What you might be experiencing
Missing someone who treated you badly can feel like a contradiction you can't resolve — you know the relationship hurt you, but the absence still aches. This is not confusion or weakness. It reflects how human attachment actually works. Your brain forms a bond with a person, not a full accounting of the relationship, and when that person is gone, it grieves.
What makes this especially disorienting is that many harmful relationships include cycles: periods of tension or cruelty followed by warmth, apology, or closeness. Those repair moments can be intense, even euphoric, and the brain remembers them vividly. The result is that you may find yourself missing the version of that person who was kind — the one who showed up during reconciliation — while the harm recedes into the background. That selective memory is not a character flaw. It is how emotional memory tends to work under stress.
You might also be grieving something the relationship represented: the future you imagined, the feeling of being chosen, or the version of yourself you were when things felt good. All of that is real loss, even if the relationship itself was not safe. Holding both truths — that it hurt you and that you miss it — is not a contradiction. It is an accurate description of something genuinely complicated.
What can help
One of the most useful things you can do is write two lists: one for what you miss, and one for what hurt you. Not to cancel one out with the other, but to see them both clearly at the same time. The longing is real. So is the harm. Letting yourself acknowledge both — rather than forcing yourself to feel only one — tends to reduce the internal conflict that keeps you stuck.
Avoiding contact during early recovery matters more than it might feel like it does. Every interaction that goes well reopens hope, and hope restarts the grief cycle. That does not mean you need to feel nothing. It means giving yourself a protected window where you are not making decisions from inside the pull.
Routines that fill the time and space the relationship occupied are not distractions — they are functional recovery. Lean on people who saw what the relationship was and who support your safety rather than your nostalgia. If the relationship involved abuse, a domestic violence advocate can offer support that goes beyond what friends or general therapists may be equipped to provide. The National Domestic Violence Hotline (1-800-799-7233) is confidential and available around the clock.
When to reach out
Reaching out for support is not reserved for moments when things become unbearable. If the grief is disrupting your sleep, your work, your other relationships, or your ability to make decisions you trust — that is a reasonable point to talk to someone. A therapist can help you process the loss without minimizing what happened, and without rushing you past feelings that need to be worked through.
If you feel drawn to return to a relationship where you were harmed, and that pull feels stronger than your ability to resist it, that is worth taking seriously with professional help. The same is true if you find yourself isolated, unable to picture a life that feels worth living, or having thoughts of hurting yourself.
If you're in the US and need immediate support, you can call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) at any time. If you are concerned about your safety in relation to a current or former partner, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is available at 1-800-799-7233, confidentially, at any hour.