“My husband/wife says they’re sorry, but how can I ever forgive them after what they did to me?” “I’ll never forgive my parents!” “Why should I forgive him? He still doesn’t admit he did anything wrong!” Other members of S-Anon have expressed these sentiments, and many of us have felt them ourselves. Why should we forgive? Does forgiving mean forgetting?

I met a woman whose husband had left her for another woman seven years previously. He was now remarried, and she had not seen him in years. But when she spoke about her pain and anger, it was as though the betrayal had occurred yesterday. She seemed to be stuck in a time warp. Because she had not let go of the past and forgiven her husband, she had been unable to move past her negative emotions and to get on with her life. Her ex-husband was still the focus of her inner life. She had continued to give him free rent in her head all these years.

It is easier to forgive another person when that person wants forgiveness. But even if they are dead, or remarried, or still acting out, we still need to forgive them. The reason is that we forgive them in order to have serenity in our own life. Forgiveness is being able to remember the past without experiencing the pain all over again. When we have forgiven someone, we can think about that person and what they did to us without losing our serenity. Without forgiveness, there is no peace of mind.

Forgiveness does not imply a willingness to continue tolerating the problem behavior. We may need to tell a partner, “I forgive you for what you did in the past, but I am unwilling to continue tolerating the same behavior in the future.” We may need to distance ourselves from the other person before we can forgive them. We may have forgiven our parents for childhood abuse but recognize that at our current stage of recovery it is best if we not visit them. We can pray that our Higher Power will make it possible someday to restore the relationship,

Forgiving is not excusing. Just because we may understand why someone else hurt us (“My father himself was abused as a child,” “My husband was under a lot of stress,” “My wife was lonely – I wasn’t home enough”) does not make the pain any less real, When we say, “There is nothing to forgive” we are denying the validity of our own experience. Before we can forgive, we must first acknowledge that a wrong was done to us, and we must allow ourselves to experience the pain it caused us and the anger that we still feel towards the person who caused itÍ. Only afterwards do we attempt to understand the other person’s motives.

The Twelve Promises tell us that “we will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it, we will comprehend the word Serenity, and we will know Peace.” When we forgive, we open the door to the fulfillment of these promises.

Reprinted from the 199o Fall issue of S-Anews©.

One of the first things I had to deal with in recovery was my overwhelming shame and guilt over how my part in this disease affected my children. At that point, they were already grown up; one of my children had not spoken to me for two years, and the other two were wary, to say the least. Their father was not a sexaholic, but my disease was fully present when I was married to him, and grew worse over the years. The best of my efforts and attention were always focused on my partner, and I neglected my children emotionally and physically.

When I felt ready to face their possible rejection, I told my children as much as they wanted to know about the past, and their reactions were as individual as they are. One daughter wanted to know all about it, my son showed very little desire to hear my story, and my younger daughter asked a question here and there, and then cut off the discussion abruptly when she had heard as much as she could handle for the moment. My current husband’s involvement in his recovery program for sexaholics was mentioned in passing, but the details of his old behaviors seemed irrelevant as far as my children were concerned. It was my obsession with my partners that affected them.

As the years have passed, I have sensed our children’s growing respect for my husband’s and my recovery. It fills me with joy to realize that we have become the kind of parents to whom they can turn with their problems, knowing that we have faced and overcome some really tough issues, one day at a time. Today, even the problems related to my children [and grandchildren!] are a luxury that at one point in my life I believed I would never enjoy. I also know that the most valuable gift I can give them is the gift of my ongoing, one-day-at-a-time S-Anon recovery.

Reprinted from Working the S-Anon Program, 2nd Edition, pages 89-90.

Step Four suggests that we make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, yet many of us found that fear caused us to postpone this inventory. We were afraid of what we would find, afraid that shedding light on ourselves would uncover so many shortcomings that we could not bear the truth about ourselves.

This Step is about an honest examination of our true nature, good and bad; a process of self-discovery guided by our Higher Power. This process can be painful at times, particularly when we see that we, not others, are often the source of many of our problems. On the other hand, it is rewarding and enlightening to see the personal strengths that our inventory reveals. Many of us have noticed with irony that a consequence of not doing this Step is generally a continuance of the very pain we originally wished to avoid.

Our Fourth Step inventory also helps us develop the humility that lays a necessary foundation for our growing Twelve Step recovery. Each time we look at ourselves and our problems in the light of the Fourth Step, we put to the test the critical attitudes of honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness. For example, many of us were able to justify to ourselves a great deal of procrastination when we thought about working this Step and Step Five. In fact, some of us thought that “thinking about it” would be sufficient. We found, though, that working this Step as outlined in our literature was just what we needed when we felt stalled in our recovery or when we thought “this program isn’t working for me like it works for other people.” When we took the time to write out our inventories, our resentments, and our reflections on questions like the ones listed in S-Anon Twelve Steps, our self-examination began to pay off. It helped us to see and accept things we had hidden, even from ourselves. As one member put it, “Believing in the Steps gave me hope, but working them gave me the promised results.”

