Dear Counselor: If someone never received an apology or felt any remorse from their former spouse for an action that helped end their marriage; how do you process the feeling that you would like to know they felt some remorse?  We have been divorced for a number of years and I have accepted my role and have made myself accountiable for my actions that help end our marriage.  I have sought counsel and joined a divorce recovery group at my church that has helped to where I am today - On a rode to being a healthy single Christian.  
  I have just started back into dating and I am choosing to walk with God in all situations.  My heart hurts that I never knew if he was sorry and you advise how I process through this?     Still hurting 

Dear Hurting:  
It is difficult for people to let go of  the resentment and hurt of a former marriage.  
You have been hurt deeply.  Much can be said about this, but one thing comes to my mind from an article by Phillip Yancey:  "Forgiveness breaks the cycle.   It does not settle all questions of blame 
and justice and fairness: to the contrary, often it evades those questions. But it does allow.. (you) to start over.  In that way, said Solzhenitsyn, we differ from all animals. it is not our capacity to think 
that makes us different, but our capacity to repent, and to forgive.  Only humans can perform that most unnatural act; and by doing so only they can develop relationships that transcend the relentless law of nature."  
I would add that since we are to be like Christ, then, our forgiveness needs to be unconditional and without requirement of payment.   Hanging from the cross, in Luke 23:34 " Jesus said, "Father, 
forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."  (NIV)  
The wonderful part of forgiveness is that we have to totally surrender to Christ for the power to forgive.  We are then in the place where He really wants us...to do His greatest work in us.  
Humility becomes us.  Humility places us at the foot of the cross. The ground is level at the foot of the cross.   1 Pet 5:6-7 reads:  
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. (NIV)  
Scott Wesley Brown wrote this chorus in "Meet Me at the Foot of the Cross":  

Don't let resentment imprison you for life....it will destroy you and your other relationships. Lewis Smedes wrote:  "To forgive is to set the prisoner free...and to discover that the prisoner was you."  
Let go of the pain.  Give it to God. For God alone understands more than anyone the pain and humiliation you feel.  Jesus felt more pain, rejection and humiliation than any person.  He came unto His own and His own did not receive Him.   Not only did the created not receive the Creator, they tortured him and put him to death... on a cross.  
Phil 2:5-8  
5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:  
6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,  
7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  
8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- 
even death on a cross! (NIV)  
May God give you the grace to forgive.  To set your ex-spouse free... to set yourself free from the past... to become more like Christ.  
May He bless you greatly this season as you start anew... 
with a heart filled only with Him..rid of the resentment and weight of your former marriage.  
Other articles on our web site that talk about forgiveness & divorce:  
Faq:forgiveness  and Divorce questions 
Books I would recommend:  
 Putting Your Past Behind You: Finding Hope for Life's Deepest Hurts by Erwin Lutzer   $9.59 
Freedom of Forgiveness by David Augsburger   $7.99 
Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve by Lewis Smedes   $9.60 

Lynette Hoy, NCC, LCPC  
  
Please consider and reflect on these verses on forgiveness:  
Matt 18:21-22  
21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?"  
22 Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. (NIV)  

Matt 6:14-15  
14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (NIV)  

Matt 6:12  
12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. (NIV)  

Luke 6:37  
37 "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.   (NIV)  

Col 3:13  
13 Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. (NIV)