Why Is It Hard To Extend Grace To A Spouse?

My friend, Jennifer, put this question in the “Comment” section of a post that I wrote about “grace” on “Facebook” . . .

“Hey Dan, why is it that some people can extend grace and forgiveness to everybody else and sometimes have a hard time doing it for a spouse. My spouse would like to know that and I haven’t got an answer to that question?”


I suspect that those of us who are married almost certainly know what Jennifer’s spouse is talking about, huh? I don’t presume to know the full answer to this question but part of the answer has to do with “fear”. There is a fear inside us that if we just simply forgive or if we freely and liberally extend grace the relationship will become unbalanced and we’ll be taken advantage of. This unbalance in the relationship can be particularly fearful to us in the marriage relationship where we are, in a certain sense, more “exposed” and more “vulnerable” than in any other relationship. That’s why I said in the original post that we are only willing to extend grace if our hearts have been truly captured by the realization that we are RECIPIENTS of love and forgiveness and mercy and goodness that we do not deserve.

Extending grace is another one of those “okay-I’ll-do-it-but-you-go-first” responses in life. So, we have to realize that even when it comes to extending grace to our spouse God’s grace toward us has already GONE FIRST to such a profound extent that we can be gracious and forgiving. Remember, it’s not because of how magnanimous we are, it’s because of how good Jesus is.