The Irony of Pain

Perhaps that is because pain caused by another person is rarely just about what they did. It is also about what their actions have done to our understanding of the relationship. If a stranger treats us badly, we can usually place the experience at a distance. But when the person was someone we trusted, the injury reaches further. We are left questioning not only their actions, but our own judgement. Who were they? Who did we think they were? Was the relationship what we believed it was, or were we believing in something that wasn't really there?

That is why sometimes what we want most isn't forgiveness or even reconciliation. We simply want them to see it. There is a powerful difference between someone saying, “I'm sorry you were hurt,” and someone genuinely recognising, “I understand that I hurt you.” The first can acknowledge our feelings while remaining safely outside the responsibility. The second requires them to look at their own actions and accept their part in what happened. When we have been deeply hurt, that recognition can feel almost as important as the apology itself.

We want them to see what we saw — why we trusted them, why we believed them, why what happened mattered so much. Sometimes the need for acknowledgement is really a need to know that our experience was real. If the person who hurt us can finally recognise it, perhaps some part of us believes the story will make sense again.

And this is where the fantasy of repair begins. We imagine a conversation in which they finally say exactly what we needed to hear. They understand what they did. They accept responsibility without defending themselves or finding someone else to blame. They recognise the damage and genuinely regret causing it. For a moment, we can imagine that this might change everything — that the wound could become smaller if the person who created it finally helped us understand why it happened.

There is nothing wrong with wanting an apology, or wishing someone had behaved differently, or hoping they might eventually understand. The difficulty comes when our healing becomes dependent upon it. If we believe we cannot move forward until they give us the explanation, remorse or recognition we need, we have unknowingly handed them responsibility for a part of our future. They may have caused the original pain, but now their behaviour continues to determine whether we are allowed to heal.

Often, the person who hurt us simply cannot give us what we are asking for. They may lack the self-awareness to understand what they did. They may be unwilling to accept responsibility. They may have constructed their own version of events in which they did nothing wrong. Or perhaps they know exactly what they did and simply don't care enough to repair it. Whatever the reason, the result is the same: we keep looking to someone for something they are not capable or willing to provide — and each time we return to ask again, hoping for a different response, we risk reopening the very wound we are trying to close. The person may no longer be actively hurting us, yet we remain emotionally tied to what they might say or do next. Their silence becomes an answer we keep trying to change.

There comes a point when we have to consider whether waiting for someone else's understanding is keeping us attached to the very thing we are trying to escape. This doesn't mean their actions no longer matter, or that we have to forgive them, forget what happened, or pretend the relationship didn't matter. It simply means recognising that their inability to make things right cannot become a permanent condition of our own wellbeing.

That can feel unfair. They caused the wound, so why should we be the ones who have to find acceptance when they are the ones who created the damage? But healing is not about deciding who deserves to carry the burden. It is about deciding whether we are willing to continue carrying it ourselves while waiting for someone else to put it down.

Perhaps the shift begins when the question changes. Instead of continually asking, “Why can't you fix what you did to me?” we begin asking, “What do I need now?” The second question doesn't absolve the person who hurt us. It simply moves our attention away from what they are unwilling or unable to give, and back towards what is within our own control.

Closure doesn't always arrive in the form we imagine. Sometimes there is no perfect explanation, no final conversation, no moment when the other person suddenly understands everything. Sometimes the apology never comes. Sometimes we never learn why they behaved as they did. And sometimes the explanation, even if we received it, wouldn't change what happened. We can spend years believing that one final piece of information will release us, only to discover that understanding the reason for something doesn't necessarily undo its effect.

We often want to be healed by the one who hurt us, because on some level it feels as though that would make the story fair again. But healing begins when we stop waiting for fairness from the person who created the wound. They may never understand what they did. They may never apologise in the way we needed. They may never become the person we believed they were.

That doesn't mean they get the final word. The wound may have begun with them, but what happens to us afterwards does not have to remain in their hands. We can acknowledge what happened without allowing it to define everything that follows. We can grieve what we lost. We can accept what we may never receive from them. And we can begin, finally, to give ourselves what we kept hoping they would provide.

We thought healing required something from them. Eventually, it required something from us — the willingness to stop waiting for the person who caused the pain to become the person who could take it away.