How Do You Get Over Your Past?

Has your spouse neglected or rejected you? Do you feel like you been handed a rotten deal? Are you struggling to get over the pain of an affair? Are you feeling resentful over memories of abuse in your childhood tender years?

If you’re having marital trouble, chances are you need to deal with past hurts. If you have walked away from your marriage, most likely you are deeply wounded. If you did anything to hurt someone else or destroy someone’s reputation, your pain will follow you and increase in the future.

Some of the most common questions I hear are:
• “I want to make my marriage work. But how do I get over the past?”
• “I want to do better, but I am hurting so badly!”
• “I forgave my husband for his affair, but I am still hurting. What do I do?”

Here’s the key:

You must first realize what it really means to get over the past! This is the toughest step in the recovery process.

Okay, so you got married 17 years ago, had two kids, and created a life. Well, you can’t change that! Was your marriage a mistake? Most likely not! There’s no time machine that can send you back in time to relive your life. What’s done is done. Or you had that affair three years ago and it ended up hurting you badly. Or someone hurt you in the past. What are you going to do with your past? In my experience, it’s usually the irresponsible people and those lacking in character that try to change or run away from their past! It doesn’t fail. Over twenty years of observing people’s behavior has led me to that conclusion.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m NOT saying that your situation is hopeless. I AM saying that you first have to be clear about what you can and cannot change. You CAN get over your past (as I’ll explain). But you can NOT change events that already occurred.

The good news is that you don’t have to change the past in order to get over it. What you have to change is the MEANING of the past.

Think for a moment. Was there ever a time in your life when something horrible happened and you thought, “Why is this happening to me?” At first, it seemed like the world was caving in. However, a few years later you looked back and could answer that question. In retrospect, it all made sense and you understood why it happened.

In fact, very often we eventually realize that bad times are part of a process that leads to something good!

It’s the events that FOLLOW bad times that determine the ultimate meaning of those times. In other words, it’s your future that determines the meaning of your past; not the other way around. And since YOU are in charge of your future, then YOU determine the meaning of your past. In other words, it’s those that attempt to build a future without a past that end up hurting people, breaking up their families and hurting innocent people!

It’s interesting to think about this in the context of an age-old question: Do we have free choice or is everything predetermined? The answer is YES. Everything is predetermined AND YES we have free choice.

It’s like playing a card game. You get dealt a hand, and you have no control over the cards you get dealt. It’s predetermined.

But you also get to play that hand. You also have free choice.

Ultimately, it’s the COMBINATION of the hand you’re dealt and the way you play it that determines the outcome. And it’s the outcome that shapes your view of the original hand you were dealt.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Bible or God. But I believe God deals you and me a hand. There’s nothing you can do to change that. It’s genes, our parents, the environment and factors that are beyond our control. All marriages are dealt a hand. But you get to play that hand. And this is what excites me! You get to respond to the events of your own life. And it’s your response, your actions in the future, which determine the meaning of the events in your past. Your past can be meaningful or meaningless. Your past can be a legacy for the next generation or an empty page with a question mark on it. You determine that!

So how do you get over the past? Here is my point; you don’t have to get over the past. The past is over! What’s important is the MEANING the past has for you NOW. And the MEANING of your past is determined by your actions in the future.

The people I know who have the best marriages are people who went through hell in their relationships. They “got over” their past because they used it as a catalyst to IMPROVE their situation. In other words, the painful events inspired them to change themselves and their marriage. I talk to my parents often. Almost sixty years of marriage. They had difficult moments in their relationship. But that made them better! They love each other. I saw it, I experienced it! They are not just loving in their marriage and with the family; they love people! The best and most loving people I know in this world are people that have gone through “hell” in their lives and they made sense of the past by building a life of LOVE, MEANING, SIGNIFICANCE and PURPOSE.

As I was working out at the gym one morning, I noticed a lady staring at me. I introduced myself by name and greeted her. What started as a simple greeting ended up being a fascinating story. I asked her permission to tell her story. Her name and particulars have been changed. Wife to a man who loves her very much and mother of two children, she is only 42 and has had 24 surgeries. She has a rare disease that has been found in only 200 people in the United States. She was treated at a highly specialized Medical Center on the East Coast. “A life from hell,” as she described it. I was quiet for a moment when she finished her story. She is dealing with her problem every single day! She will be sick forever! She looked very youthful to me, but she commented that she felt aged. As I looked into her eyes I asked her, “What keeps you going, Becky?” She replied, “My kids, my husband, my friends, the influence I have on them, and God.” She just stopped there. I heard Becky saying what she did not say. “What defines my past is my future!” I left the gym energized! I want to be like Becky!

You see, if you make the right moves, you will come to view certain events as birth pains that led to a new AND IMPROVED life, whether it be your marriage or another aspect of your personal life.

THAT’S how you “get over” the past. THAT’S how you get “past” your hurts! Running away never works! Hurting people ends up hurting you more in the long run. Fighting against your own purpose will most likely leave you confused, empty and forgotten! The most dynamic people I know have gone through incredible pain in their lives. On the other hand, the most negative and toxic people are those that resent their past and try to run away from it.

It’s strange how life works sometimes, but if you play your hand right, your hurts become part of your healing. In fact, when it comes to relationships, it’s usually the bad times that motivate people to search for new ways of relating to their partner.

You may be hurting right now. You can’t make the past go away. But you CAN give it a totally new meaning. You can look into the future and bloom where you are planted! Do what’s right, and the painful past will overflow with meaning! Then, you’ll be “over it.” And you’ll have a GOOD answer to questions such as, “Why did this happen to me?” or, “Why did I get hurt so badly?”