What do you do when love hurts? Do you know how to heal a relationship when hurt in love? It may not be easy to heal a relationship when love hurts, but you need to do it to move on.
Most of us have been hurt in love at some or the other point of time in our lives; either in our past relationships, or the present one, even in married life of many years, or way back when we experienced our first crush or love!
It’s sad but sometimes love doesn’t last and often leads to breakups, which leaves us heartbroken. However, we all do learn to deal with such breakups and move on in life with time.
If you wonder why does love hurt and breakups happen, then you need to read my earlier post on love, where I’ve written about it all – what’s and why’s of when love hurts.
Not to be missed are the wonderful views and experiences of the readers in the comments section, where you’ll get a deeper insight into why love hurts.
Next, you would want to know about how to heal a relationship when you are hurt in love and how to deal with a broken heart. This is what today’s post is all about.
“Love is like the truth, sometimes it prevails, sometimes it hurts.” ~ Victor M. Garcia Jr.
What Can You do When Hurt in Love?
Definitely you can’t just sit and cry forever over what’s happened. There are only two options that you’ve in hand – either try to repair the relationship or try to forget about it and move on in life. Yes, it all sounds simple and easy, but it’s not!
In any case, if you have been hurt in love and want your condition to be different and wish it to get better, you need to improve and change yourself too.
Yes, there’s no other way – you don’t have to change your complete personality, but only the way how you deal with such a situation. You need to move on, for which you need to analyze, reflect, and change yourself or the relationship.
You need to remember that whenever love hurts and there’s a problem in a relationship, it’s mostly both the sides that are at fault. Yes, sometimes one partner’s fault may be more than the others, but like they say it always takes two to tango!
Thus, there’s no harm in introspection and self-assessment, and even accepting your faults if there are any, which will only help you get better. This would help you to take hold of things and ensure that you don’t fall into the same issues again.
If you want a happy relationship next time, you need to understand yourself better by knowing what went wrong in the present relationship, and why you keep getting into certain patterns of relationships.
So, you need to decide that how you will use this hurtful time as an opportunity to learn more about yourself, become more confident, and feel good about yourself.
“Do not fear the pain of love; fear a heart that no longer can love.” ~ Pablito
How to Heal a Relationship?
Healing within starts when you learn to change the way you interact with the one who hurt you, and how you change yourself when that person responds to you. When you hold onto hurt, you deprive yourself and the other person of a beautiful relationship.
Remember, that when things go wrong and if you are at fault – apologize. This is because apologies sometimes can heal the other person’s hurt caused and restore the connection between both of you.
When you want to heal a relationship, you need to work to restore the other person’s forgiveness and love by correcting and confronting the damage that may have been caused. And by doing so, you restore your own honor and dignity.
You take over the role of being the one doing the hurting, when you choose to hold onto hurt. And you hurt yourself, when you choose to allow pride to keep you from reaching out to the one hurt.
You need to realize that you don’t have to let the past that cannot be changed – rule your present.
“Real love hurts, real love makes you totally open and vulnerable. Real love will take you far behind yourself, and therefore real love will devastate you. If love doesn’t shatter you, you will not know love.” ~ Bertrand Russell
And if you are hurt in love and are looking out for ways to heal a relationship, then you would like the tips mentioned below.
Ways to Heal When Love Hurts
When love hurts you and if you hang on to that anger or hurt, it can be destructive to your physical, spiritual, emotional, and relational health. It hurts when the little upsetting words build up to mountains of resentment that are not addressed.
If you wonder why does love hurt and what you can do about it, here are some ways to help you move on beyond the hurt, and enjoy life.
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” ~ Helen Keller
1- Give yourself time and space
When love hurts and you have problems with your partner, or have thought of drifting apart, it’s best to give each other breathing space. Try and not contact each other, at least initially or till you work things out.
2- Don’t separate yourself
Relationships are always 100/100, where each person is fully responsible for the absence or presence of love. You need to take full responsibility for the loss of love, and then alone can you do something about it. When you blame another, you lose your power and remain stuck.
When you get thoughts about why you have been hurt in love and are heartbroken, don’t isolate yourself from others. It is a well known fact that depression rates are higher for have lack of social support.
“The walls we build around us to keep out the sadness also keep out the joy.” ~ Jim Rohn
Instead, try to go out and do things to make yourself happy – even if you have to force yourself sometimes. Keep in touch with friends and family, who are always supportive.
Remember, you need to focus on yourself, do everything positive for yourself first, and then work it out from there.
3- Face your anger
The initial reaction when someone betrays or hurts you is of anger. Perhaps you feel disrespected, unloved, and violated. When you get hurt in love you may want to lash back and hurt the other person too.
However, you need to stop yourself from doing that; as such anger can further damage and distort your relationship. Instead, take your time to get over your anger by talking to some friend or family member, or perhaps a coach or counselor.
You could even express your feelings in a dairy or journal, so that it’s out of your system and makes you feel lighter.
4- Understand the truth
You need to try and understand the truth and reason behind why the person hurt you. Often times your partner may hurt you because he/she is hurt too.
“He who has never experienced hurt, cannot experience true love. “ ~ Tristan J. Loo
While at other times when your spouse or lover hurts you, you in turn also hurt them intentionally or unintentionally. Thus, you need to seek the truth, hear it out, and accept it. When you share the truth, you help your partner to understand you too.
5- Let your emotions flow
When you get hurt in love, you are saddened by the whole episode. Often times you feel sad about what should have been or what you didn’t receive. Sometimes the pain and sadness is a sign that you need time to feel sad for the loss.
So, allow yourself to let go of your feelings, feel the sadness and let the tears flow, if you feel like crying. Crying always helps us to lighten ourselves and is very therapeutic. (It does wonders for me!)
6- Learn the hidden lesson
It’s never easy to experience pain and suffering, though they always do teach us lessons in disguise. When love hurts, try and understand what needs more attention, or what more you need to do so that things get better, or that you are not hurt in your future relationships.
“Eventually you will come to understand that love heals everything, and love is all there is.” ~ Gary Zukav
7- Forgive and let go
When you get hurt, a part of you closes down that makes you bitter and you lose the ability to love. You tend to make yourself a victim and keep your hurt alive, put up your walls of protection, and forcefully fuel the cycle of dispute or conflict.
The toughest thing to do is to forget and let go, especially when you are hurt the most. But there is no other way to move on in life. You need to remember that forgiveness is not for anyone else other than you.
However, forgiving doesn’t mean that you excuse our partner’s behavior, nor allow others to keep hurting you.
Instead, to forgive means to give up all the bitterness and hatred you have for the person, and the desire to punish the person.
Once you are able to let go of the hurt and pain, you can start the process of becoming more reliable and happier within. And in no time you will draw happy, satisfying, and genuine relationship that was meant for you.
“Love is the most important healing power there is.” ~ Louise Hay
You may like to read more about how to find happiness after a breakup here. But when you begin understanding the love between two people, you realize that there is much more in love than to get hurt.
Don’t forget to take chances in life and keeping your options open, because you never know when you may find your true love or soul mate! Just remember that –
“It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.” ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson
And very soon you may be humming, “Love is in the air…”
Over to you –
What do you do when hurt in love? Do you have any suggestions about how to heal a relationship when love hurts? If you have been hurt in love or experienced the pain, share your experiences in the comments below.