Relationships aren’t easy and starting over isn’t easy as well, especially when you already have a record of wrongs and rights to compare the person to.
I too struggled with this and learned that I had to let go of the records that I kept in my mind as guidelines because, at the end of the day, it was just me comparing situation after situation.
Letting Go of the Bad
I know we’ve all heard this cliche that not all men or women are the same. As much as I didn’t like to hear that because at the moment I was dealing with hurt from a specific person, I know that it was still true. Not everyone is the same. Just because someone hurt you, doesn’t mean the next person will.
Also, holding on to the bad will stunt someone from growing and showing you their true potential. This can be for someone that is starting a new relationship or deciding to get back with an ex. If someone is trying to show you that they are growing or that they want to grow with you, but you continue to bring up your past, it is going to cause your relationship to either not grow or stay stagnant. And who wants to be in a relationship that’s not evolving?
Letting Go of the Good
I know this one is weird because what could be harmful about holding on to the good memories? Well, a lot. At the end of the day, those memories are the past. Let’s say you had an ex that always brought you flowers every two weeks? Now you’re dating a new person and you’re getting annoyed because he doesn’t bring you flowers every two weeks. You are so blinded at the fact that he doesn’t bring you flowers, you don’t realize that he has a whole different love language.
Your ex’s love language could’ve been gift-giving but this specific person might like to do acts of service. He may not bring you flowers every two weeks but he always fixes anything that he says in your apartment that needs fixing, even when you don’t see it. Or every Saturday he takes your car to get it washed and fills up your tank.
Holding on to good records can even hinder the person to show you the way that they love because you compare them to the way you used to be loved. But unfortunately, if the way you used to be loved was so good, it wouldn’t have ended. Someone once told me that and it literally knocked me off my little high horse of thinking I know everything.
One way that helped me to let go of the records was to put myself in the other person’s shoes. How would I feel if I was always being compared to their past? Because I know I am me and I love differently than others, so it wouldn’t be if I was always being compared because I would start to feel as if I could never be enough for this person. Or that they could never be satisfied with what I do. Once I realized how unfair that is, I started working on letting go.