Reply to I deserve an apology. I’ll never get it. How do I move on?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My best girlfriend hurt me suddenly and painfully. I never received an apology from her, and looking back I never saw her apologize to anyone for anything so it's not surprising. I held on to the pain for much, much longer than I should have. I kept thinking if I understood why she did what she did, then the pain would go away. Unfortunately I held on to these thoughts for well over a decade.

Finally I realized that I will never know why she did what she did and that is okay. Once I realized this, a literal weight lifted off of me. I cannot control her, but I can control my reactions. I finally took hold of my own reactions.

My advice would be to not hold on to these feelings for too long because then it just hinders you rather than helping you. It's easy to fall into the "I'm the victim" mentality, and hold on to the pain/anger, and that is just not healthy long term for you. Yes it's hard. But the moving on is about you, and not the other person. Good luck.[/quote]

OP here. Thank you so much for this. I recognize a lot of myself in your experience. I also spent several thinking if I could understand why this person did this, I would feel better. In therapy, I realized that this obsession was about absolving myself. I think I felt for a while that I had somehow invited this to happen, by doing something wrong. I thought if I could just figure out what I had done to "deserve" what happened, then I could control it, and guarantee it wouldn't happen again. I thought I could fix it.

I haven't thought that for a long time, but I still struggle with the anger. The weight didn't lift for me. When I realized that I'll never know or understand why it happened, I was just left with its consequences, which I still deal with. My therapist talks about grief stages though says people don't necessarily go through them in the same order, or necessarily through all of them. I did denial first, then depression, then bargaining, and now I'm in anger. I can't get out of anger. I want acceptance, but I'm stuck.

I don't want to be in a victim mentality. I don't feel like a victim. I think my anger actually helps with that. Feeling anger makes me feel strong, which is the opposite of how I felt when this happened and in those other initial stages. I think I'm almost afraid to let go of my anger because it will make me feel vulnerable again. Even though being angry sucks, it's better than depression. That was the worst one.

Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud here. I really appreciated your comment and it's nice to feel a little less alone. I guess I just have to keep at it.

Semi-related, [b]there should be a business where you can go safely burn something down until it is just ashes.[/b] I think there's a real market for something like that, and it could easily be made Covid friendly. Just throwing that out in the universe![/quote]

I'm sure you can find someone's yard where you can burn something.  Last month my teen son was wronged by someone close to him.  I gave him our pumpkins and a bat and told him to go smash them up.  He said it helped. Sometimes just having a physical outlet is what you need.[/quote]

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