What he talked about astonished the audience. He said, "We especially should learn to forgive each other because when you intend to forgive, you heal part of the pain, but when you forgive you heal completely. As Africans, we have suffered in terms of slavery and colonialism for a very long time. Forgiveness has remained our best cultural heritage’’ (Mandela’s Speech on February 11, 1990). According to Mandela, when you forgive, you maintain your true personal identity. Secondly, you enhance a cohesive situation in terms of unity within the society, and thirdly, you create a continuity of social values as a role model to the younger generation.

Given his experience in South Africa where he was jailed for 27 years during the apartheid regime, no one had a reason to doubt his perception. I am sure that Mandela’s perception of forgiveness is mostly experienced in many families around the world. The act of forgiveness in a family is a noble deed, although a difficult one. It calls for sacrifice to forgive and a lot of strength to forget.

Cindy is a wonderful wife. Married with four children, she tries her best to show her husband true love. She occasionally surprises him with gifts, cooks delicious food, comes home early from work and gives him everything he needs.

But despite all this, she is a frustrated woman. Her husband is cruel; he does not reciprocate. He frowns on almost everything she does for him, from food to clothes. She in pain and hopeless about the marriage. Once, she was so traumatized by her marriage that she felt like committing suicide. It all started when her husband of many years and the father of her kids left after she sustained serious injuries in a car accident. "My husband felt my life was completely ruined and that there was no need for us to stay together,’’ explained Cindy. She underwent surgical treatment for three years, exhausting every penny in her account. "My pastor asked me not to think evil of my husband but concentrate on my treatment and pray for divine intervention. It was very difficult to forget what he did to me, deserting me in my hour of need,’’ said Cindy.

Today Cindy is a beautiful, elegant woman, and full of self-esteem. She has returned to work and her life is pleasant. And her husband wants her back. In any relationship, especially in marriages, people are bound to hurt one another. One party gets offended and vows never to forgive nor forget. With time however, the wave of anger fades and what remains is the healing of the wound. But is it possible to forgive and let it go?

The best way to cope is to understand the essence of forgiveness. In any marriage, each partner is unique — each with his or her own natural traits, future inclinations, and personal ambitions based on personality, family, culture or society. Therefore, much as there is conformity in marriage, the uniqueness of the individual persists and that is where conflicts of interest arise. In other words, one cannot go without occasional disputes in a marriage, or any other relationship for that matter. What matters is the degree of dispute and the effort to control it.

It was for that reason that Mandela outlined the three principles of forgiveness. He stated, "By forgiving you are preserving your self-identity, your uniqueness and the real ‘you’." (Speech on Release from Prison, 1990). This speech is important in a family because whoever you are, you will remain yourself and the earlier your partner knows this, the better. What you ought to do is to learn to accept each other and learn how to live together under one roof through forgiveness.

There are no secrets in a close relationship like marriage; all your true colors are on display and it is these colors that sometimes irritate your relational partner in marriage. Only when you learn to forgive does that irritation and anger diminish and allow you to remain together.

Cindy realized her husband was a thankless man and stopped expecting him to reciprocate the love she gave him. She decided to forgive him by ignoring his bad side and continued showing her usual love to the family. This helped a great deal for she demonstrated strong willpower; her personal identity, which strengthened the marriage bond and allowed the warmth of love to flow within the family. Despite having endured great pain from her husband, Cindy felt she had to remain true to her personality by forgiving her fair-weather husband. Now, her husband respects her a lot and her marriage is flourishing.

Mandela also mentioned the importance of forgiveness to enhance togetherness in the family. Marriage, like a football team, needs teamwork to triumph over the opponent. For this to happen there has to be unity among the players. When relational partners forgive one another, they are able to communicate and to create a good team. They become "tight" and together can overcome many obstacles that cannot be overcome by individuals.

Finally, forgiveness creates social value within the society and future generation. When Mandela was released from prison after 27 years, he announced he would forgive his captors and would not punish them for the crime, even though he had the opportunity to do so. Today the younger generation in South Africa is being brought up to forgive and coexist despite the traumatizing history of apartheid. Were there no such thing as the healing that comes with forgiving, their society could have erupted into a crossover revenge scenario with terrible consequences.

It is the same in the family setup. When parents learn to forgive each other and demonstrate that forgiveness to their children, the children grow up learning that virtue. For this reason, they will appreciate the effort made to forgive one another, which will eventually bring peace of mind in their upbringing.