Struggling With Whether to Give a Lover a Second Chance? Ask yourself this question.
It’s not easy to link your head and your heart when you love someone you need to forgive. (free worksheet included)
Don’t gamble on your future. Photo by Alois Komenda on Unsplash
Should you consider forgiving a partner you have already broken up with?
This situation happens a lot in the dating world with bfs or gfs, and during marriage separations. When a break up happens it is not always cut and dry, there can be messy loose ends to tie up and feelings that haven’t been severed.
What can you do to make this process of whether to forgive or not a little more simple?
You can begin by diving deep into this question… Where is the harm?
It seems like a simple question, but it has many parts when it is a decision making tool. One question is never one question when the end result is a major life decision. Deciding whether to get back into an old relationship is a major life decision.
If you don’t drill down, the harm could be BIG. Really big.
Oftentimes, this question is asked in a way to justify making a questionable decision, but we are going to turn it into a self-reflection task! Mindfulness is the name of the game here.
Where Is The Harm?
I am going to make up the answers here as an example on how to break down this question for demonstration purposes. Your answers may be completely different.
Step 1: To ask this question in a way that makes it work for you, begin by clearly stating WHAT.
What = What are you considering doing?
I am considering giving my old flame a second shot at being with me.
Step 2: After the WHAT, you move on to the WHY.
Why = Why are you considering this decision?
Because I still have feelings for them and maybe I made a mistake…
or
Because we have kids together and I want my family back.
Step 3: HOW are you going to accomplish this?
By going to counseling.
They must begin a rehab program.
We are going to take it slow and start dating again.
You get the idea. These are the kinds of questions you ask yourself to drill down to the actionable tasks that will be necessary to accomplish the overall goal.
Be Very Specific In Your Answers for HOW and WHY
It’s not enough to want to do something, there needs to be a plan of action in order to get different results the second time around.
If your answers are vague, the results will be ambiguous as well.
Examples of nonspecific answers:
Because I love her
The sex was so good
The kids will like it
We have this connection
We’ve both grown
He has a job now
We won’t make the same mistakes this time
These are all vague responses to very important questions and do not have anything in them that resembles a plan. They are hope driven responses.
Hope does have a place in any relationship. That place is at the end of action. If you have taken all the actions you can and then there is nothing left you can do, HOPE is all that is left. Hope is where you land at the end of possibility. It is the intersection between action and giving up.
Do all you can → HOPE ← Give up
If there is still something you can do, don’t rely on hope, trust yourself enough to make a plan for the growth of your future relationship.
Specific answers will look like this:
We will go to couples counseling and individual coaching and work on our 5 year plan for our relationship and life goals.
She cannot move back home unless she has successfully completed an inpatient detox, gets a sponsor and must be at least 6 months clean and sober.
He will sign a post-nuptial agreement with detailed line items to address all forms of cheating and what will happen as a result.
We will set up an accountability program with these steps _______ .
We will date for 4 months and if we have not begun to _________ then we will formally separate again and begin the divorce proceedings.
Detailed answers have layers and steps. You may have 25 line items under your answer on how and why it will be different this time and what you will be doing to ensure that it is.
I made a worksheet you can use to ask yourself this question of Where is the harm.
I separated it into two parts. The thinking part and the feeling part. The reason for this is because we all have a stronger natural propensity toward either thinking or feeling. However, in order to fully incorporate our being into this answer, we need to use both. We don’t solely think or feel in a relationship, we do both, so using both ways to answer the question is essential to cover both bases.
Click here for a free printable PDF of the worksheet below.
Putting rationale and emotions together to come up with answers is going to clear up a lot of the confusion that is natural in a situation like this.
It is massively difficult to let go of a dream we once had for a future with someone. Anything that helps unite your head and heart will put you ahead of the game and set you up for the most successful outcome.
Even if that outcome is not with that person.
