They changed. They just didn’t change for us.
So this is the hard part, isn’t it?
Those horrible thoughts of,
I could have said something different.
It turns out maybe I could have done something different.
What did they say and do that I failed to say and do?
Or what do they have that I don’t?
We have to be very careful of not assuming that the change is real.
It’s very easy from a distance
to watch someone in what seems like them
flourishing in a new relationship,
and it triggers us in all of the worst ways.
But that snapshot, that little piece of gossip that we heard
or that picture that we just saw
of them with their new partner on Instagram,
is not a true reflection of their relationship.
No one knows what’s going on behind the curtain of a relationship.
So don’t assume that change just came easily to this person.
What we may be seeing is a superficial form of progress.
We might be seeing someone racing ahead,
but it’s likely that their fundamental nature hasn’t changed.
The things that bothered us haven’t necessarily changed.
It’s likely that they carried those into the next relationship,
and that whatever deeper work they need to do
is still very much a work in progress.