Love can hurt. Love can particularly hurt when we continue to love and hold onto the person who always seems to hurt us. Hurt from a loved one can vary tremendously. Your partner may be doing something that is small on a one off type of situation, but can build up over time, leading to resentment. A friend can betray you unexpectedly leaving you to feel distrustful of other people and to doubt the other friendships in your life. Your children can suddenly be beyond your reach, making bad choices, taking advantage of your generosity and disappearing suddenly. Angry words can be said during an argument that are not easily forgotten. Your loved ones seem to neglect you when you need them the most. A partner can commit an infidelity or become emotional and/or physically abusive towards you. There are a variety of ways a loved one can hurt you.
Sometimes you might try your best to resolve things with a loved one who keeps hurting you. You might try to reason with your mother and work things out but she might not want to communicate with you or end up making the issue something that it is not. You might want to work things out with a partner who committed an infidelity but he may resort to gas lighting, manipulation and try to shift the blame on you rather than on himself. You may wish your friend would open up and communicate with you, but she continues to shut down and refuse to talk about the issue at all. Your child may completely walk out of your life, refuse to answer your calls or even give you an opportunity to work things out. Dealing with painful feelings from a loved one is not always as easy as we wish it could be. Often times there is only so much you can do on your own.
Below are some ways that you can deal with a loved one who repeatedly hurts you. These methods work for extremely painful situations and the little things that can build to resentment.
1. Take time to deal with your anger. In the past, my main way of coping with my anger was lashing out at the person who caused the anger. Instead of dealing with my own anger myself, I wanted to let the person who caused the anger to help me deal with it. Finding a way to cope with your anger does not happen overnight. You may need to try different things that will work for you and you need to be committed to working through your anger. The good news is that you can deal with your anger yourself.
Try to hold onto your main motivation to get through your anger. For me, what made me work really hard at finding a way to deal with my anger was not wanting to hurt my relationships due to my anger and wanting to give myself peace. There are a variety of ways you can begin to cope with your anger. You can try talking with a trusted friend. If you take the route of talking to a friend, talk to someone who will not fuel your anger but has a knack at calming you down. Try seeing a counsellor regularly about your anger. There are books available about how to cope with anger too. You can also write a message to the person who hurt you (without sending it) and release much of the negativity that way.
2. Communicate to the person who hurt you. Often times a loved one may be unintentional with the hurt they are causing you. Some people may not even realize that their words or actions were hurtful. For instance, one time I remember not giving feedback on a friend’s work situation. I had not realized how important my feedback was and my actions came across as hurtful to my friend. She believed that I did not care or was not interested in her problems since I did not give feedback. Eventually she got very angry at me as her resentment about my lack of feedback continued to build. Misunderstandings can and do happen so communicate with your loved one to ensure that everyone is on the same page.
Other times hurtful actions can be intentional. A loved one may be depressed, hurting and lashing out intentionally at others. Your loved one may be dealing with a mental illness. Once I had a friend who was being hurtful but I did not realize she was on medications for a mental illness that were causing her to be more irritable and distant. Realizing what she was going through made me more understanding about her situation and allowed me to not take her hurtful actions so personally.
Maybe a loved one had a really bad day and was being irritable at you. Share how you are feeling so that you can convey how you have been hurt and understand their side too. Be willing to listen to your loved one explain their feelings on why he said or reacted the way that he did. Try to not interrupt or get so upset that you don’t allow your loved one to communicate with you. You may not like the answer, but communicating about the incident will provide you with a better understanding of the situation.
3. Understand ways you can be accountable for the situation. One of the best ways that I have handled situations where loved ones have hurt me is by trying to understand what I have the power to change immediately. It can be very easy to fall into victim mode and feel like the situation is out of your control. You might start to feel like everything is the other person’s fault and that your state of mind depends entirely on what your loved one decides to do.
Taking personal accountability allows you to take real steps to moving forward. When an ex-partner committed an infidelity, what allowed me to start moving on was realizing my part in the situation and what I could do to prevent further pain. Part of my decision was realizing that I had ignored some major red flags. The infidelity had not happened unexpectedly. There were warning signs, red flags and other things that showed my ex-partner was distrustful and I had ignored them. Realizing I had ignored the warning signs allowed me to understand that I had given my ex-partner too many chances and that it was time to walk away from a very toxic situation.
Understanding how I was not a complete victim of the situation, allowed me to start the process of moving on. I realized that at that point I could begin cutting this person off, moving on and living my life for my own happiness and not allowing the infidelity to hurt my character and trust even more. There are ways you can be accountable for the situation rather than falling into victim mode. Find ways that work for you. For less extreme scenarios, you might start being more honest about your feelings to a loved one rather than being passive aggressive. You might try to stop yourself to reacting aggressively in an argument so that the argument doesn’t spiral out of control.
4. Grieve. A loved one hurting us can be painful. There is no shame in allowing yourself to feel sad. You are still a strong person by allowing yourself to cry and feel pain. Allow yourself to be able to grieve the pain from the hurt. Make space for grieving as well. During this time you may need to request that your loved one gives you some space so that you can grieve on your own.
5. Set boundaries. When a person hurts you repeatedly, you must take care of yourself. Part of taking care of yourself is setting boundaries. Providing boundaries allows you to prevent the hurt from getting out of control, communicates to your loved one what you need to feel respected and allows you to be accountable. For instance, if you feel your partner criticizes you too much, you might end the conversation when things get out of control. You might stop inviting your friend out to events and catch ups if your friend always bails on you or never asks you to hang out. You might give your child a time out if their behaviour becomes out of control. You might limit your time with a parent if you are constantly arguing.
