If it still feels sensitive after some time has passed since the event, it means you “can’t let go.” If the topic or event is repeatedly revisited, it means you don’t want to move forward. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple; the human psyche works a bit more complexly.
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In the third decade of the last century, psychologists from Berlin University regularly gathered in a nearby café. During one such evening, Professor Kurt Lewin noticed the waiters: they could easily remember who ordered what, who had not yet been served, and who had not yet paid. He counted that some waiters served up to 12 tables. However, as soon as the bill was paid, the order details almost instantly disappeared from the waiters’ memory.
The phenomenon caught the interest of Lewin’s doctoral student, Bluma Zeigarnik, born in Prienai. She began a series of experiments: people were given various tasks, some were allowed to complete, while others were deliberately interrupted. In her 1927 published studies, people remembered unfinished tasks better. The phenomenon was later named the Zeigarnik effect.
Today we know that memory is not as simple and universal as sometimes presented in popular psychology. The idea of an unfinished action helps to understand a phenomenon constantly observed in relationships: unfinished matters tend to remain psychologically significant.
Let’s return to grievances in relationships. One may think that the conflict ended long ago because the event itself ended. Infidelity happened, for example, two years ago. Hurtful words were said six months ago. The argument ended last night. However, the end of the event is not necessarily its psychological end.
Forgetting is related to memory and is almost independent of will.
A person may have unanswered questions, such as whether the other truly understood what they did to them. Moreover, two people experience the same situation in radically different ways. Sometimes a sincere apology is simply missing—not one that sounds like an attempt to quickly end an unpleasant topic, but one that shows the partner’s position is truly understood.
Often it is hard to say exactly what is still missing for the situation to be completely finished. Therefore, the question of why talk about it further sounds paradoxical. For one, talking seems like constantly returning to the past. For another, it is precisely an attempt to finally finish that past. I see this especially clearly in couples after major conflicts or boundary crossings.
One says they have already apologized and “how many times is enough.” The other keeps returning to the same questions. From the outside, it may seem that the one who returns more to the past simply does not want or cannot forgive. But usually, it is not so much about reanalyzing the event as still searching for something that would allow the psyche to gain more clarity.
Here it is important to distinguish four things that are often confused in everyday speech. Forgetting is related to memory and is almost independent of will. Forgiveness is the decision not to demand from the other to make amends for what they did. Acceptance is the relationship with what can no longer be changed. Closure is the process through which the situation gradually stops demanding a response. One can forgive and still feel that something remains unfinished. One can remember everything but still accept what happened.
Acceptance is not an attempt to convince yourself that nothing happened. It is not approval of what was done either. Even after acceptance, one can feel anger or sadness. Acceptance begins when confronted with a rather unpleasant truth of human life: part of what happens to us is irreversible.
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Resistance to the mere fact turns a person into a hostage of their past.
We cannot change the words spoken, undo betrayal, or go back in time and choose differently. Resistance to the mere fact turns a person into a hostage of their past. Acceptance begins with acknowledging that the event was and will remain part of life. Nevertheless, painful experience can remain important and at the same time stop controlling the present.
This is where the other person becomes very important. It is difficult to finish the grievance experienced in a relationship alone in one’s mind if the one who caused it constantly denies its scale, defends themselves, or demands to forget as soon as possible. Acceptance often requires not another explanation but the experience that my reality was finally heard.
It is much easier to accept painful experience when it has a clear form: I understand what I felt; the partner understands how I experienced it; I understand why it affected me so strongly; the partner took responsibility for what happened; I see what will be different in our relationship from now on. Then the past event stops being a question to which the psyche is still seeking an answer.
Sometimes peace is sought simply by no longer talking about what happened. “We already talked about it; I don’t want to go back to it; the past cannot be changed.” We really cannot change the past. But it is important to learn to live with what we can no longer change. We can change our relationship with what happened. We can give it meaning, take responsibility for what we do now, and decide what place this event will have in our future life. Freedom here arises not from the ability to change the past but from the ability to choose our relationship with it and our actions afterward.
When trying to accept a grievance, it is worth asking yourself a few questions. “What exactly did I lose in this event? What am I still waiting for from my partner? What answer do I hope for by starting this topic again? Can my partner realistically give me that? Which part of this story can still be changed, and what can no longer be changed?” Finally: “If the past remained as it is, how do I want to live with it going forward?”
For the partner who wants to help the other let go, the questions would be different. “Did I really listen, or was I just waiting for this topic to end faster? Can I say in my own words what this event meant to my partner? Did I take responsibility without excuses? Does my current behavior give reason to believe that something has changed?” Sometimes it is precisely these things that are missing much more than another call to let go.
Returning to the waiters in the café. Until the bill is paid, the order must remain in mind. The brain registers that something is unfinished. Only in relationships, that unfinishedness is not money or coffee not brought. It becomes unmet emotional needs. Was my experience understood? Were my feelings acknowledged? Did the partner take responsibility? Has something really changed in the relationship? Can I feel safe next to you again? As long as these questions remain open, the human psyche can return again and again to the same place.
We do not let go of things simply by willpower. They begin to recede when it is no longer necessary to prove again and again that they really happened, when we get enough answers to the remaining questions, and when we can accept what we can no longer change.
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