Letting go/not holding grudges vs sweeping things important under the rug. What's the difference?

Valore • Oct 1, 2021

This is also true and your bouts of humor made the read very fun. 😁
It is all perspective and I value and like to put myself in the shoes of anothers perspective so I can see all the angles, so this is very helpful! Especially the added professional section, which i hadn't seen mentioned yet 😲
Thank you for the reply!

Valore • Oct 1, 2021

Thank you for your reply! Much appreciated.
You tapped into the difference of the two being anchored more on the resulting action/response, which others also mentioned in other context as well. I think the consensus is this as well.

The determining factor in their most widely accepted difference being communication.

The lack of vs the contribution of: communication.

neutrinozero • Oct 1, 2021

Seems a bit like a Band-Aid question as well. Nice to see what smart people write.

Bunnie • Oct 1, 2021

“ ------------>What is the difference between having something swept under the rug and letting something go/not holding a grudge?<----------------
- - - - >And what this would look like or how to identify signs of such things in oneself and/or in others.< - - - - ”

Oh good, I was hoping you would ask a broader range of people about this 😊

Personally, I simply go by how I feel inside. If it feels like it’s been dealt with, then it feels like a weight lifted… hence “let go.” If it feels like it’s unfinished, it will feel like a knot in the gut and will keep niggling like a fish at the end of a line. It will keep coming up. Sometimes it takes me a while to know there’s still more, but a general sign for me that anything is “out of whack” is moodiness. I get angry and defensive when I’m trying to deny/ignore something. I don’t hide how I’m feeling very well lol… good or bad. I tend to not hold grudges though, so can’t really speak on that one. I guess I know it’s been “let go of” or “dealt with,” when my heart feels safe to be open in a truly honest capacity, around whatever the contention was, and towards whoever it’s in regards to/with.

Something that came to light with my most recent experiences however, was that sometimes it can feel like I’m revisiting something I had thought I had let go of… but on closer inspection, I began to learn that it may have seemed like that at first glance, but I was actually revisiting it from a slightly different angle and perspective, and approaching it in a deeper learning. I came to realise that growth wasn’t as linear as I once believed, and more like a spiral… so at times it would seem like we were coming back to something previous, but we actually weren’t, we were passing through similar territory, but often in a much deeper capacity.
Hopefully that makes sense.

The only difference I believe that exists between sweeping something under the rug and addressing it, is feeling safe enough to face and voice our fears. It requires a lot of trust. That’s all. It’s not magic, and those who have developed that together did not do so through some special formula… just hard work and an ongoing commitment to each other and what you’re creating together.

The things swept under rugs do not dissolve of their own accord… ever… because they’re usually big, painful, hurtful things. So the rug will always stay lumpy unless those things are addressed. But what we seem to not understand is that it’s in the moments of addressing these things that we create and build upon the very thing we are seeking… connection, intimacy, love and trust. It’s the bumps in the road, and how we move past those together, that create the glue 😊

Defender​(dom male) • Oct 2, 2021

I don't sweep things under the rug any more.

I sweep them out of the door.

It is an acquired life-skill that has saved my sanity many times.

Tessallia​(sub male) • Oct 16, 2021

to start I'd say letting things go and hold a grudge aren't necessarily mutually exclusive processes. In some situations letting too much go will lead you to hold a grudge over the course of months or years. This usually happens with someone you live with or spend a great deal of time with. the other person has some quirk of behavior that you feel like is too minor to cause any trouble over or several quirks. Not horribly annoying things, but things that happen frequently. The worst ones are the small things that happen every day because small as they are they happen every day. It's small so you say nothing and suffer this quirk of behavior and tell yourself that it's not worth fighting over. Over time you get more agitated about it and one day it doesn't seem so small anymore.

