When You Still Want the Person Who Hurt You to Understand

By Todd Doyle, author of Healing the Shattered: Surviving Narcissistic Abuse

Wanting the person who hurt you to finally understand, to really see what they did and how it affected you, is a common and deeply human wish. It is also usually not something you can make happen, and waiting for it can keep you stuck longer than the situation requires.

Why This Wish Is So Persistent

Being understood by the person who hurt you can feel like it would finally make sense of what happened, like a kind of closure that nothing else can provide. That wish makes sense. It does not mean the other person is capable of, or willing to, provide it. For someone who relied heavily on blame-shifting or denial throughout the relationship, genuine acknowledgment may simply not be something they’re capable of offering, regardless of how clearly or patiently it’s explained to them.

What Validation From Them Cannot Give You

Even a full, sincere acknowledgment from them would not undo what happened, and a relationship that depends on getting one specific person to finally understand you puts your healing in their hands, rather than your own. It’s worth noticing when the wish for understanding has quietly become a reason to maintain contact that otherwise serves no purpose.

What an Apology, If It Comes, Often Looks Like Instead

If an apology or acknowledgment does eventually come, it’s worth evaluating it honestly rather than accepting it automatically as the understanding you were hoping for. A real acknowledgment takes responsibility without conditions attached. One that arrives with justifications, a request for reconciliation, or an expectation of something in return isn’t really the understanding being described here, even if it’s offered using similar words.

Finding Understanding Elsewhere

A therapist, a support group, or people who have experienced something similar can offer the kind of understanding you are looking for, without requiring the one person least likely to provide it to finally come around. Being understood by people who have genuinely been through something similar can meet this need more completely than a single, uncertain conversation with the person who caused the harm ever could.

You Do Not Need Their Agreement to Move Forward

You are allowed to consider the relationship, and what happened in it, resolved for yourself, regardless of whether the other person ever understands or agrees.

See Healing After Narcissistic Abuse: A Practical Recovery Guide for the broader recovery process.

This article provides general education and a survivor’s perspective. It does not diagnose another person or replace individualized mental health care or safety planning.