Moving On Isn't Easy: The Quiet Pain of Letting Go When You Still Love Them
A note from Michele Mitchell, founder: At the heart of everything we share here is a commitment to honest, soulful conversation about the human experience—including the parts we are taught to hide. Salim's writing on heartbreak and healing carries that spirit beautifully. This piece is for anyone who has ever loved deeply and found themselves wondering how to carry that love forward when the relationship can no longer hold it.
There is a moment—maybe you know it well.
You are sitting in a room that still carries their presence. You keep unlocking your phone for no reason. And you wonder how something that felt so permanent could leave such a profound absence.
No one warns you about that moment.
Instead, what people say is
"Just move on."
Said casually. Said quickly. As if healing after heartbreak is a decision you make over breakfast and execute by noon.
But that is not how love works. And it is not how loss works either.
Not when you truly loved someone. Not when you built a life, a home, a future together. And not—especially not—when children are woven into the story.
Moving on is not a decision. It is a process. A painful, slow, nonlinear process that most people are never taught how to navigate — particularly here in Kenya, where we are raised to endure, to stay strong, and to keep our deepest emotions hidden behind closed doors.
But silence does not heal wounds. It only buries them.
And what is buried does not disappear. It manifests in the body as sudden tightness in the chest, sleepless nights, loss of appetite, and exhaustion unrelated to physical fatigue. Grief is not only emotional. It is deeply, undeniably physical. And it deserves to be acknowledged as such.
Some of the hardest battles people fight are the ones no one sees. This piece is for those battles.
When Love Doesn't End But the Relationship Does
The Swahili say, "Mpendwa moyoni, si mwilini tu." The beloved lives in the heart, not only in the body.
This is one of the most disorienting experiences a person can carry—when a relationship ends, but the love does not.
When both people fall out of love, there is at least a painful symmetry. There is a sense of closure, albeit imperfect.
But when one person emotionally checks out while the other is still fully present—still hoping, still trying, still loving—it becomes heavier and more confusing.
You find yourself suspended between two realities:
The reality that the relationship is no longer working
And the reality that your heart has not received that message yet
That space in between is where the real pain lives. You replay memories. You hold onto the positive moments. You try to sense what changed and when.
And no matter how much logic you apply, your heart refuses to cooperate.
Emotion is not a weakness. This feeling is what genuine love feels like when it is not met.
When the Distance Is Louder Than Any Argument
People often assume the worst thing that can happen in a relationship is betrayal—cheating, lying, or a dramatic ending.
But emotional detachment is a different kind of wound entirely.
That quiet distance. That slow fading. That feeling of lying beside someone and still feeling profoundly alone.
It cuts deeper than most people admit because there is no clear moment to point to. There was not one event that broke everything. Just a gradual silence. A slow disconnection. The relationship concluded not with a dramatic event, but rather with a prolonged, silent release.
And so you are left asking questions that have no clean answers:
What did I do wrong?
When did things change?
Is there anything left to save?
The cruelest part is this—you keep trying, even when you are the only one trying.
This kind of unresolved love is one of the least discussed forms of heartbreak. Yet it is one of the most common. And in communities where emotional expression is discouraged—where strength is measured by how little you show it— this pain often goes completely unnamed.
Naming it is the first step toward healing it.
What Grief Does to the Body
Before we go any further, something important needs to be said.
Heartbreak is not only an emotional experience. It lives in the body.
You may notice it as the following:
A heaviness in the chest that sits there for days
Sleep that will not come, or sleep you cannot escape
An appetite that disappears entirely or becomes a source of comfort and chaos
A physical exhaustion that no amount of rest seems to touch
A nervousness in the stomach when certain thoughts arrive
This is not imagination. Research consistently shows that emotional pain activates the same neurological pathways as physical pain. Your body is not overreacting. It is grieving alongside your heart and your mind.
Honoring the physical experience of grief—resting when rest is needed, moving the body gently, nourishing yourself even without appetite—is not indulgence. It is part of the healing process. A whole-person approach to heartbreak recovery acknowledges that you cannot think your way out of something that lives so deeply.
The Patterns We Inherit Without Knowing It
Here is something that rarely enters the conversation about heartbreak and emotional healing in Kenya.
The patterns we carry in our relationships did not begin with us.
The emotional suppression. The difficulty lies in asking for what we need. The endurance that is mistaken for love. The silence that fills the space where honest communication should live.
These are inherited patterns. Generational wounds are passed down not through intention but through example. What our parents modeled, we absorbed. What their parents modeled, they absorbed.
There is a widely shared African proverb that speaks to this issue: "The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth."
When children grow up in homes where love is present but emotional expression is absent—connection is implied but never spoken— they carry that template into every relationship they build. They love the way they were taught to love. They grieve the way they were taught to grieve. Which is to say, often, silently and alone.
Breaking generational cycles in relationships begins with seeing the pattern clearly enough to choose something different.
Consider these questions as a starting point:
What did love look like in the home I grew up in?
