Moving On and Moving Through: My Exes

The work always continues for me. I am always looking for different ways to grow, to understand myself, and to find meaning in the experiences that have shaped me.

Lately, I have been thinking about loss, but also about how I define things. I am trying to reconsider the terms I use and the way I understand my relationships, past and present. I cannot spend too much time worrying about the future because it remains undefined. Instead, I am focusing on the present, working through what lingers from yesterday and what is coming up for me today.

Recently, my attention has turned to my past relationships and the way I refer to the people I once loved.

An ex.

It is such a small word, but it carries a lot of history. When we introduce someone as an ex, we bring a particular understanding of that person into the conversation. Even when the person hearing the term has never met them, it can create an impression. There is a relationship behind the label, and we often associate it with the reasons that relationship ended.

There may be anger, resentment, disappointment, or even longing. There may be affection and appreciation for what was shared. The word itself does not tell us which of these feelings remain, but it can influence how we think about the person and the relationship.

I have been wondering how much the care we carry for past partners influences our current and future relationships. The things left unresolved, the reasons a relationship ended, and the ways we were hurt can follow us into new connections.

Sometimes, when we look at a former partner, we can see the person they have become and wonder why they could not have been that person when we were together.

Why couldn't you be this person for me? Why couldn't we grow together?

There may be legitimate reasons those questions remain. People change, sometimes because of experiences they have after a relationship ends. Sometimes they develop an awareness they did not have before. Sometimes the relationship itself was part of what needed to change. But seeing someone grow after a breakup can still bring up disappointment about what we could not make work together.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons remaining friends with an ex can be challenging. The relationship may have ended, but the history remains. We are not meeting that person without context. We are meeting someone we already know, or at least someone we believe we know, and that understanding can make it difficult to establish what the relationship is now.

I have been reflecting on my own relationships and the connections I still have with people from my past.

My list is relatively short. My military career took up much of my life, and the demands of service often left little time or energy for relationships. I was away frequently, and it was difficult to maintain the consistency that relationships require. Some connections were brief, and others lasted longer, but there are only a few people I find myself returning to in this reflection.

As I work through these relationships, I am considering what went wrong, what I contributed to their development, and what I need to take responsibility for going forward.

It is easy to look back and focus on what another person did or did not do. It is harder to examine our own behaviour and acknowledge the ways we may have contributed to the outcome.

Relationships involve two people, and their endings are not always the fault of one person alone. There are things I can recognize now that I could not see then. There are choices I would make differently, and there are things I need to understand about myself if I want to build healthier relationships in the future.

That is the work I can do.

I can take responsibility for my actions. I can consider where I was wrong, where I could have done better, and what I have learned. I can also work toward accepting what the other person brought to the relationship, including the things I may never fully understand. Forgiveness does not mean pretending that nothing happened or that the relationship should have continued. It means finding a way to live with the history without needing to keep carrying the same anger or disappointment.

I do not want the term ex to become something that follows me into every new relationship. I do not want old connections to define how I approach new people or how I understand myself. I want to be able to cross paths with someone from my past and acknowledge them for who they are now, rather than automatically returning to who we were to each other.

That does not mean every former partner needs to become a friend. It does not mean we need to rebuild something simply because we once shared something meaningful. Sometimes there is still a connection worth maintaining. Sometimes there is enough mutual care and understanding to establish a different kind of relationship. And sometimes the relationship has run its course.

I am learning to recognize the difference.

If there is still a connection worth exploring, I can decide what place that person has in my life today. If the connection is gone, I can accept that, too. I do not have to recreate a relationship

simply because it once existed.

There is something important about acknowledging that we may no longer know a person the way we once did. We may know their history, remember their habits, and recall the things we shared, but that does not mean we know who they are today. We have both continued living. We have had different experiences and made different choices. We may no longer have much in common, and the connection we once had may no longer exist.

Perhaps the most honest way to describe that person is simply as someone I used to know.

There is no accusation in that. There does not have to be anger or resentment. It is an acknowledgment that the relationship belonged to a particular time in our lives, and that time has passed.

For me, this is part of moving through loss. I am not trying to erase my past or deny that these people mattered to me. I am trying to resolve what remains so that I can stop carrying relationships that no longer have a place in my present.

I have been working through my list, starting with the most recent relationships and moving backward. I am considering what needs attention, what I need to take responsibility for, and what I can finally allow to fall away.

I cannot resolve another person's feelings for them. If someone still carries an attachment to me, that is something they will have to work through in their own time. I can only be responsible for my side of the relationship and the way I choose to move forward.

What I want is to reach a place where I can let these connections end without needing to reopen them, explain them again, or turn them into something else.

Some relationships need repair. Some need a different set of boundaries. Others need to be allowed to end.

Moving on and moving through are not necessarily the same thing. I can move on from a relationship while still carrying unresolved feelings about it. Moving through asks me to look at those feelings, understand what remains, and decide what I need to do with them.

That is what I am trying to do now.

I want to make room for the relationships I have today and the ones I may build in the future. I want to meet people without allowing the disappointments of my past to determine what I expect from them. And I want to be able to acknowledge the people who once mattered to me without feeling that I need to return to the relationship we had.

I can appreciate what a relationship was, acknowledge what went wrong, accept what I have learned, and recognize when there is nothing left to rebuild.

Sometimes moving through means finding a way to stay connected. Sometimes it means accepting that the connection has ended.

And sometimes, moving on means allowing someone to become a person from your past, not because they never mattered, but because you no longer need to carry the relationship into your future.