Triggers can be excruciating. They can steal away your quality of life. Triggers position unresolved emotions and unforgiveness to annihilate any situation which should be enjoyable or at the very least organic.

Without taking anything away from the pain of triggers experienced by betrayed spouses, I want to make it known that unfaithful spouses suffer from triggers as well, albeit at our own hands.

Just last week, Samantha did something that triggered me in a way that was both alarming and infuriating. I had to remove myself from the situation to get my feelings in check for fear that I would lash out.

In the blink of an eye I was transported back to long forgotten feelings of rejection, insecurity and a deep desire to feel affirmed.  My anger at my perceived rejection, which at one time was a huge source of justification for my affair, was center stage and I was stunned at some of the things I was thinking and feeling.

I decided it was time to think very clearly about my emotional state. It was a time to forgive on a deeper level.

You see, forgiveness has layers. Several layers. The healing of infidelity is never just a one-time choice to forgive. We are human beings who store layers and layers of memories and feelings and reactionary emotions which cannot be addressed or undone in one simple thought or choice of forgiveness. I believe in miracles. I have experienced true actual miracles. So has Samantha. Our marriage is a miracle, 18 years later.

But today, what I speak to is the normal grind of recovery that so many of us have had to walk through, both betrayed and unfaithful. Some days it’s electrifying. Some days, it’s just a grind of hashing through fields of emotion with nothing but a machete.

We can all get triggered. We can all find ourselves smack dab in the middle of fresh emotions which can lead us astray, or fresh into the arms of forgiveness and mercy. You mean, I the unfaithful spouse, needed to forgive Samantha, the betrayed?

You’re absolutely right I did. Numerous times. Just the other day, as the story above paints. Samantha would own that as well. She did in fact, reject me.  She placed unreal expectations on me. Of course none of this justified my betrayal (though it was convenient to blame my affair on all of this). I still had to identify what inner turmoil I was feeling so I could turn around and fight for my marriage knowing exactly what demons I was fighting.

When we are triggered we have a choice. To forgive or to forge ahead in our bitterness, self-righteousness and absolute blindness.

I hope and pray you choose to forgive today. I hope and pray you choose to understand what you truly are feeling, dissect it and then forgive it all, down to the innermost, smallest level of anger, hurt and pain.

It will free you to love deeper and truer, as well as cause you to react differently when triggered…..I had some forgiving to do, and perhaps you do today as well?