What was I taught—explicitly or implicitly—about expressing pain?
Whose patterns am I repeating right now without realizing it?
When you begin to answer these honestly, heartbreak becomes more than personal pain. It becomes an invitation to heal something much older than this relationship. That is the deeper work. And it is some of the most courageous work a person can undertake.
Then There Are the Children
Everything becomes more layered when children are part of the equation.
Because now the question is not only about your healing. It is about theirs.
Consider a mother—let us call her Amina. She stayed in a loveless marriage for six years because she believed that a complete family was better than a broken one. Every morning, she dressed her children for school with steady hands and a smile that cost her everything. Every evening, she sat across a table from a man who had emotionally left the relationship years before.
Her children saw all of it. Not the details. But the atmosphere. The absence of warmth. The weight of the silence. The way their mother's shoulders carried something heavy that never seemed to lift.
When Amina finally made the painful decision to leave, her eldest said something that stopped her in her tracks.
"Mum, I knew something was wrong for a long time. I just didn't know if I was allowed to say so."
Children do not just need a complete family. They need a healthy emotional environment.
They feel tension that adults believe they are hiding. They notice the silence at the dinner table. They sense when love is absent, even when no one says a word. They are extraordinarily perceptive, absorbing the emotional atmosphere of a home the way they absorb language — effortlessly, unconsciously, and deeply.
The internal conflict that co-parenting after a breakup creates is real:
Should I stay even if I am deeply unhappy?
Will leaving cause irreparable harm?
Am I being selfish for wanting peace?
These are not easy questions. But this much is true—sometimes the most loving decision a parent can make, for their children and for themselves, is to choose a healthier life, even when that choice is painful.
Amina's story is a composite illustration drawn from experiences common to many. Names and details are fictional.
Why Letting Go Feels Impossible
When people say that moving on feels impossible, they are often told they just need time.
But time alone does not heal. Awareness does.
Part of what makes letting go so difficult is that you are not only grieving a person. You are grieving an entire world that was built around them:
The future you designed together in your mind
The daily routines that structured your life
The identity you held as a partner, a companion, a team
The emotional safety of being known deeply by another person
The version of yourself that existed inside that relationship
This grief is real and layered, and it deserves to be honored—cherished, prioritized, and openly acknowledged, rather than rushed, minimized, or buried beneath productivity or the pressure to appear fine.
As the Kikuyu say: "Ūguo nī ūguo." — What is, is. Accepting reality as it is, not as we wish, brings a special peace. Not passive resignation. But honest, clear-eyed acknowledgment.
That is where healing begins.
The Mistakes That Make a Hard Season Even Harder
When relationships break down, pain often pushes people toward decisions that compound the hurt. Recognizing these patterns is part of breaking generational cycles and choosing a more conscious path forward.
Holding on long after the connection is gone. There is a difference between fighting for something real and clinging to something that has already ended. Staying past that point does not preserve love—it depletes the emotional reserves needed for rebuilding.
Avoiding the necessary conversations can be detrimental. Difficult conversations feel dangerous, especially in cultures where emotional expression is not normalized. But silence creates distance that eventually becomes impossible to cross. What goes unspoken does not disappear — it waits.
Letting pride build walls instead of bridges. Pride is one of the quietest destroyers of relationships and of healing. The inability to apologize, to open up, to admit pain—it creates barriers precisely where vulnerability could create connection.
People often rush into new relationships in an attempt to escape the pain they are experiencing. Using a new relationship to outrun grief is one of the most common patterns in heartbreak recovery— and one of the most harmful. You do not heal by replacing. You heal by returning to yourself. Moving too quickly simply carries unresolved emotions into a new chapter, where they will resurface with greater force.
How to Actually Move Forward
There is no formula that guarantees healing. But there are ways of moving through grief that honor your wholeness — body, mind, heart, and spirit.
Some days will feel like progress. Others will unexpectedly pull you back — a song, a place, a perfectly ordinary Tuesday that suddenly carries the full weight of everything you have lost. This is not failure. It is not evidence that you are broken or that healing is not happening. It is evidence of genuine love. Healing is nonlinear. It is circular. It sometimes asks you to grieve the same loss from a new angle, at a new depth, in a new season. Be patient with yourself in that process.
Accept what you cannot change. Acceptance is not resignation. I am not pretending the pain is not real. It is choosing to stop fighting a reality that has already arrived. You can love someone deeply and still accept that the relationship has run its course. These two truths can exist together.
Let yourself feel everything fully. In a culture that prizes emotional endurance, giving yourself permission to feel is a radical and necessary act. Feel the sadness. The anger. The confusion. The love that is still present. Suppressing emotion doesn't neutralize it; it stores it in the body, where it waits to resurface.
Honor the grief in your body. Move gently. Rest without guilt. Eat with intention even when appetite is absent. Spend time in nature—African traditions have always understood the healing power of the earth, of water, of open air. Your body is processing something immense. Treat it accordingly.
