A Fair Former Relationship Assessment

I was talking with a friend once who was frustrated that their ex seemed to be putting in more effort with their new partner than they ever had with them. This is, of course, a fairly common story. To quote Sally Albright from my favorite rom-com (When Harry Met Sally…), “All this time I’ve been saying that he didn’t want to get married. But the truth is he didn’t want to marry me.” 

It can be easy to fall into the trap of bitterness around ex relationships. It can be easy to see their social media or talk to mutual friends and feel some injustice of all the things they are doing now that they couldn’t be bothered to do while you were together. 

But because this person is someone I can push for real conversations, we shifted to the harder truth—were you also doing the things with them that you are doing with your new partner? 

It is easy to look back on a past relationship and feel anger, hurt, frustration, betrayal, etc., etc., etc. And in this memory lane journey, of course you were always kind and honest and fair and open and agreeable and and and.

With distance and time, I’m grateful for the fair former relationship assessments I’ve been able to give myself. Maybe we both could have handled things differently. Maybe we both did the best we could with the information and experience we had at the time. Here’s where I was in the wrong. Here’s what I could have done better. Here’s what I wish I’d known or understood or said.

We get to move forward and live our lives and we get to see and experience our own growth. And yet we hold the people in our past to an impossible standard because we’ve frozen them at who they were at 18 or 22 or 27. 

You’ve changed since that relationship. Perhaps it’s worth believing that they may have as well.