Published September 28, 2025 | By Alyx E, Founder of Collectors MD

Recovery is rarely a straight line. Even when we’re making real strides—showing up, putting in the work, choosing intention over impulse—there’s a reality that can feel crushing: our partners or spouses may still carry deep, unshakable resentment for the pain our actions caused.

They aren’t just remembering abstract mistakes; they’re remembering the nights we disappeared, the lies we told, the money we spent, and the trust we broke. For them, those wounds live right on the surface, and when they resurface them in conversation, it can feel like we’re dragged back into our darkest times.

The hardest part is that their reminders rarely come from malice. Most often, they’re born out of pain—a way of saying, “I’m still hurt, and I don’t know how to move past it”. But for us, those moments can feel suffocating. Just when momentum is building, just when we’ve strung together days or weeks of healthy choices, being pulled back into the past can knock the wind out of us. The temptation becomes real: to soothe ourselves in the only way we used to know—by going back to the very habits we’re trying to leave behind.

Sometimes the distance between two people isn’t measured in miles, but in unspoken hurt that both are still learning how to carry.

This is where vigilance matters. We have to be careful not to let their pain pull us back into our spiral. Their reminders, though heavy, are not commands for us to fail. They are signals that healing is not one-sided—our recovery might be underway, but their recovery from what we put them through is just as real, and just as ongoing.

That means practicing empathy even when it hurts. It means recognizing that our progress doesn’t erase their scars. And it means finding new ways to manage the sting—through honesty, through support systems, through small acts of repair—instead of numbing it with the very behaviors that caused the damage in the first place.

Progress in recovery is fragile. But it’s also powerful. The work is to let their hurt exist without letting it undo the growth you’ve fought for. Healing is not only about moving forward; it’s about learning how to carry the weight of the past without letting it break you.

#CollectorsMD
Resentment doesn’t mean failure—it means healing is still in progress, for both of you.

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