It was none of those things.

She spent months helping me plan a wedding while sleeping with the groom; there is no framing in which that becomes acceptable, and I did not reach for one.

What I did instead was something different, and I have come to think it is the only kind of forgiveness that is actually good for the person doing it.

I stopped carrying her.

That is all forgiveness really is, stripped of the sentimental packaging: not a declaration that the wrong was small, but a decision to set down the weight of it, because you have finally understood that you are the only one still carrying it and it is only breaking your own back.