The Pause in Relationships

I used to react the second I felt hurt in a relationship.

I’d shut down.
Pull back.
Go quiet.
Or build a whole story in my head about what the other person meant.

Not because I didn’t care.
But because I didn’t want to feel rejected.
I didn’t want to feel like I wasn’t enough.
I didn’t want to say something honest and lose the person for real.

So I defended myself before anyone even asked me to.
I protected myself before anyone even tried to hurt me.

The pause is where I finally learned to breathe
before I let old wounds decide how I showed up.

I didn’t pause to fix the relationship.
I paused to stop abandoning myself inside it.

The pain wasn’t in what they said.
It was in what I made it mean about me.

Reflection:
When someone hurts you, are you reacting to them — or to the past that never got healed?

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