We Don’t Truly Heal — We Just Try to Choose Better

 People like to say time heals everything. That wounds close, that pain fades, that trauma becomes just a distant memory. But the truth is harsher, less comforting: we never fully heal from our deepest wounds. We carry them. They become a part of us.

What we do — on our best days — is try to make better choices. We try to build lives that feel happier, safer, more secure. We choose new partners, new routines, new surroundings, hoping these choices will create a gentler world for ourselves and those we love. But these new choices do not erase what came before. They simply build around it.

And when those choices fail — when a relationship ends, when trust is broken again, when stability crumbles — it feels like ripping open an old wound. But this time, it doesn’t heal quite the same way. The scar tissue is thicker, the pain more familiar, and yet more bitter because we had let ourselves hope.

Trust becomes fragile.

Love feels conditional.

Contentment becomes a shifting target.

Stability feels like an illusion.

Faithfulness, loyalty, commitment — they all begin to wobble, no matter how solid they once seemed.

And in the midst of it all, we are not the only ones who suffer. Little hearts watch, learn, and break alongside us. Our children. They ride every wave of our instability. When parents split, or when promises are broken, their sense of safety is shaken to the core.

They wonder: When will things stay the same? When can I trust that what I have today will still be here tomorrow?

This is the question that haunts so many families. Children, who deserve a stable, predictable world, find themselves forced to grow up inside the aftershocks of adult heartbreak. They feel the ripples of broken dreams, even if they do not understand the reasons behind them.

But here is the hope:

Every time we choose to keep going, every time we pause and re-center, every time we speak gently, love fully, and try again — we model something powerful.

We teach our children that even broken hearts can love again. That even in uncertainty, we can build safety. That healing isn’t about pretending the past never happened — it’s about learning how to carry it with grace.

So maybe we never fully heal. But we can still grow.

We can still love.

We can still become softer, wiser, steadier versions of ourselves.

And in doing so, maybe — just maybe — we give our children a reason to believe in love, in trust, and in a kind of stability that lives not in perfect circumstances, but in the people who refuse to give up on each other.