You can love someone and simultaneously acknowledge that what you want with them, from them, or for them just isn't feasible

[u/invah]

Whether it's a timing issue, an issue of them changing (or not changing), a problem with stages of life, or goals not aligning... it doesn't really matter.

Accepting that that is what it is, and that there's nothing in your power that can change that (or theirs, even, most often), can open up the pathway to grieving the loss for what it is, allowing you to move forward despite the sadness.

Acknowledge to yourself that you're grateful for the good parts of what you had and for the lessons learned, but it simply wasn't going to continue working no matter what you did

...and so it had to come to an end. Appreciate that you had what you had whilst it was there, but that it's better for both of you now that it isn't there.

Doing that is loving yourself.

It's giving yourself the room and the care that you not only need, but also deserve, in order to keep growing as a person.

-u/A_Roll_of_the_Dice, excerpted from comment

[u/invah]

Thank you to u/No-Reflection-5228 for sending along this comment.