Why Do We Keep Going Back When We Know We Deserve Better?

Not all relationships end the same way, and not everyone reacts the same way either. But heartbreak is heartbreak. Whether you know it was the right decision or you’re in denial or you think it could’ve been fixed, we grieve for what we lost. And then we’re back to where we started.

Days go by, and it feels like nothing is changing. Our past acts like a circle of despair that, no matter how hard we try, we can’t get out of.

We go back, even though we know we deserve better. With all the mess we went through, we still think we wouldn’t have it any other way. So we go back thinking this is the best we can have. Despite knowing nothing has changed or will change, we go back hoping it does.

Everyone around us calls it self-harm, but we call it not knowing how to move on. We call it dragging ourselves through each day, not knowing who to go to or where to go. They keep saying that it’s just a phase, but then again, some phases seem to last forever. The memories make them last forever.

Why are we blamed for our wrong choices when we don’t even have a say in choosing who we fall for?

It never felt like heaven. It was one up and countless downs, a day above the sky and hundreds of days feeling down so low, with no one to listen but my bedsheets and pillow. But isn’t that how relationships work? These hardships grow on to you till you learn to embrace them, even if you know you shouldn’t.

There’s a line in The Perks of Being a Wallflower that sums this up. It says, “We accept the love we think we deserve.” Maybe we know we deserve better, but we choose to settle for less anyway, and then think it’s the best we can ever have, simply out of love.

No one sees it like we do. No one sees what it’s like in our heads. All the dreams and the promises, the memories they left behind, or, more accurately, the scars.

It’s bittersweet. It’s everything we want, but everything we’re afraid of.