Ending a relationship may need to happen if the pain has become excessive. You may need to give your child a two month notice if he continues to recklessly spend his money and expect to live rent-free at your home. You can leave a partner who has become physically abusive and makes you feel like your safety is at risk. Saying goodbye to a friend may be necessary if there is little respect and connection left in the friendship. Set boundaries on the situation and you’ll quickly feel more in control of the situation. You’ll understand what you can tolerate and show your loved one that they need to respect your boundaries if they want a healthy relationship with you.
6. Make the choice to shift your inner being. When a loved one hurts you, you might find yourself shutting down and wanting to close your heart to the world. Personally, I’ve been hurt ever since I was a child and for much of my life I believed that people were untrustworthy, hurtful and that I was incapable of being truly loved. Part of embracing a healthier attitude was allowing myself to shift my thoughts and feelings.
Many of us are battling through emotions and pain that has stuck with us for many years. Negative thoughts keep us in a position of feeling like love isn’t real, people will always disappoint us and that you can never trust anybody in the world. Make the choice to change your mindset. Even if you are scared and feel like you can never love anyone again, you can always make a choice to change your psyche. Don’t allow this pain and heartache to change your character completely and prevent you from welcoming joy into your life. Make the choice to get through this difficult time and prepare for joyous memories ahead. Without shifting your inner being you will find the journey of receiving love is far more difficult than it ever has to be.
7. Work things through and find common ground. Many of us, including myself, have strongly held onto the belief of an idealistic love. Many of us want best friends who always get us, are always supportive and never disappoint or hurt us. Many of us want a partner where there are no arguments, little disagreements and where the relationship is just easy. We all want parents who respect our life choices or children who give us respect and appreciation.
Relationships are rarely easy. Sure, certain parts of your relationship may be easy. Maybe you and your loved one have an easy relationship overall or dealing with your children is overall pretty drama free. Perhaps you used to have a great relationship with a parent but now things have gone downhill. Maybe things with your best friend were great until she lost her job and other depressing things happened to. There will be points where you need to find common ground to build a healthier, stronger and more loving relationship. Work things out with your loved one and remember that you cannot work things out alone. Communicate together and figure out a resolution to the situation. You may need to seek couple or family counselling if communicating is too difficult.
Give the relationship a chance for healing and put effort into it. Take into account that you can’t work things out by yourself. Two people need to be focused on healing the relationship. Keep in mind that if abuse is involved in your relationship that working things out may not be an option right now. Anyone who shows abusive tendencies needs to seek personal help before being able to work through issues with another person.
8. Walk away. Some relationships cannot be worked out, at least at this time. A relationship needs two people working at things. You cannot heal a broken relationship completely on your own. This realization is hard to embrace when you truly love someone. However, walking away can often be the best way to give ourselves love and grant ourselves peace. When a relationship becomes abusive, manipulative and you feel like your self-esteem is barely intact, you need to walk away from the relationship. This can be extremely difficult when it comes to a best friend, partner or even your child. However, when the relationship becomes too destructive, you have to find the strength to let go and walk away. Taking a step back will allow us to focus on healing ourselves and may give your loved one the psychological space to make real changes within their own lives.
Walking away doesn’t always have to mean the relationship is permanently over. You may find that once a parent gets the help they need, that they will be in a better place to have a relationship with you. Your child may need to work through their own issues before you can regularly be part of his life again. A broken relationship may have another chance at reconciliation by walking away and allowing yourselves to grow as individuals. Walking away allows you to take care of yourself and protect yourself from unnecessary pain.
9. Surround yourself with loved ones. When a loved one hurts you, it can be easy to not notice all the wonderful people in your life who do love you. Don’t be afraid to rely on the ones who do love you to help you when you are going through a challenging time or need support. Great relationships bring out the best within you and provide you with a safe place to share the challenges and joys within your life. Reach out to the people who are there for you when you are struggling from the hurt of a loved one.
10. Forgive. Regardless of whether you need to walk away or work through a relationship, you must find the strength to forgive. Forgiveness doesn’t mean that you are okay with what happened or have forgotten about the hurt. Forgiveness allows you to let go of your anger, resentment and the negativity that inhibits you from moving on. Truly letting go of the pain allows you to forgive. Forgiveness doesn’t have to be vocalized and you certainly don’t have to be around someone to forgive them. You can silently forgive someone and grant yourself permission and the strength to move on.
11. Give yourself closure. Closure sometimes will not come from the other person. You might be seeking closure from your ex-partner forever if you are hoping for a moment or conversation that will give you peace. Your family dynamic may be so toxic that finding closure will be almost impossible. Every time a resolution is reached with a toxic relationship, you might find yourself having more conflict and arguments later on. Closure comes from within you. You can obtain closure by letting go of the resentment, pain and anger towards another and silently forgiving this person.
We cannot control how often loved ones hurt us or prevent a loved one from hurting us. However, you can choose to move forward from the pain and find ways to work through what happened. Sometimes a loved one hurting us provides us with lessons that allows us to become stronger, open ourselves up to a deeper and stronger love and allows us to grow and move forward. Sometimes moving forward means we need to let go of a painful relationship no matter how difficult it may seem. Living a reality is far better than holding onto an illusion that repeatedly gives you pain. Open yourself to a reality where you can love yourself and set healthy boundaries with your loved ones.