Does the Bible Require Quick Forgiveness After Abuse or Betrayal?

Not everything can be forgiven before the sun goes down. Nor should it. Ephesians 4:26 (NIV) says, “In your anger do not sin”: “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry.” But does that mean someone who has been abused or betrayed must forgive before bedtime? I don’t believe it does. 

So how do we honor the Bible and, at the same time, honor our own need to process what’s happened to us?

Forgiveness Is Complex Because Abuse, Betrayal, and Neglect Are Complex

Let’s say your spouse slaps you in the face. If you were confident it was accidental—perhaps your spouse was swatting a fly and missed—that would be easy to handle. But in the case of abuse, it’s not accidental. There is a tangle of actions, behaviors, words, and attitudes. A slap is more than a slap, even though the offender may deny it.

With abuse, there’s a buildup of tension: a threatening glance, word, or gesture; a demand; unspoken expectations of certain conduct; a promise of punishment. The atmosphere is dangerous. You feel anxiety building.

After the slap, the blame is put on you. You are told it was just an accident, or it wasn’t as bad as you said, or you deserved it. It didn’t leave a mark, so it’s no big deal. You’re overreacting and being hysterical. Later, your spouse apologizes and promises better behavior, but within days, the actions don’t match the words.

Maybe it’s not a slap this time, but the pattern of built-up tension repeats.

Abuse and betrayal are complex. That’s why forgiveness requires untangling your story and unwinding all the injuries that accompanied the slap.

It may have been one slap, but there were ten other injuries that went with it.

Forgiveness doesn’t necessarily mean dropping charges against the batterer, ending divorce proceedings, or foregoing a restraining order. You can forgive and keep your boundaries up, even removing this person from your life by going “no contact,” meaning you have no interaction with the other person unless required by the court on certain topics.

No one should tell you that you must forgive on their timeline. That’s an indication they don’t really understand their God-given duty to protect the vulnerable. Often survivors are given the impression that their church doesn’t think they were seriously injured or have a legitimate grievance. And even if church leaders acknowledge the injury, they may think survivors should be able to “get over it” or “snap out of it.”

My interviews include many stories of people who were pressured by their pastor or biblical counselors to forgive. But how is that really forgiveness? Can you really forgive long before you’ve identified the extent of the offense? It needs to come from the heart when you decide to do it.

Those who encourage you to smooth things over too quickly, before an inventory of the damage, hurt, and pain has been done, are dishonoring the suffering you experienced. They are sweeping the sin under the carpet and not addressing it. Long-term abuse and betrayal must be fully explored, the anger expressed, and the losses mourned by you and the community.

Forgiveness After Trauma Is on Your Timetable, No One Else’s

Forgiving an abuser isn’t easy. It is not on par with forgiving someone who accidentally rear-ended your car or shattered your grandmother’s antique wedding crystal. In the case of long-term, systematic abuse during a marriage, regardless of the abuser’s intentions, it takes a long time to process all the pain.

That’s because it is not a series of “accidents.” There is a complex pattern of manipulation and betrayal—from someone who ought to have loved you—that goes with the injury and makes the injury exponentially worse.

In many interviews, I heard stories of Christian friends applying coercion to make the abuse victim forgive on the spot—often in the form of threats or messages saying God won’t forgive you if you don’t forgive, implying that your forgiveness must be on their timetable.

This misuse of Christian teaching is one reason I’ve written about forgiveness articles that blame victims and excuse predators. A teaching that ignores the injury and pressures the victim to reconcile is not helping the vulnerable.

But let’s look at the Bible. It’s interesting to notice that we have no evidence that Jesus forgave those who plotted to kill him, attempted to trap and trick him, told lies about him, and smeared his character, in real time.

There are no stories of Jesus forgiving his attackers until the very end of his life. During his life and ministry, he called his enemies “vipers,” “whitewashed tombs,” and “hypocrites.”

These “forgive and forget” messages keep the vulnerable spouse confused and isolated. The victim is told to stay silent, not to tell their story. If they do tell it, they are accused of not “letting it go.” So the healing process is shortchanged.

They need to talk, to be believed, to identify the abuse and the abuser, and to get support in the form of empathy and outrage, as well as comfort and care. When a person is forced to “forgive and forget,” they get the message that the damage done to them is minor, that they are overreacting and whining, or that they don’t have the right to speak up, ask for restitution, or get to safety.

The victim of abuse who isn’t believed or taken seriously may give up trying. They resign themselves to being trapped with the abuser. If it is not a safe and loving marriage, the abuse is swept under the carpet. The victim is voiceless and may feel they have no choice but to obey the abuser.

Their marriage is more like kidnapping, slavery, or human trafficking than it is like a godly union. No wonder depression and suicidal thoughts can arise in these situations.

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You Can Forgive and Still Tell Your Story

Many people who have endured significant neglect, abuse, or betrayal are silenced and accused of gossip or slander. They wonder, “Am I sinning against my ex-spouse by telling my story (which makes my ex look bad)?”

The answer is no. Your story doesn’t make them look bad: Their own sinful behavior is what makes them look bad. It is not a sin to tell your story, to identify the abuse and the abuser, to ask for empathy, to want support, and to put responsibility where it belongs. Truthful accounts of what happened are not automatically slander.

Slander is a legal term. Generally, it refers to spoken statements of fact that are false and harm another person’s reputation. Legal requirements vary by jurisdiction.^[1]

“Remember, truth is an absolute defense to libel and slander.”^[2]

In other words, a truthful account of your experience is not made slanderous simply because the other person dislikes what you are saying.

Truth is the best defense against slander.

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Forgiveness as Part of Trauma Recovery

Forgiveness starts by retelling your story, recounting the offenses and wounds, and acknowledging the damage that the person caused: the broken trust and the physical, emotional, sexual, and financial injuries. Many times, the victim needs to identify each part of the trauma and speak to other survivors about the horror of what was done to them. It requires righteous indignation, rage, and contempt for the evil.

And if we’re honest, forgiveness is not a one-time event. As time passes, new memories of betrayals come up in different forms. Those injuries, too, must be acknowledged, grieved, and denounced as evil.

In some cases, the perpetrator can be required to make restitution. Sometimes not. God knows your heart. He knows your motives. But if that anger is eating you up and sucking life out of you, affecting all your good relationships, it may be best to release it. Forgiveness is for us, not for the offender. Forgiveness sets us free.

And remember, unconditional love does not mean unconditional access. Forgiveness does not require you to return to a dangerous relationship.

What Forgiveness Is—and What It Is Not

If you wonder where these teachings come from, they are right in the Bible. The Bible tells believers to get away from destructive people and, in some circumstances, not even associate or eat with them (1 Corinthians 5:11). So it must be possible to love, forgive, and walk away.

And if you’re wondering whether God expects you to stay in an abusive marriage, please read God Hates Abuse.

Radio counselor June Hunt says,

“Forgiveness isn’t letting someone off the hook for the bad they’ve done.

It is moving them from your hook onto God’s hook.”^[4]

Sources and References

^[1] Definition of slander based on “Slander,” USLegal.com, accessed November 3, 2019. USLegal definition of slander.

^[2] “Libel vs. Slander: Different Types of Defamation,” Nolo Press, retrieved November 3, 2019. Nolo’s discussion of libel and slander.

^[3] Trauma and recovery expert Dr. Judith Herman wrote, “The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word ‘unspeakable.'” She goes on to write, “Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims.” Herman, Trauma and Recovery, 1.

^[4] June Hunt, Self-Worth: Discover Your God-Given Worth (Peabody, MA: Rose Publishing, 2013), 65.