I hadn’t realised I’d forgiven……

I wanted to wait before publishing this, mostly because I didn’t want it to look like damage control, which, if I’m honest, is something I’ve done in the past. But I’m trying to grow out of that. I’m learning to sit with things, to own my feelings instead of rushing to fix how they might be perceived. So this one has waited quietly in my drafts. I actually wrote it not long after my post about betrayal.

That blog was big for me. Sharing something so personal about someone I love almost felt like a betrayal in itself. But I chose that example because it felt like real transparency. And the part that stayed with me most wasn’t the writing, it was what I realised after it.

Not long after I shared it, something happened that made me realise we were okay. Not just surviving, but different. Maybe even better. A new kind of okay.

It was a small moment. My partner came home from work with flowers. He does that sometimes. But this time felt different. It wasn’t about fixing anything, there was no argument, no apology, just a gesture that told me he’d heard me.

Earlier that day, I’d told him I felt dismissed by a comment he’d made. I wasn’t dramatic about it. I wasn’t trying to change his mind. I just didn’t want to spiral silently, so I shared where his words had taken me. That afternoon, he walked in with flowers. Not to make up for anything, but simply to acknowledge that he’d listened. And that was my lightbulb moment.

For a while, I felt bad about posting that blog. But now I see writing it was cathartic. When something painful happens in a relationship, it’s hard not to keep it in the foreground. Every disagreement seems to echo back to it. And before long, you’re not just holding the original hurt, you’re carrying all the layers that have been added since. It starts to feel like maybe it can never be good again.

But what I wrote was true. It happened. I felt all those things. And yet… time passed. And something about revisiting it from a steadier place helped me zoom out. Maybe I wasn’t just sharing it, I was laying it to rest. I didn’t realise that until afterwards, when I found myself looking at the relationship from a wider angle. And from that angle, it looked pretty solid.

Over time, it has rebuilt, with more understanding and more acceptance. A love that withstood damage and still stands. You don’t always notice the slow, quiet changes… until you do.

What I feel now is forgiveness, not something he had to earn, but something that arrived on its own, quietly, through my process. I just didn’t know it was there until I wrote that blog.

This is the third post I’ve written on that experience, not because I feel the need to explain, but because this is what growth looks like for me. These are the epiphanies that surface when I sit with myself long enough to hear them.

22nd August

Yesterday I wrote a quote that reminded me of this blog. So often when I think something has finally settled, or that a certain struggle hasn’t shown up for a while, it suddenly reappears, as if my very noticing was an invitation for it to come back. I can’t help but see the irony in that. But the truth is exactly what I’ve written here before, nothing from our past ever disappears completely. What changes, and what truly shows our growth, is the way we meet it when it returns.