Searching for Closure

Hello everyone, it feels good to share another topic with you again. Today I will be shedding light on the above topic which of course would benefit almost everyone or anyone in any form of relationship, and even for those who are yet to but need to know what to do when they find themselves in such situation.

“If I could only speak to him” ... "If she'd had just told me why it was over, rather than ghosting me"... These are statements that may bring one to finding closure. Closure is knowing the reason a romantic relation was terminated and no longer feeling emotional attachment or pain, thereby allowing for the establishment of new and healthy relationships. Finding closure is difficult. Without closure many people report feeling like they're unable to move past their grief. This is why it is important to be honest with your reasons when breaking up with someone. Now if your partner refuses to give you closure after you have repeatedly asked for it, ask yourself some questions like whether the type of person you imagined him or her to be would treat you with such indignity, or whether the future you might have imagined together included this characteristic. Chances are, your answer is 'no'. Therefore, you can begin to reconcile the fact that perhaps you imagined your partner to be someone he or she isn't and finally move on.

The truth is breakups suck, yeah it does, there is no denying that, especially if the relationship was with someone you loved or were with for a relatively long time. The healing process can take a while, and that is expected because it isn’t so easy to turn someone who was your everything into a virtual stranger. I know this all too well, as, I myself had to find closure after separating with the “love of my life”. However, I was able to successfully find closure after my breakup, even though the process of finding it wasn’t easy, and it did take a while. What makes grief worse is obsessively seeking closure. Sometimes it's best just to accept the situation as it stands and learn to be okay with your history. Truly, no one can give you closure but yourself.

Why is it so important to find closure after a breakup? There is a psychology behind finding closure. Naturally, we humans understand the world through stories, i.e. we sort of create a past, present, and future, and navigate our world through this cognitive structuring. So, when you see a healthy intimate relationship, it is as a result of the fact that they generally have a good sense of where they've been, where they stand, and where they are heading. But when a one-sided break-up happens which is usually the case, there is a traumatic interruption in the story for the person on the receiving end, particularly if the break-up was unexpected. But the initiator of the break-up has already sorted out his or her own story.

However, the person being broken up with is thrust from being in safe psychological territory into an abyss, particularly if the relationship was seemingly safe, secure, and serious. A similar analogy can be made, for instance, when one discovers his or her partner has transgressed the sanctity of the relationship. Therefore, when given closure, this helps the individual to re-structure his/her past, present, and future in a healthy way, through understanding what went wrong and reconfiguring their story accordingly. When we are refused closure, we are left to wonder: What did I do? How could someone I thought I knew so well do this to me? How can I trust myself to make future decisions when my past decisions have caused me so much pain? Without answers to why a break-up occurred, the way we view our reality through our past-present-future story structure can become warped, because we lose our sense of what we know about who we are and the trust that we have in our decisions.

A few tips on how to fully gain closure after a relationship is terminated;

Allow yourself to be sad, yeah, it’s imperative that you let yourself experience the vast array of different emotions that may be bottled up inside of you. That way, you can move on without these lingering and unmanaged emotions and close the door on this part of your life.

Remove all physical reminders of the relationship from your space. It’s important that you give yourself the physical and emotional distance to move on. If you are surrounded by sentimental objects that remind you of the past relationship, try take it away.

Write a letter to your ex, write down your thoughts and emotions as it can be a good way to process them and move one step closer to getting over your ex. You can also get creative during the emotional upheaval which is a good way to process your feelings and distract yourself from them.

Do self-care as well, this is also important as it helps you focus on your needs.

Talking to friends and/or family about your emotions can help as well. A friend that you trust yeah. Being vocal about it helps you let go of your emotions instead of bottling it. This helped me a lot through the process.

If you can, it is essential you speak to a professional therapist or counselor, especially if you do not want to burden your friends and family all the time with your thoughts and are looking for professional guidance.

Also, work on forgiveness, and if you are on the wrong side don’t forget to apologize. Forgiveness is an essential part of letting go and getting closure on a relationship. Though truly forgiving someone can take time, so do take it a step at a time and you would see that you have move past the relationship after you finally forgave. Also, apologizing can be a great way for you to make a right, to the best of your ability, what happened between the two of you.

Start to set new personal goals and try to achieve them and I tell you it is one of the most effective ways to get closure on a relationship is to focus on your immediate future. Make a list of reasonable personal goals and try to get out of your comfort zone.

You could also build a new social group can help to rejuvenate you, although do not discard the old. 

Take yourself out on a retreat or a solo vacation, as you may help you with the time needed to focus on your needs and be away from any reminders of your past relationship.

I don’t believe there is one easy way to find closure, as everyone’s scenario is different. You sort of need to look for it on your own, but you will feel it once you find it. You deserve to know why it ended; you deserve peace of mind, and you deserve closure.

Talk to an Expert!

Talk to a Psychologist!