There’s a kind of grief that feels different from what we usually imagine grief to be. It’s the grief of losing someone who is still alive yet emotionally unavailable to you in all the ways that matter most. It’s mourning a person who keeps choosing their own comfort over real connection.
Accepting that they may never offer the apology, accountability, or empathy you deserve is its own heartbreak. You grieve the version of them you needed, the one you kept hoping would appear if you just tried harder or stayed a little quieter.
The hardest part is realizing they’d rather lose the relationship than face what they’ve done. That says nothing about your worth — only about their limits. Some people can’t confront their own behaviour because it threatens the story they need to believe about themselves. It’s cowardly and deeply sad.
Maybe you spent years minimizing your pain, bending in ways you never should’ve had to, hoping you wouldn’t lose them. Trying to earn what should’ve been given freely. So when you finally step back, of course, guilt steps in its place. But choosing reality over hope that keeps hurting you is an act of strength — even if it aches deeply.
Those feelings of being unloved or unworthy aren’t new, and they aren’t true. They’re echoes of needs that went unmet by someone who was supposed to show up. When someone fails us — especially a parent — we don’t blame them; we blame ourselves. We start to believe something must be wrong with us.
But that was never yours to carry.
You weren’t unloved — you were under-loved.
You weren’t worthless — you were undervalued.
Holding boundaries doesn’t make you ungrateful; it means you’re done hurting yourself to keep a relationship alive.
The distance you’re taking isn’t punishment or a refusal to forgive. It’s you refusing to keep paying the cost of giving them a pass — a cost that chipped away at your worth, your boundaries, your trust in yourself. You abandoned yourself to keep them comfortable.
So yes, it hurts. Yes, it feels like grief. But beneath the pain, there is relief.
Relief because you’ve healed before. Relief because you can heal again. Relief because you know you did everything you could. This isn’t withholding forgiveness — it’s setting boundaries for a relationship that you won’t allow to break you.
There’s relief in no longer waiting for the next rejection, the next guilt-trip, the next hope that “maybe this time” will be different.
Feeling heartbreak and relief at once means you’re healing — slowly, quietly, honestly.
On your terms this time.
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YouAreEnough 