How do you truly overcome being bitter?

[Anonymous]

I would hope that if you choose to answer this question you do so either from a place of experience/wisdom or from a place of wanting to help. It’s hard to admit that you have become bitter. Especially for me. Many people say I’m too nice. I want to leave a good impression on people so its welcomed. But I also feel like I have resentment for all the people who mistreated me even though I have been told so many times that I am too nice. I am angry at my ex because he ghosted me and went on to marry the woman he ghosted me for even though I expected honesty and to be treated fairly. I had given him my virginity and after he ghosted me the pain I still feel to this day never went away because I know without a shadow of doubt that I genuinely loved him not for what he could do for me but because I wanted him to Be happy. So when I discovered he ghosted me I tried for years to dismiss the rage I felt that he would involve me in his journey to find love and break my heart in the process. I TRIED to be happy for him. But The feeling that things were unfair began. I kept tallying up the “score” and started to believe that god did not love me for every new betrayed or bad result despite me believing that I was a good person. Eventually my perspective on “good” and “bad” became a blurred line and I behave “good” all while believing that it would not do anything for the betterment of my life. And over the years I helped others who betrayed me or used me and I continued to become more bitter. My ex apologized last year and forced myself to tell him that I accept his apology because I wanted to save myself from the anger. But deep down I just couldn’t. I did not forgive him because I couldn’t ever rationalize in my head why he would treat me that way while I prayed to god that I could be happy for him. I met another man this year hoping to have a new opportunity to experience love but he failed to show me appreciation and my anger grew and I realized that I was bitter now

[GreatBigCircles]

Learning to stop being bitter isn't an easy thing, it requires quite literally rewiring your brain and your own biases. Firstly, professional counselling can help a lot with working helping you figure out stuff about yourself. Professionals are uniquely useful, especially for people who struggle to trust, because they aren't there to be your friend. They're there to help you figure out your problems. For people who struggle to trust, that can be a huge difference.

Secondly, practicing mental hygiene can help a lot with the thinking patterns that constantly bring you back to bitterness. Small things as simple as keeping a journal of three nice things that happened every day can legitimately help, because it can slowly alter your mind's bias towards paying more attention to positively things, and in turn enable a more positive outlook and grateful thinking.

And third, and probably the hardest, is learning to forgive yourself in general. Holding onto guilt and frustration and self-loathing makes it hard to not project those same kinds of feelings onto your other relationships. When you figure out how to untangle that stuff and forgive yourself, you won't just be freeing yourself from those kinds of feelings. You'll literally be changing your cognition in a way that makes it easier to let go of other frustrations and anger.

I don't know you specifically, or all of the struggles you have, or internal mountains you need to climb. Nor can I say it'll ever be easy or simple. You'll like have a lot of struggle, and you might feel like you're failing or back sliding at points. But you do have the power to reshape yourself if you want to, and you should never stop believing that. If you can say to yourself every day that you don't want to be the person you were yesterday, then you really can make it happen eventually.

[Asker]

Thank you a lot for the advice. I’m going to try to get back into therapy. I went a year ago but I wasn’t open about my issues and felt that I couldn’t be honest because of the guilt so I stopped going because I felt like I was paying someone to tackle surface issues. My therapist also told me that I seemed like a logical/nice person and it made me upset because I knew deep down how angry I was and I felt unseen. I know I need to be honest and your insight is true guilt can make it hard to move on. I also am definitely going to start journaling the positive things I never thought to do that

[MementoMori777]

well im going to start by saying that you fucked up by trying to jump on another train after recently jumping off another one without giving yourself the time to properly heal from the last one, you should get over your last relationship before jumping into a fresh one because you'll have the proper mindset for it, unfortunately these things didn't work but i know that god removes people from your life that will do you wrong in the long run and sometimes we ignore his callings and miss his warnings and we reach the wall and run into it, the bitterness comes from frustration, you are rushing at it and trying to find a successful love life which i hope you do but rushing is where it can make it more frustrating because out of frustration we rush into things and miss possible red flags that can save you from a heartbreak, so its important to heal from your previous lover completely before jumping into another, dont forget that choosing someone for love isn't just picking someone and taking a full leap of faith, its imoortant to get to know them before jumping, no rush anon, you'll find love but remember to take the proper steps in between so you dont sabotage it.

[Asker]

I was with my ex years ago. I knew the guy that I began dating for 4 years and we started dating this year. When things started to go downward I started to reminisce on the reason why I felt that I couldn’t “fail” in another relationship and started to try harder to be a good partner but he just had a bad attitude that I couldn’t ignore. I tried to explain to him that I didn’t like his attitude because it was rude, but deep down the deeper reason for it was that it reminded me of how I felt years ago when I was ghosted by my ex. So yes I wasn’t fully over it but I did not jump from one relationship to the next. I was actually celibate for 4 years after that happened trying to heal but I just never felt like I fully healed so I decided to move on with a man I trusted because I had known him for 4 years but he let me down and reminded me of my past which is why I realized that this experience put a nail in the coffin for me because I felt bitter about the repeated failure despite trying my best. Just to clarify what happened

[Asker]

But I agree there were red flags with the guy I got with this year which I ignored. I knew that the reasons for his behavior were not him being a bad person and so I initially thought it was something that could be fixed. I didn’t think of him as a liar or a cheater like my ex, but he wasn’t as reciprocative of my love which I felt was something I could have walked away from as soon as I noticed it. But out of for years single/celibate he is the only man I actually trusted so I didn’t want to start over knowing that I did not trust others easily. Eventually he lost my trust with his outbursts and anger though

[MementoMori777]

i see well, then maybe you are pulling the wrong candies out of the bowl, there's many people and all i can really say is not to be unmotivated, thats where your bitterness feeling is coming from, frustration and unmotivation, cause you tried really hard and it all keeps blowing up in your face, love isn't easy anon, dont give up but just know that when you put in all the effort you can and you love someone with all your heart and it still doesn't work, its cause the problem is them, not you, you can't blame yourself for someone else being shit, you just read a man and pick up on vibes and ask god to guide you to the person he has for you, you keep loving like you do and when you find a guy that will love you and not let you go, you'll know that your love is going to the right person.

[Anonymous]

Honestly, I think that in order for you to overcome bitterness, you have to resolve what made you bitter in the first place.
For example, I remember years ago when I had an altercation with my stepdad. I had so much anger within me, I literally would have beaten up a person walking past me just because. This went on for at least a couple of months. It wasn’t until I resolved my issue with my stepdad that I felt like all heaviness was lifted off me.
I truly recommend anyone going through something to resolve it before it gets too far deep to the point that you don’t even know why you’re angry. And I truly think at that point, it’s going to be hard because how do rid of anger that you don’t even know why you have in the first place?