Maybe Hating Your Ex is the Last Stage Before Letting Go

I’ve done the work.

The therapy. The self-reflection. The endless journaling. The books on attachment. The conversations. The painful process of replaying every moment and trying to understand what happened.

I’ve looked at my own flaws. I’ve taken responsibility for my mistakes. I’ve cried in church. I’ve hurt like hell and processed the grief.

And yet, after all that healing work, I’m left with a feeling I wasn’t expecting:

I hate them.

Not every avoidant person. Not everyone with attachment wounds.

I hate the people who hurt me. I hate the ones who destroyed people’s hearts through romantic devastation.

The ex who pulled away when intimacy became real. The friend who had real love only to discard it when vulnerability was required. Yep, THOSE people who left behind confusion, heartbreak, and unanswered questions while acting as if none of it mattered. ASSHOLES.

For a long time, I thought healing was supposed to lead to forgiveness.

That seems to be the message everywhere.

“They’re wounded.”

“They’re scared.”

“They learned these behaviours in childhood.”

“They’re doing the best they can.”

Maybe all of that is true… Maybe not.

I understand where these patterns come from. I understand that avoidance is often a survival strategy. I understand that many avoidant people carry their own pain.

But understanding someone is not the same as excusing them.

At some point, I realised I was spending more energy empathising with the people who hurt me than they had ever spent empathising with me.

And that didn’t feel like healing.

That felt like self-abandonment.

The strange thing is that I’ve managed to let go of this resentment with family members.

I no longer expect emotional closeness from people who are incapable of providing it. I’ve accepted their limitations. I’ve stopped fighting reality.

But the ex and friend feel different.

I chose those relationships.

I trusted those people.

I invested in them.

I believed what they told me.

And when they eventually withdrew, disappeared emotionally, or discarded the relationship altogether, the damage felt deeper because it wasn’t inevitable. It was a choice.

What makes these experiences so difficult is that there is rarely a dramatic ending.

No huge betrayal.

No obvious villain.

Just distance.

Avoidance.

Silence.

A slow retreat from accountability.

You’re left trying to make sense of a relationship that seemed real while the other person acts as if it never mattered.

That kind of heartbreak leaves a unique wound.

Because you’re not only grieving the relationship.

You’re grieving the confusion.

The contradictions.

The feeling that your reality and their reality were completely different.

So where does that leave forgiveness?

Honestly, I don’t know.

Maybe forgiveness will come one day.

Maybe it won’t.

What I do know is that healing doesn’t require me to minimise what happened.

It doesn’t require me to endlessly excuse people because they are wounded.

It doesn’t require me to keep offering compassion to those who repeatedly avoided accountability.

For now, I can hold two truths at the same time:

I understand why they became who they are.

And I still deeply resent the choices they made.

Maybe hate isn’t the final destination.

Maybe one day it turns into indifference.

Maybe one day I stop thinking about them entirely.

But until then, I’m no longer interested in forcing forgiveness just because it sounds more enlightened.

Sometimes the most honest thing you can say is:

I understand your pain.

I understand your wounds.

And I still don’t want you in my life.

For now, that’s enough.