come to terms with


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come to terms with (someone or something)

To begin to or make an effort to understand, accept, and deal with a difficult or problematic person, thing, or situation. I should have the report ready for you by this afternoon, I just need to come to terms with this new software update first. I've tried, but I just can't come to terms with Amy, she's totally out of control!
See also: come, term

come to terms with

come to accept a new and painful or difficult event or situation.
See also: come, term

come to terms with

1. To come to accept; become reconciled to: finally came to terms with his lack of talent.
2. To reach mutual agreement: The warring factions have at last come to terms.
See also: come, term
References in periodicals archive ?
Now, most readers of Delie and Microcosme agree that the captivating poetic that Sceve and the reader are trying to come to terms with is that of concordia discors: the harmony of dialectical synthesis (the conjoining of seemingly disparate elements like physical desire and spiritual-intellectual desire).
Harmonie divine et subjectivite poetique chez Maurice Sceve.
Watkins's realization that pretense and masking may backfire and merely reaffirm racist stereotypes--"for many of [the white students], the Screaming Niggers remained caricatures, confirmed members of an alien class who, however talented, encouraged and happily acceded to the role of amusing, one-dimensional exotics"--is deferred until the end of Dancing with Strangers, a remarkable memoir of the former New York Times Book Review editor's experiences as a boy struggling to navigate the labyrinth of race relations in the mid-twentieth-century American Midwest and later as a student at an elite eastern university attempting to come to terms with his identity as an African American.
Dancing with Strangers: A Memoir
How can I come to terms with good and evil in my nation's history?
My nation's history lives in me
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