“I Miss Them, but I Know They’re Not Good for Me”
“I keep thinking about them. I miss their presence, the way we laughed, the way they made me feel seen. But I also remember the hurt, the patterns, the exhaustion. They weren’t good for me—maybe they never were. But missing them doesn’t stop. I feel pulled in both directions. I don’t know how to let go of someone I still long for.”
Dear Barb,
That pull you’re describing is one of the most agonizing emotional states a person can live inside. Wanting someone and knowing you shouldn’t. Missing the connection but remembering the cost. Holding love and harm in the same memory, the same body. It’s not confusion—it’s emotional ambivalence at its sharpest point.
We like to imagine that clarity is a light switch. That we either love someone or we don’t. That someone is either good for us or not. That we can simply walk away once we know they’re not right for our lives. But the truth is far messier. Emotional logic isn’t binary. And healing from someone doesn’t mean we stop feeling their absence.
Missing someone doesn’t mean you made a mistake. It means you’re human. It means the connection was real—even if it was also harmful. Even if it couldn’t continue. Emotional bonds don’t dissolve just because we decide they’re unhealthy. And longing doesn’t always point to what we need—it sometimes points to what we were used to.
Especially when that relationship met some deep psychological need. Maybe they made you feel alive. Maybe they gave you something fleeting you hadn’t had in years—attention, understanding, chemistry, possibility. Even if it came at a cost, that part of you that was finally fed doesn’t forget.
That’s why relationships that aren’t good for us can still feel addictive. The craving isn’t just for the person. It’s for the feeling we had when we were with them. Or the self we became in their presence. Sometimes we’re not longing for them—we’re longing for access to a version of ourselves that only showed up in their orbit.
It’s why letting go can feel like losing part of your identity. Like you're stepping away from a mirror, even if it was a cracked one.
But here’s something you already know, even if it hurts: love alone is not a reason to stay. Chemistry is not the same as compatibility. Longing is not always a compass.
It’s okay to love someone and still walk away. It’s okay to miss someone and still know, with clarity, that closeness was costing you more than it gave. That peace was never possible in their presence. That your nervous system was never settled, only spinning.
This kind of ambivalence—I miss them, but they’re not good for me—is the echo of a bond that was never truly safe, but still deeply felt. And it’s one of the hardest to grieve. Because the loss isn’t clean. There’s no villain, no simple answer. Just a collection of moments that mattered. And a reality you had to accept.
In psychological terms, this is often tied to attachment hunger—a deep longing that gets latched onto someone who partially meets it, but inconsistently or conditionally. It can also mimic trauma bonding, especially if the relationship was marked by highs and lows, emotional unpredictability, or power imbalance.
These dynamics confuse the brain and the heart. They keep us tethered not to the person, but to the unresolved emotional cycle. The wanting, the getting, the losing. The temporary relief. The withdrawal. It’s not just about missing them—it’s about missing the brief feeling of being wanted, chosen, seen.
And when that need runs deep, we’ll overlook so much. We’ll silence the part of us that’s aching just to keep the part that’s hoping.
But letting go isn’t rejection of the good moments. It’s recognition that those moments weren’t enough. That the connection, however powerful, couldn’t grow in the soil it was rooted in. That you deserve something more stable, less painful, more whole.
That doesn’t make the missing disappear. But it shifts your relationship to it. You stop seeing it as a reason to go back. And start seeing it as a side effect of healing.
It helps to ritualize the goodbye—not just physically, but emotionally. Write the unsent letters. Name what you loved. Name what you feared. Name what was never going to change. Speak aloud the things you wanted them to understand. Let the grief have shape. So that your body knows: this ended. And it needed to.
There’s a version of you waiting on the other side of this grief. One who no longer equates connection with compromise. One who trusts themselves not to settle for partial love. One who knows that missing someone isn’t the same as needing them.
But you don’t have to be there yet. You’re in the middle. That raw, tender space between release and relief. And that’s allowed.
You’re not weak for missing them.
You’re not failing for not being over it.
You’re grieving. That’s all.
And in time, the missing will soften. It won’t vanish. But it won’t rule you. It will become a quiet ache, a reminder of how deeply you can feel—and how bravely you can choose yourself anyway.
Still walking beside you,
–RJ