“You gotta be tough.” “Can you get over it already?” “No one likes a victim.”
“You gotta be tough.”
“Can you get over it already?”
“No one likes a victim.”
When you’re struggling in your relationship, a lot of people are going to give you advice.
They mean well. They see you in pain, and they want you to get over it so you can go back to being the person you used to be. They don’t want to deal with your pain. It brings them down. They want everything to go back to normal.
What they don’t understand is that your life will never go back to normal. “Normal” exploded into a thousand razor-sharp shards when your relationship fell apart.
Even if you manage to patch it back together, things will never go back to the way they were. You’re not the person you used to be. You can’t erase the memories of what happened. You’ll have to live with that knowledge for the rest of your life.
So hear that well-meaning advice to “just get over it” for what it is.
It’s an attempt to silence you by denying the legitimacy of your experience. To shame you for not being able to bounce back as fast as other people would like.
It has nothing to do with supporting you and everything to do with other people not wanting to deal with your pain.
Denial is something we don’t talk about enough. When a relationship falls apart, the first thing both parties do is deny the gravity of the situation. By sticking your head in the sand, you can believe things will resolve on their own. Give it time. Everything will be fine.
But denial ties your hands behind your back. You can’t do anything when you’re in denial. You can’t see what is happening, so you can’t fix it.
That’s why it’s so dangerous when other people force denial on you, by telling you to keep your chin up, don’t let it get you down, and trust that everything will work out for the best.
What you need is someone who’s going to sit down with you, hear your story, ask the right questions, and help you gain insight into what’s happening and what you can do about it.
That’s why I believe that counseling, coaching, or therapy is so important. Your friends and family do their best, but they’re not professionals. They’re too close to the situation. They have a stake in getting you back to normal, not helping you wake up to the way your life has changed.
So please … don’t get over it. Face it. Explore it. Dig deep. Don’t turn your back on what’s happening to you, for the sake of keeping other people happy.