The Emotions We’re Expected to Get Over
- 4 hours ago
- 7 min read
Written by Lilyan Fowler, M.S., LPC-Associate, NCC, Mental Health Counselor & Founder of Fowler Counseling
Lilyan Fowler, M.S., LPC-Associate, NCC, is the founder of Fowler Counseling and offers accessible virtual therapy for marginalized communities across Texas. They are an affirming, trauma-informed therapist who supports and empowers clients through an attachment-based approach.
Some losses are easy for the world to recognize. Others happen quietly: a friendship ends, a relationship changes, or someone who once felt at home becomes a stranger. We’re often encouraged to move on, forgive, or simply “be the bigger person,” but what happens to the grief and anger left behind? Sometimes the emotions we’re quickest to push away are the ones that help us understand what matters, what hurts, and what needs to change.
The losses we’re expected to get over
Not every loss comes with flowers, condolences, or permission to fall apart. Sometimes loss comes with the expectation to keep going and pretend as if nothing important has changed.
Psychologist Pauline Boss introduced the concept of “ambiguous loss” to describe losses marked by uncertainty and a lack of clear resolution.[1] Some losses also fall within what grief researcher Kenneth Doka describes as disenfranchised grief, grief that is not openly acknowledged, socially validated, or publicly supported.[2]
These losses can leave us without a clear ending or path forward. Grief is not confined by death, it can be the mourning of a lost opportunity, the life you thought you would have, divorce, or the end of a friendship.
There is often no recognized grieving ritual or bereavement leave for these losses. More often than not, the expectation is to simply push through and act as if nothing has changed because “well, no one died, so the grief isn’t valid.”
However, that could not be further from the truth. The pain doesn’t dissipate just because society doesn’t recognize the loss, and being expected to bury those feelings can deepen the isolation.
Few losses make that lack of recognition clearer than losing someone who was once one of the first people you called.
When friendship ends without a funeral
There’s no formal farewell for a friendship that has quietly slipped into the background, and no time off to mourn the loss of a confidant who has become a stranger.
We rarely have rituals to help us say goodbye to someone who is still living, yet whose presence in our lives has diminished.
Many of us cling to the idea that friendships are meant to last a lifetime, believing that the connections we form in our youth will stand the test of time.
However, it’s easy to forget that not all relationships are designed to endure, some are intended to enrich us for just a season.
From an attachment perspective, meaningful relationships can become important sources of emotional safety and connection, which helps explain why disrupting or losing those bonds can evoke such powerful emotional responses.[3]
Over time, the friend who once felt like family, someone we shared laughter, secrets, and experiences with, can slowly drift away until they feel like a distant memory.
The transition is often subtle, marked by missed texts, unreturned calls, and a gradual shift in priorities. Before we realize it, that closeness has been replaced by an uncomfortable silence, leaving us wondering how someone who once knew so much about our lives became someone we barely know anymore.
Friendship, like other relationships, can change over time, leaving us to navigate the emotions of loss without much acknowledgment of what has changed.
Sometimes, we even allow friendships or relationships to continue long after we recognize they are no longer what they once were.
Not necessarily because we cannot see that something has changed, but because we know letting go means grieving it.
When someone has been woven into our routines, memories, milestones, and even the future we imagined, it can be difficult to picture what life looks like without them.
So, we hold on. We may keep reaching for the relationship we remember, hoping we can somehow find our way back to the closeness we once shared.
Sometimes, the familiar discomfort of staying feels easier to tolerate than the unfamiliar grief waiting on the other side of letting go.
"It isn’t always that we don’t know the grass has died, sometimes we simply aren’t ready to grieve the ground we thought we would keep growing on."
Whether the relationship ends slowly or all at once, there is rarely a roadmap for what comes next. Instead, we’re often handed something else: “Just be the bigger person.”
“Just be the bigger person”
Be understanding and cut them some slack. Don’t stoop to their level. Just forgive and let go. While we often offer guidance on behavior after being hurt, we rarely make space for the genuine feelings of that hurt. What would happen if we made space for those emotions instead?
Often, we are expected to simply “get over” past hurts, but forgiveness can be part of finding peace and moving forward without requiring the relationship to remain the same.
It also isn't something another person is automatically entitled to. Even when forgiveness is given, it doesn't guarantee the same level of access, trust, or closeness that existed before. Forgiveness does not necessarily require reconciliation or restoring a relationship to its previous level of closeness.[4]
Healthy, sustainable relationships rely on good boundaries, and we must maintain those expectations for ourselves and for others. Being thoughtful about how we respond doesn't require minimizing what happened or rushing ourselves toward forgiveness. We can understand another person's perspective and still acknowledge: That hurt me, too.
But feelings don’t disappear simply because we’ve behaved maturely, and sometimes what rises underneath all that understanding isn’t acceptance, it’s anger.
