What Our 7-Year-Old Taught Us About Forgiveness (That No Marriage Book Ever Did)
- Juli & Thomas Hobby
- 7 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
This is from Episode 107, and it might be one of the most important ones we've recorded — not because we found some deep theological insight, but because our seven-year-old accidentally handed it to us at bedtime.
If you've got kids, you know bedtime is basically a negotiation. Ours is a master of the "one more thing" stall tactic — she can reel you back in from the doorway with the skill of a seasoned salesperson. On this particular night, Juli was the one finishing up the routine while Thomas handled another kid. Juli had reached her limit, said goodnight, and closed the door — mid-sentence, mid-stall.
That should have been the end of it. It wasn't.
The Two Words
A little while later, Thomas could hear their daughter screaming from down the hallway — not upset, but desperate. "Mommy, PLEASE, pleassseeee come in here. I have two words to tell you. JUST. TWO. WORDS. Two words I know you'll want to hear!"
Neither of us had any idea what those two words were going to be. It could have been something bratty. It could have been a bid to stay up even later. Instead, when Juli finally went back in, the two words were: I'm sorry.
She wasn't done because she was still mad. She was done because she felt guilty, she knew she'd dragged things out, and she genuinely could not fall asleep without making it right. She was, in her own seven-year-old way, desperate to apologize.
And that's the question that sparked this whole episode: why aren't we that desperate to apologize to our spouse?
Why Adults Are Worse at This Than Kids
Adults have decades of practice building up pride, and pride turns apologizing into a standoff.
We wait for the other person to break first. We tell ourselves we're "waiting for them to apologize," when really we're just trying to avoid feeling like we lost the argument.
Here's the thing though — holding out doesn't win you anything. It doesn't erase what happened, and it doesn't make you feel better. All it buys you is more tension, more distance, and an standoff that usually outlasts the actual disagreement.
Most fights aren't even one-sided. Both people did something wrong, even if one thing triggered the other. It's rarely "I did nothing and you did everything." It's usually "you did something that upset me, and then I responded badly, and now we're both standing here."
In those moments, apologizing first isn't admitting you were the villain. It's choosing your marriage over your pride.
Apologizing and Forgiving Are Not the Same Thing
This is the part we think gets missed the most: you don't apologize and get automatically forgiven. They're related, but they're two separate acts.
Apologizing is naming what you did and owning it.
Forgiving is the other person releasing the offense.
In our house, we've taught our kids a simple pattern: say "I'm sorry for ___," fill in the blank, and then ask, "Will you please forgive me?" We've also had to teach the other side of that — that "it's okay" isn't always the right response, especially when it wasn't okay. If your sibling hit you, "it's okay" tells them they can do it again. What you can say instead is simply, "I forgive you."
That distinction matters just as much in marriage. If your spouse comes to you and stops at "I'm sorry," you don't have to say "it's okay" to move forward — you can say "I forgive you," full stop. It doesn't excuse the behavior. It releases the offense.
A Boundary Isn't the Same Thing as Conditional Forgiveness
One thing we want to be really clear on: forgiving someone doesn't mean forgetting, and it doesn't mean pretending there's no line. You can forgive your spouse and set a boundary — "I forgive you, and this is a line we're not crossing again." That's healthy.
What's not healthy is conditional forgiveness — "I'll forgive you IF you never do this again."
That's not forgiveness, because you'll spend the rest of your marriage watching to see if the condition holds.
You also lose the right to bring a forgiven offense back up two months later in a different argument. Forgiving doesn't mean you forget it happened — you have to remember it, if only to know where that boundary sits. But it does mean you've let it go. It's not something you put in your back pocket to pull out and use as a weapon later.
Forgiveness isn't a feeling. It's a decision. You won't always feel like forgiving — in fact, you'll rarely feel like it in the moment. But you make the decision anyway, because holding on to unforgiveness only builds resentment, and resentment makes you start noticing more and more things to be frustrated about. It's a cycle, and it only goes one direction if you let it.
The Bible Weighs In (Obviously)
We read from Colossians 3, which calls believers to respond to one another with kindness, humility, and patience — putting up with each other's flaws and forgiving freely, with love holding the whole thing together. That last part — love — is really the key. When you genuinely love your spouse, the kindness and patience and forgiveness that follow become a lot less like discipline and a lot more like a natural response to choosing them, imperfections and all, every single day.
Our Challenge For You
Be the first one to apologize.
It sounds simple. It's not. We all like to think of ourselves as forgiving, humble, quick-to-apologize people — but put to the test, in the moment, with your pride on the line? That's where it gets hard.
So make it a race. Beat your spouse to it. Not to end the conversation fast or sweep something under the rug — you still need to let them express how they feel and work through the actual problem — but because you love them enough to lay your pride down first.
When you do that, you stop fighting each other and start fighting the actual problem, together.
Whether you’re newly married or have been together for years, the insights we share can help you build a more secure and loving relationship. We’d love for you to tune in and discover how you can make your marriage stronger—starting today. Find us here:
This post may contain affiliate links and we may earn a small commission when you click on the links at no additional cost to you.
Comments