimate relationship, we need to know each