the “let them” theory

on control, detachment, and self respect

if they treat you like shit, let them. trying to control the behaviour of people who have already made a habit of hurting you is an endless trap. you will waste hours, days, years explaining the same thing in different ways, thinking if you can phrase it just right they will finally understand.

mostly likely however, they won’t.

many people are not incapable of understanding , they don’t change given enough clarity. it is a choice. simply put, they are just not interested in changing. and if someone’s already decided that your hurt negotiable and your needs inconvenient, believe them.

the hardest pill to swallow is that sometimes people just don’t care as much as you do. and no amount of loyalty or empathy on your part is going to change that equation. you can’t save someone who isn’t drowning. they’re just watching you flail from the shore, calling it a connection.

you think you’re being patient and emotionally generous. but half the time, what you’re calling love is really a type of threat response.

when you grow up in chaos, moments of inconsistency can begin to feel like warm scraps of home. it is why you rationalise their distance and fill in their silences with meaning.

trying to manage someone’s behaviour so you don’t have to feel abandoned is an easy way to eat away at yourself. as the stoics love to say, some things are within our control, and some are not.

how can you build anything with someone who requires you to carry the entire weight of emotional labor while they decide, on and off, if they’re going to participate.

take that energy and instead search within you for some baseline of peace and the ability to trust that if something feels off, you don’t have to stick around long enough to find out just how off it really is.

when they feel the silence, the one that used to be filled by your effort and your overthinking,

let yourself appreciate the peace that follows when you finally say let them.

and mean it.