I'd say the important matter is resolution. for most things involving strangers you're not likely to deal with again it's best to forgive and move on. There's little to be done about the guy who cuts you off and nearly causes an accident. You just drive as safely as you can and watch out for the next crazy person on the road.
For people you live with however, unresolved conflict don't go away. Small things become big things if you don't deal with them, whatever dealing with them might entail. Maybe you talk with them and tell them "hey, it annoying that you leave the sink full of dirty dishes." So you talk it out and find a solution. Sometimes people don't try because their afraid that by letting the other person know this matters to them that they might continue doing it and thereby saying that they don't care about you either. Most importantly though it's important to approach this talk with humility because they might come back with something like. "I cook for you every night. can you please take care of the dishes". Just keep in mind they might not be saying whats on their mind either.

I grew up in a house where these kinds of unresolved conflicts tore everyone apart. My step mother and sister have been essentially excommunicated from the family, I still speak to my sister but I'd never speak to my step mother again. We all fought frequently. That story is like most of it's kind very long and as complicated so I'm just going to mention part of it at the end. There came a point at which any conversation was tainted by all that we'd never resolved, and the things we'd said in anger. It was a hell of our own making, and so I hid myself away while I lived there, and once I left I was careful not to leave things unresolved. or at least I tried to make sure I tried to resolve issues as they arrived.

My first room mate was one of my best friends, and we stepped on each others toes quite a bit. Once we were working on getting ready for some guest to come over and i made some dumb joke and he'd snapped at me over it. I really don't remember the specifics I remember the gist of what I'd responded though. I was kinda stunned at first, but after I thought about it for a while, I realized I made of a lot of really childish jokes and frequently they weren't actually funny just annoying. I also realized that I'd given the impression I didn't care at all. I wrote him back an apology expressing that I did care and that I probably frequently thought I was a lot funnier than I was when I was making childish jokes. I told him I'd be take things more seriously when we were planing things. To be honest I hadn't expected my apology to mean anything to him, after living with my family, but he was stunned by my apology and we had a good dialogue about the issue. It had made such an impression on him that a while later he was comfortable returning such an apology after he made his own mistake.

this is mostly anectdotal but stories really are the only ways to convey complex things without writing an entire book on it

MisterAshmodai​(dom male) • Oct 17, 2021

If you sweep something under your rug, it is still there, chewing up the underside of your rug. You are walking over it, and eventually you will begin to feel it through the rug. It will become a notable part of your daily routine. Sweeping something under the rug is a temporary fix at best, a cancer at worst, secretly eating away until showing up again as a larger problem.

If you let something go and have reached a point where you will not begrudge the other party, you did something more than simply hide the issue (or it just wasn’t that big of an issue to begin with) to resolve it in a more permanent and manageable way.

Sasa​(dom female) • Oct 17, 2021

Why is it so important for you to know the difference? The main point is it's "unsolved" ... one a possible result, the other the way to describe it.

Not everything is important to be discussed, but if something's under your skin I would ask why holding back and not solving it.

VelvetGlove​(dom male) • Oct 19, 2021

I think it's an important distinction to make in order to learn and grow through conflicts with others.

IMHO, when we hold a grudge, it only hurts us, not the other person. For myself, I have to forgive the person I've deemed a transgressor and accept that they're human and make mistakes just like I do. That doesn't mean I necessarily want to spend quality time with that person moving forward, but I don't grit my teeth and wish ill upon them any time their name comes up or I see them across the room.

The idea of sweeping things under the rug implies that there was no process of letting go, just hiding things. I think that's a generally unhealthy thing to do with any emotions.

Master W​(dom male){Busy} • Oct 19, 2021

For me it's a very straightforward distinction.

Letting something go/not holding grudges is communicating a potential issue, finding a resolution (or not) accepting the outcome, and choosing to move forward with that information. Not allowing it to eat away or burden you.

Sweeping it under the rug - Having an issue, but never speaking about it and acting like it doesn't exist. Which will only in due time hurt or bother you more and more and become impossible to ignore.