My husband and I are nearing our 30th anniversary. My parents have been married 64 years. Marriages don't last that long if one error is all it takes for the relationship to unfold, if one error is unforgivable. Marriages take work, and repeated forgiveness along the way in an absolute necessity and reality. It just is.

One of the things I know about my own marriage is that when we were younger and just getting started, we didn't necessarily tell each other "everything" about our pasts. We both came from pretty complicated abuse histories; we both were dealing with and would continue to deal with issues of depression and bipolar disorder. So, we kept some things private -- a lot of things actually.

In a few cases, I know my husband wasn't completely truthful with me -- some of it was omission; some of it was lies. But I also came to understand where that came from. He came from a family that held grudges. He came from a family that actively shamed him for errors and never let things go -- even the little things. None of things he lied about or omitted were things that he did against me. They were history. They were things from his past that, right or wrong, he felt shame about and he feared I would leave him, not love him, not be able to forgive him for his past. I don't work that way. He NEVER hurt me. His few lies and omissions about his past really had nothing to do with me or our relationship, and I thanked him for finally trusting me enough to be honest and communicate that past with me, and I moved on. That ability to truly trust a loved one to forgive instead of shame and hold grudges was something he had never experienced in his life, and it was something he had to learn in our relationship. Fortunately, he found the right wife with the willingness to listen and forgive and not throw his errors continually in his face.

We are much stronger, much closer, and much better communicators now as we have both learned that our pasts are exactly that, and we both chose to leave out pasts behind us and build our present and future together.

I am NOT saying my husband could do something directly to me that truly hurt our marriage -- for instance, an affair, abuse, or a crime. There are definitely things I would not be able to get past in our relationship. But his history is history; he didn't continue his errors into our relationship. I can forgive the errors of his youth that had no direct bearing on our present.