An almost relationship can be hard to forget. That’s why we decided to tackle this subject.
Here are 4 reasons why you can’t forget your “almost relationship”
1. There has been no official ending.
Humans need a concrete ending to turn the page. There’s an inherent desire: all the stories we don’t know the end of, the movies we never finish, we look to blogs and the internet to express our frustration. We need to know the ending to be able to move on, and that’s impossible with a near-relationship.
It is difficult to create our own end, to catch signs that mean nothing at all, but to which we attribute meaning. And it may seem silly at first, like believing in magic. But sometimes it’s the only thing we can do. We have to find meaning where there is none. We have to write our own ending. It’s difficult, but it is possible. And you can have a happy life, with yourself. You deserve it.
2. You only have your side of the story left.
You don’t know what you did, what you didn’t do, what you could have done, or what is wrong with you. You never get those answers, so you end up speculating. And we are the most critical of ourselves. So we end up thinking it was all our fault. Yes and no, you are solely responsible for your actions. So there is no point in rationalizing what you have done against what someone else has done. Sometimes it is enough to know that you have tried and that you have done the best you can.
3. It is difficult to reconcile what is and what could have been.
We like to believe in love and happiness forever, and we believe that something awaits us. And that’s what we hold on to potential, and everything we imagined but never had the courage to recognize.
4. Just because you were owed nothing doesn’t mean that there were no expectations.
Those are all the unsaid and innuendo, all the times that person called you by some adorable nickname. But there is also the fact that there was never anything afterwards. This is why you are heartbroken. You have to admit, no, you haven’t been in a romantic relationship, but you still feel like you should think of him as your ex. Maybe not an ex-partner, but an ex-something. An almost-ex. An almost relationship.
Nobody likes to think to heal their wounds when you’ve put all your eggs in one basket and it has failed. But we all make mistakes. Even if it’s not fair to us, chances are the other person has never asked for our heart. We just gave it freely. Sometimes we take risks and we lose.
But through these almost-relationships, we can collectively learn, and be a little more courageous, and say whatever we want next time. Because after all, we have to be optimistic. We have to believe in love to survive. There will be a next time, we just need to heal our wounds and find the courage to try again.
