Stories where the MC gains fulfillment only after giving up

[BWTraveller]

You may know the trope (I don't know its name but I've seen it done on multiple occasions). A character is trying to get something or get something back. Maybe it's a guy trying to get a girl to fall in love with him (or get her back). Maybe it's someone trying to avoid an inevitable death (seen this in a few time loop stories). Whatever the case, the character eventually learns to accept not having what they are trying to get, realizes something they care about enough to throw the rest away, and in the process manages to gain or even earn what had eluded them before.

I don't really have a clear example that I can think of (I recall a few American movies that do it). Best I have is a manga that looks like it might be going that route. A man who'd been happily married gets thrown back to high school. He desperately tries to get close to his future wife, but goes back to the future a few times when injured and finds that things end up getting worse and worse for her, only going back when his future self dies. By the most recent part, he's grown to feel responsible for her increasingly bad fate. Finally,

Spoiler for most recent content:

he's trying to protect her from a stalker while also trying to convince her and her friends that he isn't said stalker. He ends up scaring the daylights out of her, only for the stalker to run after her. He runs after the stalker wanting to protect her but also thinking "If I catch him and make him confess, I'll clear my name and still have a chance". He ends up hit by a car and thrown into a future where he's a bum who's just gaining his memory back, while his love was assaulted, believes by him, and eventually married her childhood crush. He's shocked that for the first time she's actually married to someone else, and even more so at how happy she is, and decides at last that his obsession with winning her heart and being her first is completely wrong, determines that he's not really suited for her, and dies again after finding her actual assailant and pushing him out a window. There's a strong implication that at this point he's decided to completely abandon any ambitions to win her heart or get together with her, even though the past version of the girl's clearly demonstrated to have been legitimately falling in love with him. While it's certainly possible for his intent to give up to actually result in them not getting together, but it's also quite possible that the trope in question could be in the works (I'm seriously hoping).

[Lex79]

Uhm...the only thing that comes to my mind that sounds similar to that is Wagatsuma-san wa Ore no Yome.

[BWTraveller]

It doesn't have to involve time travel, I only mentioned that as a possible path to it because some of the stories I'd seen where it happens involved time travel. For instance, there was a mediocre old Christmas movie where a rich bastard got killed on Christmas and was given twelve chances to relive the day and avoid his death; he failed eleven times and the twelfth time, realizing how much he'd hurt the people close to him, he gave up on trying to avoid death and just tried to make amends and demonstrate his love for people, only for him to finally survive. But it doesn't have to involve that at all. For instance, from what I've heard

Spoiler for new movie:

In the new Pixar movie Soul, from what I hear, at the climax the main character finally accepts his death and stops wanting to try and force his way back to life, only for him to come back anyway now with a new viewpoint on the value of his life.

But thank you, I'll definitely look at that one.

[wuhugm]

Groundhog Day

[BWTraveller]

Originally Posted by wuhugm

Groundhog Day

First off, that's not an anime, manga or LN. Second, I've seen it, and it most definitely doesn't have this: the guy figures out how to be a good guy, yes, but he doesn't give up on anything or stop pursuing anything. In the stories I mentioned, the main character had things he was desperate to gain, and those desires were fulfilled only after they decided there were other things far more important and gave up on that goal. In the case of romance, this would be something like the trope "I Want My Beloved to Be Happy", the hero deciding after spending a lot of time trying to win her heart that his single-minded pursuit or his actions or something is simply wrong, so he decides to completely give up on her, only for her to turn around and go after him. I think it happens a fair amount in time-loop situations because of The Butterfly Effect. The knowledge of how uncertain the future can be has resulted in many of those stories going with "anything I change will have disastrous consequences so it's better to do nothing". But that just means that time loops tend to do this, not that time loops are what I'm looking for.

[Lex79]

Originally Posted by BWTraveller

It doesn't have to involve time travel, I only mentioned that as a possible path to it because some of the stories I'd seen where it happens involved time travel. For instance, there was a mediocre old Christmas movie where a rich bastard got killed on Christmas and was given twelve chances to relive the day and avoid his death; he failed eleven times and the twelfth time, realizing how much he'd hurt the people close to him, he gave up on trying to avoid death and just tried to make amends and demonstrate his love for people, only for him to finally survive. But it doesn't have to involve that at all. For instance, from what I've heard

Spoiler for new movie:

In the new Pixar movie Soul, from what I hear, at the climax the main character finally accepts his death and stops wanting to try and force his way back to life, only for him to come back anyway now with a new viewpoint on the value of his life.

But thank you, I'll definitely look at that one.

Yeah sorry for not being clear enough, when I said similar I was talking about the trope you mentioned, the story involving time travel is only because all the examples that came to my mind were a movie that is off topic here and stories based on time shenanigans.

[BWTraveller]

That's fine, and thanks I've started reading the story. I was just surprised because that story is practically an inverse of the manga I mentioned at the start (named "I Would Die to Have Your First Time").

[AnimeFangirl]

Does this include those romance manhwa where the female main character gives up on her love for the guy who executed her in her past life, only for him to start pursuing her with a passion?

[BWTraveller]

Never even heard of such things, but it would be interesting. Might not read the actual manhwa since I'm pretty strongly set on manga (only thing outside Japan I've watched is Fox Spirit Matchmaker, and it's been a while on that one), but I'd definitely enjoy looking it up and reading about it. And yes, it does sound like it fits. As long as the person decided that the right choice was to give up on something only to gain it anyway.

Thinking about it, this also fits pretty well with The Judgment of Solomon, where two women both claimed to be the rightful mother of a child and he offered to cut the child in half so each would have half, then gave the child to the mother who relinquished all rights rather than see her child injured. Not the only path to what I'm seeking, but still a famous one.

[AnimeFangirl]

Manga: "I Swear I Won't Bother You Again!"
Manhwa: "Abandoned Empress"
Both have the theme of the MC giving up on her past path and trying to move in a different direction, with varying degrees of success. If you enjoy them, there are a few others with similar themes.