Forgiveness and Marriage: Preliminary Support for a Measure Based on A Model of Recovery From A Marital Betrayal

Forgiveness is an issue that recently has received increasing attention in the psychological literature, yet little empirical research has been conducted on this topic. This article presents initial support and validation of an inventory based upon Gordon and Baucom’s (1998) three-stage synthesized model of forgiveness in marital relationships. This model places forgiveness in the framework of a reaction to a traumatic interpersonal event. One hundred seven community couples completed several measures of marital functioning, along with the new measure of forgiveness. The measure achieved internal reliability, and a confirmatory factor analysis suggested that the resulting subscales are a good fit with the data. Further results offered preliminary support for the inventory’s validity and its relation to various aspect of marital functioning. Individuals placed into groups based upon their scores on this measure reported expected levels of global forgiveness, relationship power and closeness, and assumptions about themselves and their partners. The limitations of the study are identified, and clinical and research implications of these findings are discussed.