How do I let go of the hurt from being treated badly by someone I loved?
Halle writes: “How do you release the grief and hurt of being treated badly by someone you cared for deeply?”
Dear Halle,
Grieving the end of a relationship in which you were treated badly is really hard.
When a relationship like this ends, there’s often a lack of validation from others about your need for space and time to grieve the end of the relationship.
It may even be the case that those who care about you are actually celebrating the end of the relationship.
For example, your friends—who’ve been following along with all the ups and downs of this relationship—might respond to your news by saying things like, “Good riddance!” or “You’re so much better off without them!” or “Finally! It’s about time!”
These are meant as expressions of love and they’re coming from people who love you and who see that you haven’t been treated as well as you deserve. But being surrounded by others who treat the end of your relationship as good news can end up creating more confusion, isolation, and guilt that complicates your ability to properly grieve your breakup.
It’s understandable that friends react this way. After all, they didn’t experience the good parts of the relationship. They only heard about the bad parts. They’re operating according to the black-and-white relationship rule of “When someone treats you badly, you should leave the relationship as quickly as you can.”
But sometimes the heart wants what it wants … even when it knows it’s supposed to want something different.
The truth is that we don’t have a cultural love story that involves having to end a relationship because it’s just not good for you. When we fall in love, we think there’s going to be a happily ever after. We mistakenly believe that relationships only end if two people stop loving each other. A relationship that ends even though you still love the other person (and maybe they love you too) feels completely wrong.
The reality is that we leave hurtful relationships because we have to, not because we want to. We finally accept that there are no other options other than to end it. There’s no way to be in the relationship and also be psychologically, emotionally, and physically well. We finally see that the relationship can’t be fixed and it’s not going to get better. And part of us knows that we deserve something far better than what we’re getting.
At the same time, what makes it hard to leave these kinds of relationship is the fact that the relationship isn’t all bad.(That’s the part our friends so often overlook.) There were good parts about the relationship and about our partner.
I’m guessing that for every ten bad moments you can remember about this relationship, you can also probably remember something really beautiful that happened. And the weird thing about toxic relationships is that, because the ratio of bad to good moments is so skewed … those good moments taste far sweeter. Even though they’re few and far between, if you’re like most people who’ve been in a toxic relationship, you probably find that you’re able to recall the good moments with a power and clarity that you can’t summon up when you’re trying to remember what was bad.
It’s the loss of the sweet moments that can be especially hard to grieve. That’s because it’s these beautiful moments, rare as they were, that gave you a window into what the relationship could be—if only you could figure out how to get more of the good and less of all the hurtfulness, the meanness, and the disregard.
Those sweet moments became the foundation for what you imagined the relationship could become, if you kept the faith and stuck it out long enough to figure out the secret code to getting the good without the bad.
And in order to grit through the hard times, that dream of how it could be felt more and more real as you spent more time imagining it…even if it never became real in actual reality.
Grief isn’t just about the loss of the partner—it’s also the loss of the dream of what you imagined for the relationship. And just as painful is the realization that someone you loved deeply did not care for you in the way you deserved.
Healing the heartbreak of being hurt by someone you loved takes time and requires learning how to be tender toward your own pain. So let’s talk about what makes the breakup grief process more challenging after the end of a relationship where you’ve been treated badly.
The Breakup Grief Process
All breakups can be painful, but there are some particular aspects of hurtful relationships that need more attention during the grieving process.
While the relationship itself has ended, you still may have lingering emotional connections that will take time to dissolve. On top of that, you likely have a lot of unresolved questions about how someone you loved could have hurt you so deeply.
Toxic (or otherwise unhealthy) relationships can end up tapping into and reinforcing core wounds from childhood relationships. These are beliefs like, “It’s my job to earn love from others,” or “I’m not lovable the way I am,” or “I’m too much” or “I’m not enough.” When we internalize these kinds of beliefs about ourselves and how we need to be in relationships in order to receive love, we are more vulnerable to ending up in a toxic relationship in which these kinds of messages are reinforced. These kinds of unloving relationships in which we’re mistreated can feel normal. Or we can unconsciously feel driven to prove to ourselves that we are worthy of love by trying to earn it from a partner who withholds consistent care, kindness, and loving attention.
So here are three practices for grieving a toxic relationship:
1. Acknowledge reality.
Grieving after a hurtful relationship involves coming to accept that we don’t actually have the power to make another person treat us well or love us properly. The absence of love and kindness isn’t evidence that we don’t deserve love. If you find yourself ruminating on what you could have done differently in order to earn love—instead of mistreatment—from your former partner, experiment with what it feels like to simply allow yourself to feel sad, instead of blaming yourself for what happened in the relationship. For example, you could try a simple mantra like, “I’m sad that ______ wasn’t capable of loving me consistently and kindly.” This kind of mantra has the benefit of acknowledging reality—they weren’t capable of healthy love—without trying to assign blame or figure out how you could fix this situation. Accepting reality, instead of arguing against it or trying to change it, is a key foundation of being able to grieve what happened in the relationship.
2. Release blame.
A big part of what keeps individuals emotionally tangled in a toxic relationship, even after it’s over, is trying to allocate the correct portions of blame about what went wrong in the relationship. Most likely, if you were in this relationship for a long time, you got very familiar with taking on all the blame and responsibility for what wasn’t going well in the relationship. It’s important to release that self-blame. Whenever you find yourself going down the route of blaming yourself or thinking about what you could have done differently, a simple reminder like, “I deserve to be treated kindly and with love” can help to redirect you onto a path of healing. Honestly, that may not feel particularly believable at first. Your Inner Critic might try pointing out all the mistakes you made along the way, as if to say that you did deserve what happened. That’s not true, even if it feels true right now.
Another misstep individuals can make along this part of the grieving journey is to imagine what your former partner might say—they might pile on the criticisms and suggestions of everything you should have done differently. As much as possible, do not engage with these kinds of inner dialogues. You probably spent a lot of time in your relationship trying to convince your partner that you deserved to be treated better. You don’t have to do that any more. You don’t have to prove to any kind of hostile audience (even the one in your head) that you deserve to be treated kindly and with love.
3. Engage in self-care.
Even after they’re over, toxic relationships have a way of taking up way too much mental and emotional space in our lives. Part of grieving after a breakup involves rebuilding your relationship with yourself. Carving out time to invest in doing things that you find particularly meaningful and healing is important. What those things are can be completely unique to you. Consider what kinds of activities help you feel re-energized, restored, and reconnected to yourself and make sure that you’re prioritizing time for yourself in these ways. Consistently treating ourselves with care and kindness is a powerful affirmation that we are worthy of being treated well by others, too.
And on that note, I’m wishing you continued healing as you gently surrender past pain and allow it to transform into a deep and true knowing of what you deserve in your relationships moving forward.
~ Angela
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DISCLAIMER: this content is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional medical or psychological advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other licensed health care provider with any questions or concerns you may have regarding a medical condition.
about angela Amias, LCSW
Angela Amias, LCSW is a relationship therapist and nationally-recognized expert on trauma and relationships. She’s the co-founder of Alchemy of Love, which provides trauma-informed relationship programs and resources. She’s also the founder of the Institute for Trauma Informed Relationships, which provides training and education to therapists and coaches who want to help their clients heal past wounds and create more fulfilling relationships.
As an expert on trauma and relationships, Angela has been featured in numerous publications, including Today, Oprah, Cosmopolitan, The Independent, Well + Good, Inc., Forbes, Business Insider, Salon, MSN, Women’s Health and the Toronto Sun.
