Why Holding Grudges Hurts Your Dating Life

Holding grudges is one of those sins that catches up with you without you even realizing it.

It’s a small seed, left unattended, that has the capacity to cause a lot of harm: to our relationships, our inner peace, our communication with others, our path to holiness. It’s an unchecked master of destruction. And it so easily goes unchecked for a lot of us.

I have struggled with grudge-holding for the majority of my life. Whether that be against people I barely know, family members, people I went on one date with, or exes of serious relationships. There wasn’t too much discernment of who was or wasn’t worthy of this extra energy that I gave to grudges. It was across the board that the energy was dispersed.

And I don’t want to paint a picture that I was (or am) some kind of perpetually grumpy person—I really am not! I think the second side to the double-edged sword that is grudge-holding, is that it is not just sneaky, it’s also deeply interior. Hard to see from the outside, but deeply felt, hidden often in the darkness.

Maybe you struggle with grudge-holding too?

Perhaps like me, or just a few instances you can count on your hands. Maybe you can name a grudge you are holding against someone right now.

It’s a heavy burden.

And time has proven that it does not get lighter.

A few years back, I heard something that I perceived as absolutely profound when it came to grudge-holding. A piece of advice that the Holy Spirit knew I needed to hear, something that helped me significantly in addressing my current-standing grudges, the energy that I was putting into faithfully upholding them, and the possibility of setting some of them down with the intention to never pick them up again.

And that advice was actually an imaginative definition of grudge-holding: it is like taking a sip of poison every day, and expecting the other person to feel the effects.

If you are actively holding a grudge against someone else, you are spiritually taking a little sip of poison and expecting the other person to feel the effects of it. 

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what we both already know: the other person will never feel the effects of the poison. Not as long as you’re the one drinking it. 

This radically changed how I looked at my soul on a daily basis when it came to my relationship with others.

I was drinking so much poison. And it was only hurting me.

And in the midst of expending so much energy in taking that poison, I was also equally upset that I was the only one feeling the effects. 

I think we, as a collective, just want to be seen and loved and known. And when someone hurts us, however deeply, it can seem like the best way to get those things: to silently let them know that they hurt us, and we aren’t over it, and we are aching because of it. The downside to it all is that it’s all silent.

And so the next step in healing, in finding the light of love again in these places of darkness where grudge-holding resides, is in this place: acknowledging that we are holding a grudge, and what for, and where that hurt is, how it’s been sitting there, all before Christ. Because He is the Physician, the one who came to tend to the brokenhearted. And His journey with love—with our hearts—in our pain as equally as in our joy, is never complete. He will always want to know where He can be more. Where His healing can flow.

It’s a tricky sin, a sneaky habit, to hold grudges.

It’s also really heavy, quite taxing in the long run, and ultimately a veil for what we really want to accomplish. And so I encourage you, if you have even one grudge currently standing within your heart today, to set down the poison. To set it down, and not pick it up again tomorrow. To experience one day at a time of being poison-free, and letting your body re-adjust to that. 

The adjustment is worth it. As someone who has gone through it before, and is still constantly working at it, it is one of the best adjustments you can do for those around you, for yourself, for your relationship with Christ, your future spouse, and your soul.