It happened at the start of quarantine.
It was dark, I was bored, I felt lonely. The rain pattered on my window outside. I sat in the cocoon of my bed, listening to the sounds of the outside. And in my solitude, I missed him.
I missed him. For the first time in a long time.
And it hurt. It burned. I wasn’t expecting to feel that intensely, wanting to put myself out there again, wanting to sacrifice all of my progress for one more moment to talk to him. This wasn’t what I needed. It wasn’t healthy. Or was it?
That week, luckily, I had an appointment with my therapist. I’d talk to her about it, I decided.
Over the next few days, I convinced myself that the best course of action was to contact my ex. As people tend to say, hindsight is 20/20, and goodness gracious, in hindsight our relationship looked fantastic. I wanted it back again. I felt as if I had done so many terrible things to him that I could’ve prevented if I had been older or maturer or kinder. I felt guilt and regret and this sense of hopelessness that we’d never be able to reconcile and I’d never be able to give him these long-awaited apologies, make amends, and walk away on good terms.
When I told my therapist this, she listened patiently. “I just feel bad for everything I did to him,” I told her. “I still feel like that was one of the best times in my life. I mean… will I ever feel like that again? I really loved him.” And I’d had relationships since him, but, as I told her, none of them felt significant enough. He was the person I compared everyone else to. He was the one I always went back to, the one I still thought of once in a while, the one who came to mind when I was sad or nostalgic or even peaceful. Would it help if I talked to him? I thought so.
“What do you expect to come out of talking to him?” she asked earnestly.
And right then, I had no idea what to say to her. I wanted to tell her the truth, but I wasn’t even being honest enough with myself to know what the truth was. On the surface, I just wanted to make things right, to alleviate my guilt, to keep our relationship neutral for once instead of one that was filled with hatred. I wanted to be able to move on and live the rest of the years of my life feeling like the issues between him and I had finally been resolved. But I also wanted his approval. I wanted him to come back to me and feel similarly, maybe to even ask to be friends or to talk to me. I wanted his company again. I wanted more than just forgiveness and amicability, when I really thought about it. But that was dangerous territory.
And it wasn’t healthy; I wasn’t thinking right. I was lonely and regretful.
So as soon as my therapist spoke, I listened.
“Here’s what I think you should do,” she told me. “Do you feel as if you have to talk to him in order to alleviate these feelings, or do you feel that you could work on your own to do that?”
“I really think it would help just to at least reach out to him,” I replied.
She nodded. “OK. And when you approach this with him, how were you hoping to do it? What do you wish you could say to him if he were standing right here?”
“Well, I guess I’d want to say I’m sorry. I was so stupid when I dated him. I did so many terrible things that I’m not proud of. I was so immature, and I didn’t always accept his love. I definitely wish I had a do-over for some things, and I don’t want him to walk away from this and remember all the bad things about me whenever he recollects our relationship. I just wanted him to know that I appreciate the things he did for me, and that I’m sorry, and that I wish things had turned out better between us.”
She nodded. (She’s always so understanding and never has any judgment, which I’m grateful for.)
“Well, I think one of the things you need to focus on, rather than apologizing, is gratitude,” she advised me.
And that was it. That sentence changed my life forever. It changed how I would approach my ex (and future exes) forever. It changed my mindset.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
She explained that she had attended a seminar on relationships recently. The seminar focused on grief and reconciliation and other parts of navigating relationships. And the theme that the speaker so continuously stressed, she said, was gratitude.
“We often feel that reconciling with someone else is going to set us free,” she explained, which certainly resonated with me because that was exactly how I was feeling. “But we don’t realize that actually, we have the resources within ourselves to get the peace that we want.”
I was perplexed.
“It makes sense that you want to talk to this guy. You’re closing a chapter of your life and moving onto a new one, and you’re going through a very transitional time, and so you’re focusing on making peace with the past. But this idea that you have about regrets and apologies may not be as helpful to you as you think. When was this relationship?”
“A couple of years ago,” I told her.
“OK. And definitely, you’re seeing it through the lens of time, which has made things look much different than they were. Perhaps you’re seeing yourself as more guilty of making mistakes than you actually were, and you’re maybe blurring out some of the things that he might have done. You ended this relationship; I know you had a good reason for doing so.”
I nodded. “I mean, I’m glad I ended it,” I finally responded.
“Exactly,” she said. “And I understand that you want to make peace. But instead, my best advice for you is to focus on gratitude, rather than apologizing to him. What was it about this relationship that makes you feel like going back to it? What about this relationship made it so memorable and amazing? Focus on those things. And thank him for them. Maybe you thank him for his support. Maybe you thank him for giving you joy or doing fun activities with you — whatever it was that made it special.”
“But I made mistakes.”
“And you also didn’t know better at that time. Now you do. And you’re thanking him for what he was able to give, and saying that you’re grateful for what you could give, too, at that time in your lives.”
She went on to say that if I wanted to move forward, one of the things that would be really helpful is shifting my mindset to thank him for the things that he did do and being grateful for the things that I did. That way, I didn’t need to expect a response from him. I could put my feelings out there in a healthy way and no matter what his reaction was, I could know that I was honest, without overstepping boundaries, perpetuating my own guilt, or creating an awkward situation.
And it helped me, because it was almost meditative; focusing on what I was grateful for made me realize that I was still loving the idea of him, rather than separating his new personality (and my new personality) from our old relationship. We had both changed. And by acknowledging the moments and practicing gratitude, I was able to respect that and still hold the memories close, without letting them eat away at me.
So there you have it: gratitude. Acknowledgment. Appreciation. The best advice my therapist ever gave me about my ex was when she encouraged that I acknowledge the past, express my gratitude for it, and appreciate it as a memory rather than a reality, as well as appreciate the things that I learned from that experience. It changed my life. I now feel that I have the courage to confront my ex if I choose to (which I haven’t yet); but this time, be much more mature about it, and be kinder to myself and my needs.
Ariana Grande said it best: “Thank u, next.”
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Previously published on “Hello, Love”, a Medium publication.
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