Moving on can be difficult. Personally, I’m someone who will do whatever it takes to hold onto things like memories and relationships because I struggle to cope with change. Change is hard for me and if I can maintain a relationship the way it is and push the negatives away, then I’ll do so. But there comes a point in most relationships where things start to become too much to handle. You slowly realize that you deserve more and that what you’re trying to hold on to is already too far gone. I’m not just talking about romantic relationships. This can happen with friendships or family relationships, as well. One thing I’ve realized lately to be pretty difficult is when you want to move on or feel like you need to move on to feel better, but your counterpart hasn’t given you the apology that you deserve, and they probably never will. Accepting this fact is difficult and painful, but to those of you reading this who have experienced this kind of pain, this article is for you.
Change and confrontation scare me. As I mentioned, change can be difficult. Sometimes, my hesitancy for change prevents me from looking at certain relationship issues in a critical sense. I’d rather push things to the side than confront them at times, and when I do decide to confront these issues, I tend to take the blame or find the quickest way to wrap up the conversation. I’ve noticed in the past couple of months that these methods of diffusing a situation may be fine in the short term, but they aren’t beneficial in the long term. The issues that you have will never get resolved, but instead, just get pushed to the side. Your counterpart doesn’t realize exactly what they’ve done wrong or exactly what they’ve done to hurt your feelings. This means that you’ll probably get hurt again for the same reasons and because of this, you probably won’t get the apology you deserve. They think that they’ve done nothing wrong so why should they apologize, right?
I just want to say that if I’ve learned anything when it comes to this topic, it’s that even though confrontation can be scary, it’s a must in order to maintain a healthy relationship. You have to be able to talk to your partner or your friends about how you feel, especially when they hurt you. When it gets too much, you also have to be able to move on. Moving on is hard as is, but if you push things to the side and avoid confrontation, you’re setting yourself up for even more pain. When relationships or friendships end, you sit there wondering what you could’ve done. You feel angry and resentful for all of the things you couldn’t say to them because they never apologized. You also don’t get closure and from my experiences, moving on without closure turns out to be a never-ending cycle of pain and resentment. You overthink and wish you said more when you could. It causes stress, anger and so many negative emotions that could’ve-probably been avoided if you just heard a simple apology.
When I say apology, I mean a real apology. No “I’m sorry but,” or “I’m sorry that you felt that way.” A simple “I’m sorry” goes a long way and can be essential to someone’s growth. Moving on without the apology you deserve is painful because it shows that the person you are confronting doesn’t care about you in the way you’d hoped. They don’t respect you enough to give you the decency of a simple apology. Two words. That’s it. That tends to be one of the main reasons as to why moving on can be so difficult, because you have this new information about how someone you were once close to now thinks.
Now that I’ve ranted, I want to give a little shoutout to everyone out there who has experienced this kind of pain. The pain where you feel like you don’t know if you’re going to be able to move on. It takes a lot of strength to be able to push any kind of relationship away and move on after being so invested or putting so much time and effort in. It’s painful, but as time passes and you grow mentally, things get so much easier. These types of experiences help to make us human and even though they suck, we should learn to be grateful for them because they’ve helped us mature and grow as individuals. All in all, if you’ve ever had to move on from something without getting the apology you deserve, I applaud you. I hope you continue to grow from your experiences and don’t blame yourself for others’ wrongdoings. If people are willing to treat you that way, then they’re not worth your time.
Being only one month into this new year, I’ve learned that moving on is essential to growth. Talking to friends or family and writing about it (like I’m doing right now) can be very therapeutic and help you with your self-care journey. Continue to surround yourself with those who don’t doubt their love for you. My friends and family have been so caring and supportive whenever I’ve gone through these experiences. This concept is key to growth and success. As I am wrapping this up, I wanted to wish everyone love and happiness, because we all deserve it. Focus on yourself and understand that pain is temporary. Everything will get easier with time.