Why Would I Want Them Back? Wrestling With Reconciliation After Betrayal
There’s a question I hear so often it deserves its own post. The details change from person to person, but the question doesn’t:
Why would I want them back?
Why keep the door open for someone who hurt me this deeply, on the slim hope that some kind of reconciliation might happen? What’s the point?
Most people never say it out loud. Because the minute you do, someone has a verse ready.
“You made a covenant.” “Love keeps no record of wrongs.” “Seventy times seven.” “Don’t you want your family back?”
So let’s say it out loud, and actually look at it.
A Letter Worth Reading
Here’s a story that captures the shape of it, even if the details of yours look different. This one came from a husband. I hear nearly the same letter from wives, more often than you’d think. Swap the pronouns as you need to.
My wife walked out on me three years ago, just a few days before our 23rd anniversary. She said she didn’t love me, that she never really had. She said she was tired of being a fake, and now that our children were grown and on their own, she wanted to make a new life for herself.
Both my wife and I are Christians, and I told her I will not finalize the divorce, but leave that up to her. I don’t want that on my head. I took on her debts, let her take what she wanted, and have kept the door open for her to come home because that is what I thought I was supposed to do.
But I’ll admit I was deeply angry at the world, at God, at my own struggle between loving and hating her. I also found that the reprieve I experienced when she left was powerful, even as it was bittersweet. My physical and emotional health actually improved, and I began to ask myself this question: Why would I ever want her back? Why should I? I love her, but at this time she is not welcome in my life.
I don’t have a tidy answer for him, or for you. Like any good coach, I answer the question with deeper questions. But there are a few things I’ll say plainly first.
The Relief Is Information
Read that letter again. “The reprieve I experienced when she left was powerful… My physical and emotional health actually improved.”
That’s the sentence most people hurry past, because it feels like a confession. If I felt relieved, maybe I never really loved them. Maybe I’m the selfish one.
No. Relief isn’t a betrayal. It’s information.
When your sleep comes back, your stomach settles and your shoulders come down from around your ears the week someone leaves, your body is telling you what that relationship was costing. Often more clearly than your mind can admit yet. The relief doesn’t decide anything for you. But it deserves a seat at the table, not a lecture.
And notice he was also angry, “at the world, at God.” That doesn’t make him faithless either. If you’re there too, you’re allowed to be angry at God. He can take it.
“Should” vs. What You Know
What I hear between the lines of his letter, and probably yours, is a struggle. On one side is what you think you should do, based on your Christian background and values. On the other is what your gut is telling you to do to protect yourself from being hurt again and to move on with your life.
You’ve probably been taught that the “should” is God and the gut is your flesh.
Sometimes. But a lot of the women I work with had it exactly backwards for years. They stood on what they were told and questioned what they knew. It’s worth turning that around: stand firm in what you know, and question what you’re told.
Forgiveness Is Not Reconciliation
This is the one that sets most people free, so I want to be really clear about it.
Forgiveness is something you can do alone. It’s between you and God. It means releasing the debt, refusing to let what they did own you, handing justice back to Him. It doesn’t require the other person to change, apologize, or even know.
Reconciliation takes two. It means rebuilding the relationship itself. And it can’t happen without repentance: turning from the harm, making it right, rooting it out.
Even Jesus’ instruction has an order to it:
“If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them.” (Luke 17:3)
Rebuke. Repent. Then the relationship moves. “Seventy times seven” is about the posture of your heart. It was never a requirement to keep handing your house keys back to someone who keeps breaking in.
As I’ve said before, your forgiveness isn’t the key to reconciliation. Repentance is. And trust?
Trust is a fruit. Not a root. It grows where there is truth, and consistency over time.
“Keep the Door Open”
He kept the door open “because that is what I thought I was supposed to do.” He took on her debts. He let her take what she wanted. He refused to sign the papers so it wouldn’t be “on his head.”
I understand every bit of that. And I want to gently ask: supposed to, according to whom?
An open door isn’t the same as standing in the doorway with your life on pause. You can leave an invitation on the table, with terms, and still walk away from the door and go live. In fact, that’s what an invitation is. You extend it, then let it be their choice. Love ceases to be love when free will is removed, and that includes the free will to come back, or not.
And if you decide to close the door? A closed door isn’t revenge. It’s a consequence, and sometimes it’s the clearest message a person ever gets.
Back to What?
Here’s the question I’d actually ask instead of “Do I want them back?”
Back to what?
If “back” means the same relationship, with the same person, doing the same things, the relationship your health improved by leaving, then that isn’t reconciliation. It’s relapse.
Real reconciliation isn’t going back. It’s a new relationship with a changed person. And you’ll know the difference by behavior, over time, not by tears or promises or a sudden surge of church attendance. Here’s what real change looks like.
If you can’t see that change, wanting them back isn’t the question. There’s nothing to go back to yet.
Three Questions Worth Wrestling With
Only you can answer why you’d want them back. These are the questions I’d sit with.
- What is God doing in you? Not in them. In you. What is He showing you about your heart through this loss, heartache and confusion? Where is He pulling you? Transforming you? Ultimately, every situation we’re in comes down to God working in our own brokenness to reveal His sovereignty, and that work doesn’t wait on the other person’s decision.
- What do grace and mercy actually look like here? Like each of us, the person who hurt you is broken and in need of God’s grace. But grace and mercy are never the same thing as enabling or tolerating harm. Jesus spoke most harshly against sin, self-righteousness and evil. Grace was never His cover for those things. Sometimes the most gracious thing you can do is refuse to make harm easy.
- Where is the Holy Spirit leading? It could very well be that He shows Himself strongest in your life by not welcoming them back. Or maybe His strength is most evident through a reconciliation built on real repentance. Either way, the point is that you’re following His lead, not the loudest voice in your small group.
Your Life Doesn’t Wait
There’s something that has to happen whether there’s reconciliation or not: healing, and moving on with your life.
Life isn’t about waiting for someone else to change. Navigating other people is part of living, but it isn’t the point of it. You don’t have to keep your joy, your plans, your friendships and your future in a holding pattern until someone else makes up their mind.
Boundaries aren’t the opposite of love. Sometimes they’re how you finally get to live while the question is still open.
So Here’s the Deal…
“Why would I want them back?” isn’t a faithless question. It might be the first honest one you’ve asked in years.
You don’t owe anyone a yes. You don’t owe anyone a no, either. You owe God your honesty, and you owe yourself your life.
And if you ever do say yes, make sure it’s a yes to someone new, not a return to the thing that made you sick.
Next Steps
- Tools for Healing: my guided journal for women healing from emotional and narcissistic abuse. Nine chapters and 36 questions, rooted in faith and written to be lived with slowly. A private place to sort out what you actually want, before anyone else weighs in. Instant download.
- Identity Recovery Groups: a small group of women who won’t hand you a verse when you ask the honest question. Small on purpose.
- One-to-one coaching with me or Identity Recovery Coach Lauren Rose, when you need clarity on whether to stay open to reconciliation or close that door: booking portal.
Find yourself. Keep yourself.
About the author. Sharmen Elaine Kimbrough is an identity strategist and the founder of LiveFound, Inc. She holds a Master’s degree in professional counseling and spent more than ten years developing and leading the women’s programs at the Marriage Recovery Center. She writes for women recovering a self after emotional abuse, coercive control, and spiritual bypassing. More about Sharmen →
