REVENGE
When someone hurts us deeply, it can be difficult not to imagine them experiencing the same pain they caused. Whether it’s betrayal, rejection, humiliation or simply being treated unfairly, being wronged can leave behind an anger that doesn’t disappear as quickly as we would like it to. For some people, that anger creates a desire for revenge. They want the other person to regret what they did, to experience consequences or to understand what it felt like to be on the receiving end of their behavior. For others, revenge barely enters their minds. They may be hurt just as deeply but, after enough time has passed, they would rather distance themselves from the situation and move forward.
There’s actually a surprising amount of psychology behind why revenge can be so appealing. When we are treated unfairly, we naturally want some sense of balance to be restored. We know that something happened that should not have happened, yet the person responsible may appear to have walked away without consequences. This usually leaves us with a strong sense of injustice. Revenge can seem like a way of correcting that imbalance, particularly when there was no apology or acknowledgement from the person who caused the hurt.
It can also restore a sense of control. Being betrayed, rejected or mistreated can make a person feel powerless. They didn’t choose what happened to them and, in many cases, they couldn’t control the other person’s actions. Imagining revenge can therefore create the feeling that they are finally taking control of their situation. This is particularly understandable after experiences that have left someone feeling humiliated or insignificant. Sometimes the desire for revenge is not only about wanting the other person to suffer but also wanting to stop feeling like the one who was powerless.
There are also people who just find it difficult to let go of negative experiences. They replay conversations, remember specific details and think about what they should have said or done differently. This kind of rumination can keep an upsetting emotion alive long after the original event has passed. Someone might appear to have moved on from the outside while privately thinking about the same situation over and over again. The more they revisit it, the more real and immediate the anger can continue to feel.
Research supports this connection between rumination and revenge. In a 2001 study on individual differences in vengefulness, psychologist Michael McCullough and his colleagues found that people who were more vengeful tended to ruminate more about offences and were less forgiving. Their research also found links between vengefulness and personality traits such as lower agreeableness and higher neuroticism, suggesting that the tendency to seek revenge can be partly related to the way different people naturally process negative experiences.
For some people, revenge eventually becomes connected to pride as well. Being hurt can feel like an attack on their dignity, and they may believe that doing nothing means allowing the other person to think that their actions had no consequences. They want the other person to know that their actions did indeed have consequences and might want to make them jealous, embarrass them, expose them or simply make them feel the loss that they caused. The desire can become less about the original event and more about proving that they weren’t as insignificant as the other person made them feel.
On the other end of the scale, there are also people who, despite experiencing betrayal and disappointment, simply do not seem to have revenge in them. They can be furious with someone and still have no desire to deliberately hurt them. They may recognize that they were treated badly, decide that they no longer need that person in their life and gradually move on without needing to get even. This could partly be down to personality. Some people are naturally less inclined towards hostility and rumination. They experience anger but may not particularly enjoy holding onto it. Once the initial emotion passes, continuing to think about the person can feel more exhausting than satisfying. McCullough’s research into forgiveness also suggests that people differ considerably in their tendency to respond to hurt with revenge, avoidance or more benevolent responses. In other words, the same kind of offence doesn’t necessarily produce the same reaction in everyone.
As much as I sometimes wish I were capable of being an evil person who could simply plot revenge and make someone regret what they did, I just don’t seem to be that type of person. Regardless of how badly I may have been wronged, deliberately hurting someone back doesn’t seem that appealing to me. I’m still not entirely sure whether that’s a blessing or a curse. Part of me wonders whether it means I’m choosing peace and refusing to become consumed by someone else’s behavior, while another part wonders whether I’m failing to stand up for myself or allowing people to get away with too much. I’m still learning whether being driven by revenge is a good thing or a bad thing and whether it’s possible to let go without diminishing what happened.
I feel empathy also plays a role. Even when someone has behaved badly, an empathetic person may struggle to deliberately cause them pain. They might understand that people can act out of immaturity, insecurity, fear or unresolved issues without using those explanations as an excuse. There are also people who have a strong internal sense of the kind of person they want to be, and hurting someone on purpose, even in retaliation, may simply feel wrong to them. They know what it feels like to be hurt and don’t want their own pain to turn them into someone who enjoys causing it. Research on forgiveness has similarly found that empathy can make forgiving responses more likely, partly because it can change the way a person interprets the actions of the person who hurt them.
This doesn’t mean that these people are naive or incapable of standing up for themselves. There’s a major difference between forgiving and having no boundaries. Someone can decide that another person is no longer trustworthy without feeling the need to punish them. They can walk away without wanting revenge, and they can refuse to speak to someone again while wishing them no particular harm.
Not wanting to hurt someone back doesn’t exactly mean you have to keep giving them access to you. This is where letting go is often misunderstood. Letting go doesn’t necessarily mean forgetting what happened and pretending that someone’s behavior was acceptable. Sometimes letting go means we have to accept that we can’t change what happened and decide we don’t want to keep giving it our attention. Remembering what someone did doesn’t mean allowing it to dictate your whole future.
I think the hardest part is that we often crave closure from the person who hurt us. It’s an age-old story. We want them to admit they were wrong, want an apology to be genuine, want them to understand how much damage they caused; sometimes we want them to regret losing us because it just reminds us that we mattered. But another person may never be able to provide that closure. They might not understand the extent of the pain they caused and may even continue with their life without appearing particularly affected.
Waiting for that reaction can keep us emotionally attached to someone after they’ve already left our lives. Even though we may tell ourselves that we have moved on, we still wonder whether they miss us, whether they regret their actions or whether they’ve finally realized what they lost. In those moments, our attention is still being shaped by the person we are supposedly trying to leave behind.
Revenge can create the same issue. It may provide some temporary satisfaction, particularly if the person reacts the way we hope they would, but it can also start a new cycle. One person retaliates, the other responds, another argument follows and suddenly the original hurt is buried under several new ones. What started as wanting someone to understand the pain they caused can turn into an ongoing conflict where both people are waiting for the next opportunity to get even.
There is also no guarantee that revenge will produce the emotional outcome we imagine. In a 2008 study called “The Paradoxical Consequences of Revenge,” researchers Kevin Carlsmith, Daniel Wilson and Timothy Wilson examined whether revenge actually makes people feel better after being wronged. People generally expected punishment to make them feel better, but those who actually “punished” the person who had wronged them felt worse afterwards. One explanation was that revenge kept them thinking about the original offence and the person involved. Instead of providing the emotional ending they expected, it could keep the situation psychologically alive.
Some people simply don’t have revenge in them. Even when they have every reason to be angry, deliberately hurting another person feels foreign to who they are. Others have to learn, usually through experience, that carrying resentment can become its own burden. Neither person necessarily feels pain more deeply than the other; the processing is just different.
This could be why revenge is rarely as satisfying as we imagine it to be. It keeps our attention focused on the person who hurt us and places our emotional peace in their hands. Letting go doesn’t change the past and definitely doesn’t excuse what someone did. It just means that, at some point, their actions stop deciding how much space they get to occupy in your life.
Sometimes the person who hurts you may never understand what they did. They may never regret it or apologise, but you can still move forward and become happier and at peace without needing to watch them suffer first. For some people, the ability comes naturally; they genuinely don’t have it in them to seek revenge. But, for others, letting go is something they have to learn. Either way, it gets to a point where you have to decide what you want to carry with you, and the healthiest thing may be to allow the anger to exist without letting it consume you and become the person you are.