When grief gets angry
Anger can feel like an unwelcome guest in grief, especially when we’ve been taught that healing should eventually make us peaceful, forgiving, and unbothered.
Grief doesn’t always look like sadness. Sometimes it looks like frustration, jealousy, or resentment, anger about what happened and what didn’t happen.
Anger can be part of the grieving process, and although it may feel “wrong,” it is one rest stop on the road to healing.
Emotion-focused approaches recognize that anger is not inherently maladaptive. In some circumstances, adaptive anger can help people identify violations, protect boundaries, and mobilize action.[5]
Functional anger isn’t about lashing out, it’s anger that helps us recognize what hurts, what matters, and what needs to change.
This often-taboo but powerful emotion can help us recognize crossed boundaries, unmet needs, or something we've tolerated for too long. Anger can create energy for change. Instead of asking, “How can I eliminate my anger?” consider, “What does my anger mean?”
When “this hurts” evolves into “I don't want to keep living like this,” anger has done more than identify the pain. It has created movement toward healing.
Making room for both
Healing rarely asks us to choose between two perfectly clean truths. We can miss someone and not want them back. We can understand someone and still be hurt by them. We can forgive someone and still need a boundary.
"A friendship can be beautiful and still need to end."
Someone can have had reasons for their behavior, and their behavior can have hurt us. We can grieve what we lost and recognize that we don't want it back as it was. We can feel anger and eventually find acceptance.
"Acceptance doesn't have to erase the emotions that helped us get there."
Sometimes anger provides enough energy to have the conversation we've avoided, establish a boundary, ask for help, advocate for ourselves, change an old pattern, or finally acknowledge that we want something different.
It isn't necessarily about running away from something difficult. Sometimes it's recognizing: This isn't working anymore.
Allowing ourselves to wonder what might have been and what still could be. Moving toward something greener, however, doesn’t require pretending the old ground never mattered or deciding that everything that happened there was bad.
We can honor what a relationship offered in one phase while acknowledging it might not fit in a new phase. We don't have to pretend nothing ever grew there to recognize when it's time to find new ground.
Maybe moving forward isn’t about finally reaching the point where none of it bothers us anymore. Maybe it’s learning that grief, anger, understanding, and acceptance can all sit at the same table.
Therapist insider
As a therapist, I think we sometimes rush toward emotions that look like healing and overlook the ones that may actually be helping us get there.
Peace. Acceptance. Forgiveness. Understanding. Those can all be meaningful parts of healing, but they aren't the only ones.
Sometimes grief asks us to acknowledge that something mattered. Sometimes anger asks us to acknowledge that something hurt.
Sometimes healing asks us to hold both without forcing ourselves to decide which feeling we're “supposed” to have.
Perhaps healing isn’t measured by how unaffected we become, but by whether we can make room for what we feel and use that information to decide what comes next.
Some losses won't receive the recognition they deserve. Some friendships will end without the goodbye or explanation we needed.
Sometimes after being the bigger person for far too long, anger will finally make us realize that we matter in the story, too.
Healing doesn't have to mean becoming unbothered by what happened. Sometimes it means grieving what mattered, acknowledging what hurt, and choosing something different.
If some of these emotions feel familiar, you don’t have to sort through them alone. At Fowler Counseling, I offer a space to explore grief, relationships, anger, and the complicated emotions that don’t always fit neatly into “moving on.”
Sometimes healing begins simply by giving ourselves permission to understand what we’re carrying.
Read more from Lilyan Fowler, M.S., LPC-Associate, NCC
Lilyan Fowler, M.S., LPC-Associate, NCC, Mental Health Counselor & Founder of Fowler Counseling
Lilyan Fowler, M.S., LPC-Associate, NCC, is the founder of Fowler Counseling, offering accessible virtual therapy across Texas. As a queer, neurodivergent, and disabled therapist, they bring lived experience, empathy, and cultural humility to their work with marginalized communities. Grounded in trauma-informed care and attachment science, Lilyan helps clients build resilience, reconnect with their authentic selves, and define their own vision of personal success. They are dedicated to supporting clients in fostering and maintaining healthy relationships with themselves and others. Through their work, Lilyan strives to make mental health more approachable and inclusive for all.
References:
[1] Boss, P. (1999). Ambiguous loss: Learning to live with unresolved grief. Harvard University Press.
[2] Doka, K. J. (Ed.). (1989). Disenfranchised grief: Recognizing hidden sorrow. Lexington Books.
[3] Johnson, S. M. (2019). Attachment theory in practice: Emotionally focused therapy (EFT) with individuals, couples, and families. The Guilford Press.
[4] Enright, R. D., & Fitzgibbons, R. P. (2015). Forgiveness therapy: An empirical guide for resolving anger and restoring hope. American Psychological Association.
[5] Greenberg, L. S. (2015). Emotion-focused therapy: Coaching clients to work through their feelings (2nd ed.). American Psychological Association.
