They say men and women after breaking up, can’t be friends, and if they can it’s because one is still in love with the other, or there was no real love there.
Here’s the thing – love comes in many shapes and forms, and there’s no one-size-fits-all. So all the people who are telling you that you should hate him cannot change how you actually feel about him. You still love him.
Wouldn’t it be easier if you could put yourself first, have enough self-compassion and self-respect that you wouldn’t let anyone hurt you in the first place? Well, that’s easier said than done!
There are many situations in which you may still love a guy after he’s hurt you. One such example is when he’s been continuously hurting you, and you’ve stayed regardless of the abuse.
Or he may have cheated on you and broken your heart.
Another, and of course a lot simpler, is that he simply stopped loving you and moved on from the relationship.
All of these examples, despite different in nature, are still valid reasons about how you might feel after. And if you loved him, you probably still do, and can’t exactly switch it off. Here are some of the most common reasons as to why you still love him after he hurt you.
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There’s too much history there
If you’ve loved someone and shared precious moments with them, it will be really hard to simply erase them from your life. People tend to remember the good things about events and people.
Remembering the good times will still have you thinking that maybe he wasn’t that bad after all, and you might consider even going back to him.
The longer the relationship was, the longer it will take to move on
They say that on average it takes at least half the time you were with someone to recover after splitting up. Say you were together for 2 years, you may be looking at a few long months of longing after him!
It doesn’t mean you will always love him, but it does mean that you will need to work harder to forget him.
You were friends before you got romantically involved with him
This is perhaps one of the toughest reasons and no advice on the Internet will help provide the magic answer. It’s just a tricky situation to be in!
If you were real friends with him for a while, before you started dating, then how can you just stop loving them all of a sudden?
That being said, we all want to believe that our friends wouldn’t hurt us, but relationships are a lot more complicated than that. And remember that if you were once friends, maybe you can be again some day.
Because he’s not a bad guy
The friendship argument leads us to another point which is that you may know, deep down, that he is just not a bad guy. Yes, maybe he hurt you by leaving, maybe he fell in love with someone else and all you want to do is scream and be mad at him, but you can’t lie to yourself.
If he is a decent guy who is liked by people and treats people well, maybe it just wasn’t meant to be between the two of you. It’s hard to admit, but hating him might just not happen.
You still have hope for the two of you
Perhaps the reason you can’t quite move on is because you are still hoping that there is a chance that things will turn out well for the two of you. Obviously being trusting of the future may seem easy, because it is unknown. So, it may truly seem like one day he will change his mind, or he will become better towards you.
Make sure you are being realistic though, as longing after someone who has long moved on from you can truly be heart-breaking.
Because they meant the world to you
They say the people who can hurt us the most are the people we love the most because we give them that much power over us. Loving someone with your whole heart means you are ready to forgive and forget, and potentially put yourself in the exact same situation – over and over again.
Perhaps you feel helpless without him, and the idea of truly ending things makes you feel depressed like nothing else in the world. Being hurt by someone you truly love will possibly feel like the end of the world, but as your friends and parents will tell you – it almost never is the end of the world!
It will just be hard to see it at that very moment.
Everything reminds you of him
It’s hard to move on if everything you do reminds you of him. Perhaps you are in the same class or company together. Maybe he lives down the road and you see him often? Or…maybe he’s still not moved out of your apartment!
Whichever it is, you will be clinging onto your feelings and won’t be able to see beyond it. In order to move on you will need to create some distance. As hard as it may sound, you will need to throw away pictures and gifts that remind you of him.
He emotionally manipulated you
People always show us who they are, it’s just that we often choose not to see it. Maybe you believe he’s changed, maybe you tell yourself: “this isn’t who he is!”, but people don’t just change their entire nature out of nowhere.
If the guy you loved has been emotionally manipulating you and you are totally hooked on him, it will take some effort to stop loving him. It could be impossible for you to tell, so speak to your friends and family and get to the bottom of it. You’d be surprised how much they can tell just by being outsiders to it.
Because you still like him
Sometimes, no matter how much someone hurts us, we just can’t seem to shake them off. We want to give in because we believe that they deserve it and that maybe, one day, they will change. Don’t worry, you’re definitely not alone.
Believing in the good in someone is just part of human nature. Just don’t let it ruin your life.
