For some time it's been recognised that, generally speaking, married people enjoy better health and seem happier than those who are single. Social isolation and loneliness increase the risk of developing illnesses and they are associated with untimely death; so, the companionship and support available through marriage is preventative in nature.

Why then might one conclude that marriage can be hazardous to one's health? Not every marriage provides the support needed to generate health and well-being. Conflict in marriage, especially with resulting divorce, is associated with such adversities as psychopathology, alcoholism, poor general self-care and increased risk of illness. Marital conflict is also damaging to children.

What is happening in marriages that could be described as destructive to health and well-being for parents and children, and what could a person do to try to make such a situation better?

In marriages characterised as unhelpful and unsupportive, couples accumulate grievances against one another. They store up proofs of wrongs suffered and inequities endured. When you meet with these people, what you hear are the cases they have built against one another. It's as if in a courtroom there are only prosecuting attorneys, with both partners fending as best they can, each being the accused of the other.

How do people cope with such offences? Strategies can be broadly considered as unforgiving or forgiving in nature. According to studies done by psychologists Worthington and Wade in 1999, unforgiveness is a mix of negative emotions comprised of anger, bitterness, resentment, fear and hostility, which is perpetuated by relentless vengeful thinking about the offender and the events of the offence itself. In contrast, they found that forgiveness could be considered the replacement of these negative emotions with positive, love-based emotions such as empathy, compassion, sympathy, and affection for the offender.

Inevitably it comes down to the capacity to forgive. There is a great deal involved with extending forgiveness. It's not that sanguine, super-spiritualised reflex people often hear about in church. Often, people of religious faith feel they must quickly extend forgiveness. Yet, if attempted too hastily, they do so in a formal and superficial manner that does not begin to touch the hearts of the people involved. Forgiveness wasn't that for Christ, and good-enough forgiveness isn't actually that for anyone else. It cost Jesus His life, and it takes a toll, a little bit of one's hide, each time a person has to let go of a wrong suffered in order to move on in life.

Forgiveness is also not about forgetting; it's not that anyone might really "forget" what's happened. In fact, in order that forgiveness might actually be adequate, one must remember. One must be aware of the consequences in life of what they have endured ? that is, to fully suffer a wrong, to be aware of what it costs, before it's possible to let it go sufficiently and grant someone else the undeserved favour of not counting it against them. If this is not done, the tendency will be to keep trying to complete the unfinished pattern of the offence, to finish the unfinished business that never received an adequate hearing or to gain the adequate support that was not fully experienced when the offence originally took place.

The price of God's forgiveness was the death of Jesus; the cost of our forgiveness of another person is the death of our need for justice. When you let go of that requirement, it will cost you something; you will feel it. It will hurt, and so grief and loss also accompany times of forgiveness.

When couples are engaged in destructive conflict, they can stop the devastation by yielding their right to win. Since we all offend in some way, the positive results of close relationships really only accrue when people are able to grant grace to one another and let go of wrongs suffered.