Reprinted from S-Anon Twelve Steps, page 47-48.

One day, my spouse seemed especially irritable. I asked if he was O.K., and he responded by handing me a stack of papers. I immediately read the papers and discovered they were a new disclosure about his sexaholism. Today I know that when faced with a sweeping disclosure from the sexaholic I can say, “That’s too much information for me today.” I now know that hearing too many details about his story damages my serenity. Yet I didn’t see that choice on that particular day – I read the papers even after realizing what they were.

Before recovery, this would have triggered a downward spiral. I would have obsessed about the disclosure, allowing my mind to create even more details. I would have questioned him and demanded answers, taking up the familiar victim role. I would have considered forcing some immediate action about the relationship.

That day I chose to respond, rather than react, to the upsetting news. I chose to be gentle with myself and stayed with my feelings, not carrying around shame about his behavior. I surrendered the information to my Higher Power. I chose to live in that day only, not making major decisions about my marriage until I was in a clear frame of mind. I chose to focus on doing the next right thing: I took a walk, I went to a meeting, and I talked with my sponsor. I trusted God to guide me when the time was right. I still had serenity that day because I chose to respond, rather than react.

Reprinted from S-Anon’s Reflections of Hope, page 140.

I’d like to share with you the wonderful results in my own daily life of “trying to carry the message to others.”

Many years ago, the Los Angeles S-Anon groups voted to take on the responsibility of housing S-Anon’s “central office,” as we called it back then. It had basically existed in a packing box in Oklahoma City, and was in Phoenix, Arizona before that. This was a golden opportunity for someone like me – who knew everything, could fix everything, and could use just about anything to separate myself from my feelings.

I must admit that I did hesitate, at first, about jumping into service work too deep, but I did, head first and without a seat belt on. However, I was armed with willingness, a desire to serve, the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions, and a dedicated but small group of S-Anon members from all over the country. I joined a committee to set up a committee, which became the S-Anon International Committee (SIC); I then served on the SIC for three years.  As I look back over the last four years I am astounded at how my life has changed and at how important this service work has been to my development in recovery. I feel as though in working to carry the message, I have had one spiritual awakening after the other. Which came first…?

I’ve had the privilege of working and laughing with a loving, supportive committee of people from all over the country. I’ve learned flexibility. I’ve found humility and how to consider others, as well as myself, in a way that I’ve never been able or willing to do before.

Step Seven in our literature reminds me that “We frequently misunderstand the word humility.” I am reminded of that sentence when I realize that initially my pride and ambition sometimes got in the way of my being of service to the fellowship as a whole. I realize now that my true motive was to be of service to the group, to newcomers that have not yet reached our doors, as well as to those that have been around for some time, but often my “best thinking” got in the way.

Reading literature on Step 7 allows me to look at how far I have come, and I see that my continuing commitment to the program and to my service obligations, showing up and being willing to be teachable, has made it possible for me to realize how important humility is in building my character, and how important it is in keeping me connected with my Higher Power.

I’ve always thought of myself as an artist, and nothing but an artist. Although I run my own art studio, I could not think of myself as a business person (“I’m not smart enough, don’t have what it takes, can’t type… etc.”) But as my SIC service work started to include more and more involvement with S-Anon’s business affairs, it fit right in with learning business procedures in my own business, and vice versa. And today, looking at these accomplishments, I can truly call myself a Business Administrator! What a gift, and what a miracle!

These are but a few of the many gifts I’ve received as a result of giving back what I have been so freely given.  For those of you who are new among us, service work can be setting up chairs, making the coffee, volunteering to call other newcomers, and just coming back! For those of you who have been around for a while and are thinking of taking the plunge, I recommend it highly. You can serve as secretary or treasurer of your group, start new meetings, answer the hotline in your area, giving your experience, strength and hope to another, send your group news to the WSO, or serve as Delegate for your Area.  There are a lot of opportunities – talk to another S-Anon member or visit the web site at www.sanon.org!

Reprinted from the 1991 Summer issue of S-Anews©.

Step Seven requires faith. Just as we came to believe in Step Two that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity, so we came to believe in Step Seven that God could remove our shortcomings. We found that after we took an honest look at our character defects, discussed them with another person, and became willing to have them removed, we experienced a great deal of peace and serenity. When we humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings, even more tranquility came to us. Most of us have found that this Step needs to be taken more than once, but the growth in humility we have experienced in working with Step Seven has served us well, not only when we are asking God for help, but when we are interacting with the people in our lives.

Reprinted from Working the S-Anon Program, 2nd Edition, page 26.