Sura 2

When We Try to Bring Back What Broke Us

One of the first places people look for peace after a breakup is the very person whose absence is causing them pain.

Sometimes, they go back because they made a mistake. They may have cheated, lied, neglected their partner, or done something that destroyed the trust between them. Now that they have lost the person they love, they begin apologizing, asking for forgiveness, and doing everything they can to get another chance.

And sometimes, they genuinely mean it.

They have realized the value of what they had only after losing it. They are willing to admit their mistakes because the thought of living without that person has become unbearable.

But this does not happen only to people who make mistakes.

Sometimes, the person trying to return is the same person who was hurt.

Imagine a woman whose partner cheats on her. She discovers what has happened and confronts him. An argument follows, misunderstandings develop, and eventually, they break up.

You might expect the person who was cheated on to be the one who walks away without looking back. But sometimes, the opposite happens.

She finds herself apologizing.

"I'm sorry I brought it up. I didn't want us to fight. Please don't leave me. I can't imagine my life without you."

Think about that for a moment.

The person who was hurt begins apologizing for bringing attention to the very thing that hurt her.

Why?

Because, at that moment, the pain of losing the relationship may feel greater than the pain of remaining in it.

She is no longer thinking only about what happened. She is also thinking about what will happen if the person leaves. And because she wants to stop the pain of that loss, she may become willing to sacrifice her own concerns just to restore the relationship.

This is one of the ways emotional distress can affect our judgment.

Sometimes, we become so desperate to keep someone in our lives that we begin negotiating against our own well-being.

We apologize when we should be asking questions. We accept things we should be examining. We fight to keep people who may not even be willing to fight for us.

And this can happen whether we caused the breakup or were the ones who were hurt.

In some cases, these patterns may involve anxious attachment, emotional dependency, or what is sometimes called trauma bonding. However, not every painful attachment is a trauma bond, and not every attempt to reconcile is unhealthy.

The important point is that, when we are emotionally overwhelmed, our desire to stop the pain can become stronger than our ability to evaluate what is actually good for us.

We stop asking whether the relationship is healthy.

We start asking only how we can get the person back.