You haven’t met anyone else
Did your boyfriend hurt you and left you broken-hearted, but you are still curled up under a blanket crying your eyes out? How can you forget him and move on, if you haven’t taken care of yourself?
And the only way to do that is to keep your chin up, make time for yourself and your friends and get out there! Not saying that you need a rebound, but even flirting with a guy will make you feel a hundred times better than sitting at home, thinking about your ex.
You are afraid to start over
It feels so much easier to go back to someone you were once with – you know them and they know you, you don’t have to start all over and date again. Or you think there won’t be anyone else out there you will feel the same way about.
Despite the way you feel in this very moment, when you have been hurt, trust that there’s plenty of fish in the sea, you just need to put yourself out there and not let your broken heart close you off to everyone else.
Because you just can’t help it
You may be fully aware that you are in love with someone who’s hurt you, and who doesn’t deserve you. At the same time you just can’t help loving them! It’s just part of human nature.
Some people can even subconsciously find pleasure in pain, including being heart-broken, as crazy as it may sound! It might also be your ego not letting you let go of the person you thought you should be with – sometimes we are trying to prove it to ourselves that they deserve us.
Someone who hurt you will also make you feel low and worthless, so you won’t feel that you deserve someone better – it may even feel easier to keep coming back to the person who hurt you, just because it feels easier. Better the devil you know!
You’ve been hurt too many times
If you’ve been unlucky in love, you might be used to being hurt and accepting it. If you have normalised being okay with not being treated well by guys, then there’s some serious soul-searching you need to do.
Don’t normalise pain and accept it in your life, and especially in your romantic relationships. There is hope around the corner, you just have to be willing to find it.
You haven’t learned your lesson
They say sometimes you win, sometimes you learn. And this attitude is so true when it comes to relationships. But not if you are stuck in a toxic relationship, in a vicious circle of bad behaviour and being hurt time and time again.
Have you learned your lesson? Have you put yourself first and truly called out the truth about the situation you are in? Or do you keep finding yourself in the same situation, with another guy, just a different name?
If you haven’t learned from your experience you will keep finding yourself locked in a bad relationship with some guy who simply isn’t good for you.
Because you are a fixer
Some women believe they can just fix a guy, that the bad behaviour can be ignored as it’s a one-off and that if they work hard enough in the relationship, things can be improved. Unfortunately, that might be the case in a generally healthy relationship, but it won’t always be the case.
Are you too focused on fixing him and fixing the relationship, that you are forgetting what it is that you need and what it means to be truly loved? Do you feel that a relationship went badly (not because of you) and you just want to go back and correct it?
What can help is simply shifting your focus – from him to you, and truly letting yourself grow and move on. Do what is good for you and your life goals, which will ultimately help you stop wasting your love on someone who hurt you, and can probably hurt you again.
It was just that one time
If you’ve been in an abusive relationship, you probably remember the exact moment it started, and how it felt. Did you think it was wrong but were so shocked you shrugged it off? Whether it was verbal or physical abuse, it’s never just that one time.
Perhaps he is a little angry a little too often? Or is struggling in his life and blames it on you? Perhaps he is jealous or controlling? Whatever he does that hurts you, stop pretending like it’s just that one time, or just those couple of times, or just that week. Love yourself and leave.
He’s now used to it, and so are you
To add to the previous point, if you’ve left it going for too long it’s probably become the norm. He cheats, you find out, he apologises and you take him back? He snaps and offends you, you cry, he apologises and you forgive him?
If the patterns have been going on for a while, and you truly love him, you may not be seeing the situation clearly to realize that it’s over. If somebody hurts you time and time again then they don’t love you. Not truly anyway.
When you truly love somebody, you want to only see the best in them, you want to believe that they will never hurt you or do anything wrong to cause you pain. Relationships can be hard, people can be complex and difficult. Sometimes he might hurt you. Choosing to love, forgiving, but still putting yourself first is one of the choices to deal with the pain.
Yes, it will still hurt, it will be painful to be away and not to share time with him anymore. You would want to text him, call him, go around and see him just one more time.
If you really want to mend your broken heart, simply hating him won’t help you. Hating people only makes things worse. Don’t intensify your pain by choosing hate. Choose love, love yourself and make space for the kind of guy who will never hurt you.
