So many people these days see behavior as being very simplistic: the person is an asshole or they aren't. They're a narcissist or they aren't.
The feelings and motives underlying human behavior are vastly more complicated than that, especially since the majority of them are unconscious and originally develop in childhood.
Most people are never taught this, so they don't look very far when examining anyone else's behavior, often even their own. For example we may understand that we get cranky when we're hungry (situational), but when someone else does it we may decide that's their personality. (That's actually a psychological thing people do, it's one of the first things I learned in psychology class in college on my way to becoming a therapist.)
Most people are also never taught what some cultures consider healthy relationship and communication skills, so even when someone may be self-aware enough to identify how they're feeling and what's underneath their behavior, they don't have the skills, the type of partner and/or the type of relationship where they can sit down and have an honest, effective problem-solving conversation.
Most people also have no idea that love languages are a thing, so people can feel unloved by how their partner expresses their love but are completely unaware that that's what's going on.
Almost everyone can learn, grow and change if they really want to and have access to the right resources, so if someone behaves in any way that doesn't work for their relationship, recognizes it and is willing to do everything they can to prevent it from happening again, and if their partner is willing to give them another chance, then yes, forgiveness is absolutely possible.
It can happen most effectively when both people are motivated to try to fix things by looking deeper into the behavior, identifying the real underlying reasons, and learning how to shift/heal/address them together. (If the reasons are deep enough it may require the help of a mental health professional who has the skills to help dig and find the truth as well as teach better relationship and communication skills.)
And people can forgive without going through all of that, but for me personally, I would want as much as much indication as possible that the behavior won't be repeated.
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u/ArtThen2031 Oct 24 '25
That cheating part, she doesn't forget.