How do I grieve a relationship while still respecting what we shared?

Mirabai grieved her marriage openly—not with bitterness, but with the full force of her longing for something true. She didn't pretend it was never real to make the leaving easier. She honored it and let it break her heart. This is the harder path. It's easier to decide someone was toxic, that the relationship was always wrong. That way you don't have to feel the weight of what you're releasing. But a relationship that taught you something, that held you for a time, deserves real grief—not the kind that keeps you stuck, but the kind that moves through you. Grief and respect exist together. You can acknowledge that someone was right for a season and wrong for forever. You can love who they were and grieve who they weren't capable of becoming. You can recognize your own mistakes without erasing theirs—or vice versa. Let yourself feel it. Cry. Rage if you need to. Write letters you don't send. Sit with the strangeness of being known by someone you're no longer building a life with. And then, eventually, you'll be able to remember them without it owning you. That's when respect becomes real—when you can hold the whole truth without needing to diminish any part of it.