What if Your Ex Wasn’t a Mistake?

This is the type of post I dread writing because this question can be a dangerous one. Why reopen old wounds? Why do you need to think about the past when you’re trying to create a better future?

Let’s get something straight right off the bat. If your former flame or partner abused you in some way, this isn’t an invitation to get back with them. Hell, there may have been no abuse at all. Maybe you both were just incompatible. This is still not an invitation to get back with them.

However, just because you shouldn’t get back with them doesn’t mean that the relationship was a mistake.

When someone ends a painful relationship, they learn about what they want and do not want in a relationship. We usually leave it at that. But there’s something else to glean from the ordeal. Namely, what was the trait your ex had that you couldn’t accept?

People are diverse so the answers could be anything. There are no wrong answers. Maybe you couldn’t accept how dismissive they were of your feelings, how they carried themselves, their sexual history, their family, their values or their inability to change a trait that was negatively impacting the relationship.

It’s interesting how a human being can be sexually attracted to someone who has the very trait one despises the most; a trait that is the antithesis of who one is as a person.

The sinner gets with the saint; the homebody links up with the party animal; the career-driven swoon with the lovable loser (didn’t mean that as an insult; just using a familiar term).

When the relationship ends, we are free of their bullcrap and we celebrate but isn’t this phenomenon too common? It’s not as if this only happened to you. It happens to almost everyone. I almost feel compelled to say that does it happens to everyone because there seems to be a principle at play.

What’s the point of two people who have conflicting values falling in love just to break up later when those same values clash with one another? The point is to accept the trait. The point (and I cannot stress this enough) is not necessarily that these two people should be together. The point is that there is some merit to the individual traits that we all have.

Yes, even the traits we consider bad.

Let’s use abuse as an example because it is the most extreme thing one can do to someone they claim to care about or love.

If you get into a relationship with someone and they eventually turn abusive, the worst thing you can do is stay in that relationship. The second worst thing you could do is to hate them because if you hate them, hate wins.

Some might say, so what? So what if hate wins? If it’s appropriate to hate something, you should hate it. But isn’t this the line of reasoning that is the source of war between nations and individuals? Then some might say that there are certain people who hate the wrong things, and if they shifted their hate to the right things then we would all live in harmony.

Actually, no we wouldn’t. First off, who decides what is worthy of hate? Religion? The state? You? I don’t think I need to elaborate on how all three entities have been woefully wrong in the past.

Secondly, hating someone or hating a specific trait isn’t going to make it go away. People hated racism but it buried itself where it couldn’t be seen and then slowly re-emerged. Now we have white nationalist groups popping up throughout Europe as if World War II never happened and the lessons of racism weren’t present for the world to see.

These same nationalist groups hate other races for various reasons. Does their hatred stop migrants from entering the country, from practicing their religion or from interracial marriages? No, it doesn’t.

The fact of the matter is if you let hate win in your past or current relationships, you have doomed yourself to fighting against something instead of just turning your attention onto what you actually want, which is what really matters. You don’t have to hate your abusive ex. You don’t have to harbor negative feelings for the failings of your ex.

Give them the grace to be who they are. Just don’t get back with them.

This is why I asked, what if dating your ex wasn’t a mistake? What if it worked for a time, then something bad happened and then you hated some trait of theirs? Or what if your ex is just one in a long line of failed relationships?

The response to harbor negative feelings is understandable and common, but it doesn’t help because you’ve basically started a chain reaction of you finding more people that will have the same negative traits and you will be hurt again and again.

The only way to break this pattern (or to never start this pattern in the first place) is to allow people to be who they are. Just don’t get back with them. I refrain from using the word “love” here because that may be too strong a word for some and therefore inappropriate for this context.

But if you do find yourself in a pattern of relationships with similar or the same issues, ask yourself, what do you hate about them? If you can let go of your resentment and forgive them, you’ll finally be free to choose differently.

I started off by saying I was afraid to get into this. I know how one’s emotions can really fly off the chart when you were wronged by someone you cared about and some guy on the Internet is making you feel like your woes as your fault.

The truth is, this beyond figuring out who’s at fault. All I want to do is put a measure of control back in your favor.

But here’s another truth. The people who have a loving relationship are committed to love, or at the very least are not committed to hating the events and people who hurt them. If you fail to commit to love or at least acceptance especially if someone hurts you, that’s how you maintain the cycle of pain and suffering in your relationships.

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This post was previously published on Medium.

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