Find someone safe to talk to. You do not have to carry this alone. A trusted friend, a mentor, a counselor, and a spiritual guide. Your pain is not a sign of weakness; it is an opportunity to be heard and witnessed. It is one of the most ancient and powerful forms of healing in African tradition—we were never designed to heal in isolation. Community is medicine.
Reconnect with who you are beyond this relationship. In long relationships, identity often becomes entangled with partnership. Now is the time to return to yourself—your passions, your purpose, your individual wholeness. You existed before this relationship shaped you. You are still here.
Set and hold healthy boundaries, particularly in co-parenting situations—respectful, child-focused communication. Emotional boundaries that prevent reopening wounds. Boundaries are not barriers to love. They are the framework within which genuine healing becomes possible.
What Releasing Actually Feels Like
The phrase "releasing what no longer serves you" is often used in wellness spaces. But what does it actually look like in daily life—in a Kenyan household, in a shared home, in a relationship where children call both of you parents?
It looks like choosing not to replay the painful conversation one more time before sleep.
It looks like returning a call for the sake of the children without reopening old wounds.
It looks like sitting with the grief instead of reaching for your phone to check if they have posted something new.
It looks like small, quiet, daily acts of choosing yourself — not perfectly, not permanently, but consistently.
Here is a simple practice rooted in the tradition of intentional release:
Find a quiet moment—early morning or just before sleep works well. Light a candle if you have one. Sit with both feet on the ground.
Place one hand on your chest.
Breathe slowly, and speak—aloud or internally—something close to this:
"I honor what the past was. I honor what I gave and what I received. I release the grip of what can no longer grow. I choose, slowly and imperfectly, to return to myself."
Then, write—without editing or judgment—whatever comes. What you are grateful for. What are you grieving? What you are ready, even tentatively, to release.
Releasing is not a single dramatic moment. It is a practice. A daily, sometimes hourly, return to the choice to move forward—and if you find yourself in a particularly dark place, please also consider speaking with a trusted counselor or mental health professional alongside practices like this one.
What Real Strength Looks Like
Strength after heartbreak rarely looks the way we imagine it.
It is not the unbothered energy seen on social media. It is not dating quickly that proves you have moved on. It is not pretending that the love was not real.
Real strength after love loss looks like the following:
Facing your grief honestly without being swallowed by it
Showing up for your children on the days you are barely holding yourself together
Choosing not to let bitterness become your permanent residence
Doing the inner work even when no one is watching
Rebuilding yourself slowly, imperfectly, and with genuine self-compassion
That is not weakness dressed as strength. That is the real thing.
The Signs You Are Healing
Healing does not announce itself.
It arrives quietly, in small moments you might almost miss:
The first morning, your first thought is not about them
The first time you laugh—really laugh—without it feeling like a betrayal of your grief
The first day, you go several hours without replaying the past
The first moment you feel curious about your future rather than afraid of it
The first time you catch yourself making plans—small, ordinary plans—that belong entirely to you
These moments are not small. They are evidence of a soul moving forward — quietly, imperfectly, and from the inside out.
To Anyone Carrying This Right Now
If you are in the middle of this journey—if you are reading this blog at 2 a.m. because sleep will not come and thoughts will not stop—hear this:
You are not alone in your struggle.
What you are feeling is valid. The love you gave was real. Your grief matches the depth of your bond, which is nothing to be ashamed of.
Loving someone fully, even when it ends in pain, is not a mistake.
It is evidence of your capacity for something real. Something that mattered. Something that, even now, is teaching you things about yourself that no other season could.
You will move through this. Not all at once. Not without setbacks. But with each honest day, each small act of self-compassion, and each moment of choosing yourself, you heal.
Step by step. Day by day. From the inside out.
The Gift Hidden Inside the Grief
In Kenya today, many young people are navigating love and loss without emotional tools, honest guidance, or cultural permission to grieve openly.
They carry inherited patterns of endurance and silence. They enter relationships without roadmaps and exit them without support. They heal—if they heal—largely alone.
But within every heartbreak, within every season of grief and confusion and slow rebuilding, there is an invitation.
You receive an invitation to break the generational patterns that others have handed to you.
To heal not just your wounds but also the ones carried before you.
This season's demands can help you become a more conscious, open, and wise lover.
One day, without even realizing it, you will wake up lighter.
Not because you forgot.
Not because the love was not real.
But because you did the quiet, courageous, deeply human work of healing—and it changed you in ways that will ripple forward into everything you touch next.
That is the gift hidden inside the grief.
And it has your name on it.
Did this message resonate with you? If you or someone you know is navigating heartbreak, separation, or the quiet pain of letting go, share this piece—it may reach someone who needs it today.
Explore more honest conversations about love, healing, ancestral wisdom, and emotional wellness at ubuntuvillageusa.org/blogs. Because healing was never meant to happen alone.
Written by Salim Mbogo
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Source: Moving On Isn't Easy: The Quiet Pain of Letting Go When You Still Love Them
