I learned to forgive

G. and I had been married for 17 years and had four children when I felt her attitude toward me change dramatically. She was often out of the house because of her job as a social worker for a government program that took care of abandoned children. After a few months, I found out that she was having an affair with one of her colleagues.

It was a terrible blow: I saw our whole relationship fall to pieces, my family, my life. I felt betrayed, my pride was deeply wounded and I was desperate in seeing everything that I had built over the years go to ruin. After a while, my wife decided to abandon our family. One day, while I was at work, she came home to get her things and she got into a fight with our oldest daughters who were then 15 and 17 years old. I had no other alternative but to give in to her decision, even though it caused us a lot of suffering.

I prayed and implored God, saying: “Help me! Give me the strength and the grace to overcome everything!” I had absolute faith in his love. It was not easy. I had even asked my sister to help me and she had encouraged me to reflect on how much Jesus had not merited the suffering that he had to go through: he had been betrayed from men, and had suffered humiliation and cried the Father’s abandonment. Recognizing and loving Him in this deep suffering, I kept on my feet day after day, and I made a real and total choice of God.

In fixing my thoughts and heart on God, my suffering found meaning; and my initial feelings of hate were being replaced by sentiments of mercy. I had finally made it to forgive my wife. Together with other people with whom I used to shared the christian commitment, I found the strength to go ahead. Constantly embracing Jesus forsaken helped me, even in the separation that I lived with, to remain faithful to the commitment that I had taken on with the sacrament of matrimony, and so to also live chastity.

After a year of being separated, day by day the spirituality of unity brought greater light in my life with the children and I was thus able to follow them in their various experiences as they grew.
In order to have more time with them, I left my job as an engineer in my company which took so much of my day, and I began a small business. I made this choice, even if the previous job was well-paid. I knew that our economic resources would reduce, but I went ahead without fearing this change. Looking back now on what God has worked in me and in my children, we are deeply grateful to him.
(V. T. – Brazil)