You can miss your ex without taking them back

I’ve always felt that moving on from anything in life will be just as good as it will be disadvantageous. Take alcohol for example: when you give up a drinking habit, you do so in avoidance of the potential health complications among other things. While doing that, however, you give up the satisfaction and the high you derive from being intoxicated.

The same logic kinda applies to relationships: when you end a relationship because a partner became less than ideal somewhere along the line, you do not just give up on the unhappiness and stress and drama they must have been peppering your life with; you also walk away from the happy memories you created with them, the laughs and good times you must have had with them and the ones you could have had if the relationship didn’t have to come to an end.

No relationship is OK if there are more bad times than good ones. [Credit - Shutterstock] Family Creations LLC

Of course, when a relationship becomes more pain than laughs; when the good vibes are trumped by constant negativity, you have no option but to get out of it. No relationship is OK if there are more bad times than good ones.

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But when you leave a relationship for what was wrong in it, it’s OK to look back on its good times fondly. It’s OK to miss them even if they were few and far in between. The memories of the relationship do not have to just be about the sourness that overshadowed it in the end, it’s fine to be happy about all the good times you shared with that partner and the good network you built as well as all the lessons you learnt.

If they were trash, better leave them right there in the past. [Credit : Video Blocks] Pulse Nigeria

“It's human nature to feel sadness over losing someone who once played a huge role in your life. Go ahead, cry a little bit, watch a Nicholas Sparks movie, and miss that person because you're allowed to. Miss them, and remember why it's better to not be with them, and then go out and conquer the rest of your life,” writes Hannah Case of Odyssey.

Whatever reminiscence you do should not delude you into thinking that you should go back, or take them back. A relationship that had to end because you kept giving the other person opportunities to clean up their act and they refused to, should better be left in the past – alongside all the good and bad memories.

That’s where they all belong.