To dive into why some people have such a hard time letting go, we need to understand a simple dichotomy:
A toxic relationship is when two people are emotionally dependent on each other—that is, they use each other for the approval and respect they are unable to give themselves.
A healthy relationship is when two people are emotionally interdependent with each other—that is, they approve of and respect each other because they approve of and respect themselves.
Toxic relationships need drama to survive. Toxic people, because they don’t love or respect themselves, are never quite able to completely accept the idea that someone else could love and respect them either. And if someone comes around giving them love and respect, they don’t trust it or won’t accept it. It’s kind of like that old Groucho Marx trope: “I’d never join a club that would have me as a member.”
Ergo, toxic people are only able to accept affection from people who don’t love and respect them either.
Now, when you have an emotional clusterfuck like this—two people who don’t love and respect themselves OR each other—then obviously, they begin to feel really insecure around each other. What if she leaves me? What if she realizes I’m a loser? What if she disapproves of the pizza toppings I ordered?
As such, these people need a way to consistently test whether or not the other person actually wants to be with them. These tests are accomplished by creating drama.
Drama is when someone creates unnecessary conflict that generates a false sense of meaning for a short period of time. When a toxic person fucks up their own relationship and their partner forgives them and overlooks it, it causes an otherwise shitty relationship to feel non-shitty for a short period of time. And that feeling causes the relationship to feel really meaningful.They say to themselves, “Wow, I gave his dog away, and he’s still with me. This must be true love.” And everything is rosy and peachy and some other pleasant-sounding color…for a while.
Because drama doesn’t last. The underlying insecurity remains. So pretty soon, the toxic couple will need another injection of drama to keep the farce of a meaningful relationship going.
How to let go - couple on a bench with flowers
Healthy relationships avoid drama because they find that unnecessary conflict detracts from the meaning and importance already generated by the relationship. Healthy people simply don’t tolerate drama. They expect each other to take responsibility for themselves. Only then can they really take care of each other.
Healthy relationships, instead of inventing conflict to affirm their love and mutual support, minimize conflict to make more room for the love and support that is already there.
Let’s go back to the example of my nostalgia for when I met my wife. If our relationship was toxic and I were a perpetually insecure fucktard in my relationship, I could have responded to my small amount of sadness and grief by picking a fight with my wife, blaming her for the loss of that young excitement and new-relationship passion, bitching at her that things aren’t the way they used to be.
The resultant drama would do two things: 1) it would give me a sense of meaning again; here I am, fighting for a more passionate, exciting relationship with my wife! And goddamnit, she has to agree with me and do something about it! And 2) after being a total dickhole to her for an hour or three, the fact that she defended herself, placated me, or made an effort to resolve the (imaginary) conflict, would once again prove to me that she loves me and all would be right in my heart’s world…at least until I started feeling insecure again.
Another toxic response is to simply decide that if my wife can’t give me that new excitement, then I’ll just go find it outside the marriage. Banging some rando would reaffirm my insecure feelings of being unloved and unwanted. For a while, at least. And I would tell myself all sorts of entitled bullshit, like “I deserve” to feel that newness and excitement with a woman again. And that ultimately, it’s my wife’s fault that my heart (a.k.a., penis) strayed.
But instead of all this, being the healthy couple we are, I simply mentioned something like, “Wow, weren’t those nights together great? I kind of miss them…” And then silently reminded myself that relationships evolve, that the joy and benefits of love in week three are not the same as the joy and benefits in year three or decade three. And that’s fine. Love grows and expands and changes, and just because you possessed a fleeting excitement, does not mean it was better. Or even necessary at all.