Today I want to take the opportunity to address those of you who are struggling with conflicting feelings about someone who has hurt you—maybe even devastated you or created chaos in your life.
One of the hardest things we ever have to deal with in relationships is the maddening internal contradictions we find ourselves oscillating between in our minds:
These apparent contradictions can condemn us to an endless cycle of questioning ourselves and our reality. After all, certainty is one of the things that helps us leave a situation with someone who makes us suffer. Certainty that they are a “bad” person. Certainty that there is nothing redeemable about them. Certainty that they have a personality disorder, like narcissism or sociopathy.
We look for this kind of certainty because any ambiguity about their character, their intentions, or their love for us becomes the weak spot in our armor through which they can reenter our lives. We torment ourselves with thoughts like: Maybe I’m being too dramatic about how bad they were. What if I’m being too ruthless in cutting them off? What if they are capable of change? They did have some good moments, after all . . .
So we find ourselves getting stuck in “either/or” mode. Either they’re a monster I have to cut out of my life, OR they aren’t so bad after all and I should let them back in.
I believe part of the reason we do this is because if we concede that they aren’t all bad, then we’re the one who feels like the monster. We feel guilty for disconnecting from them, for hurting them, for abandoning them, or for “giving up” on the relationship, or not putting it all on the line “for love.” It goes without saying that this doesn’t just apply to romantic relationships, but also familial relationships, friendships, and even partners or bosses at work.
But “either/or” mode is dangerous. Life is rarely as simple as someone being all bad, so when a person does something that messes with the absolute truth we’ve sold ourselves on by giving us a nice moment—which even some of the most destructive people are capable of—we are liable to invite someone back into our lives, at which point they will likely repeat the damage they’ve already caused, or worse.
Instead of living in “either/or,” we have to start living in “And.” My friend, world-leading narcissism expert Dr. Ramani, has repeatedly stressed the importance of this. She uses a phrase that has stuck with me since she first told me about it: that of “multiple truths.” The multiple truths concept looks like this:
This person cheated on me repeatedly . . . AND they were also generous to me financially.
They lied to me over and over and made me think I was crazy when I expressed the truth, AND they are also an attentive father to their child from a previous marriage.
They were devoid of empathy and didn’t show up for me at all in the worst moments of my life, AND we had some truly magical times together.
I have found this “multiple truths” idea to be one of the most helpful models there is for staying strong when it’s time to remove someone from our lives. Ironically, by being honest with ourselves about the good, it allows us to be honest with ourselves about the bad. And when someone has been a truly destructive force in our lives, we will see that we don’t need to believe that there is no good; we just need to be real with ourselves about how bad the bad was. We will realize that the reason why we’ve reached the point of having to remove someone in the first place (especially if they were someone we did not want to give up!) is because the bad so clearly outweighs the good.
In some cases, this realization means removing someone from the core of our lives, and interacting with them from a safe distance going forward. In other situations, no contact will be necessary, because regardless of whatever good may exist in them in brief, confusing moments, having them in our lives on any level is fundamentally incompatible with the notion of living a peaceful and happy life. Perhaps they would poison the parts of our life that we have come to treasure in their absence, or it would give them an opening to poison our mind, or we cannot trust them not to use an opening to suddenly become an outsized presence in our life all over again.
You don’t need to believe someone is evil, or fundamentally “bad,” nor find peace in a certifiable diagnosis of a personality disorder. You only need to measure the impact someone has had, is still having, or will definitely continue to have on your life. And when the bad is too high of a cost to pay for the good, it’s time to let them go. Monster or no monster, they simply can’t have a space on your team.
Key Takeaways
- Life is rarely as simple as someone being all bad, and trying to conclude that they are simply leaves us in an endless state of paralysis until we feel it’s truly “confirmed,” which will likely never happen.
- Multiple truths: By being honest with ourselves about the good in someone, it allows us to confront the bad along with it.
- We only need to measure the impact someone has had, is still having, or will definitely continue to have on our life when deciding whether to keep them in it. When the bad is too high of a cost to pay for the good, it’s time to let them go.
What About You?
Personal Exercise: Is there a person or situation that’s gotten you stuck in “either/or” mode? Take a sheet of paper, create two columns, and write down the good and the bad without judging or analyzing your list too much. Now read that list over and apply the “AND” exercise between the columns: “They took me on that great trip AND they never feel happy for any of my successes.” Regardless of whatever positive things find their way into the “good” column, can you ever truly be happy while the stuff in the “bad” column remains? (Which it almost certainly will if things have been that way for a long time—perhaps since the beginning—and they show no signs of changing.)