I used to think if I understood why someone hurt me, I’d feel better.

That was my whole approach to relationships, especially the messy ones. I’d replay conversations, analyze tone, reread texts, try to connect emotional dots that probably weren’t even there. If we are being honest, I’d even drive a few of my close friends crazy, while I tried to figure out the “why.” I told myself I was being self-aware. That I was doing the work.

Really, I was just trying to make bad behavior make sense so I could tolerate it longer.

I’ve had exes I stayed mentally tied to way past their expiration date. Not because they were always showing up consistently, but because I kept seeing their potential. I kept thinking if I just understood them better, we could fix it. If I could just figure out the why, everything would click into place.

It never did.

At some point in my thirties, I hit a wall with that mindset. I just got tired of my own patterns. Tired of giving people the benefit of the doubt while I was the one dealing with the fallout. Tired of confusing inconsistency with complexity.

The truth is, the why didn’t change shit.

It didn’t make ghosting feel better.
It didn’t make mixed signals less confusing.
It didn’t make repeated disrespect easier to accept.

If anything, it kept me stuck longer because I always felt like I was one realization away from it all making sense.

But some things aren’t confusing. They’re just uncomfortable to accept.

If someone shows up strong, says all the right things, builds something with you, and then disappears, that’s not a mystery. That’s a pattern. And patterns are the explanation.

I just didn’t want that to be the answer.

So I kept asking why.

I’ll be honest, I still struggle with this. I like things buttoned up. I like clarity. I like a clean ending where both people sit down, say what happened, and close the loop.

That’s just not how most situations end.

Life’s messy. People are inconsistent. Things trail off, stall out, or end without warning. And the more I tried to force closure, the longer I stayed emotionally tied to things that were already done.

That was a hard pill to swallow.

Things are as open ended as you allow them to be.

That part took me longer to accept than anything else. Because it meant I had more control than I wanted to admit. It meant I was the one keeping certain doors cracked open, waiting for a better explanation, a better ending, a better version of them.

And to be fair, not everything is a personal attack.

Some people are battling things you’ll never fully see. Mental health struggles. Substance issues. Family chaos. Childhood trauma they never dealt with. Patterns they don’t even realize they’re repeating.

You can have empathy for that.

You can understand it.

And it can still not work for you.

Because at the end of the day, someone can be going through a lot and still not be capable of giving you the kind of love you need. More importantly, the kind of love you deserve.

Both things can be true at the same time.

Eventually I had to face something simple.

Closure is what you make of it.

And more often than not, the disrespect is the closure.

Not the apology you’re hoping for.

Not the explanation that finally makes it make sense.

Not the long message that ties everything together.

The way they treated you is the ending.

That’s the conclusion.

I started thinking about it like touching a hot stove. If you touch it and get burned, does it really matter why it’s hot in that moment? You could learn the mechanics of it. You could understand the science behind it. But none of that changes the outcome.

You got burned.

So the only thing that actually matters is that you don’t keep touching it with your bare hands.

That’s it.

Some people are like that. You can understand their past, their moods, their patterns, their struggles. You can have empathy for all of it.

And still decide you’re not available for the experience.

That was the shift for me.

I stopped asking why, and started asking something a lot more useful.

Do I want to keep experiencing this?

That question doesn’t leave much room for overthinking. It cuts through the noise fast.

Because at the end of the day, understanding someone isn’t the same thing as being treated well by them.

And I don’t need a deep explanation to know when something doesn’t feel right anymore.

I just need to be honest about it.

That’s what actually moved me forward.