Hey guys 🙂

Thank you for all the lovely feedback and engagement from my last post. It meant a lot to me ♥️

Today is all about closure.

What is closure?
For me, having closure about something is being able to resolve that issue and move past it, having learnt what led to the outcome and perhaps how to mitigate that outcome in future. The Cambridge dictionary isn’t far off and defines closure as “the feeling or act of bringing an unpleasant situation, time, or experience to an end, so that you are able to start new activities”.

Many a times when there is a break down in a relationship, usually romantic, (but applies to all sorts of relationships,) people look for closure and some people would go to any length to get this closure. The ideal of having closure seems synonymous to healing; being able to move past the situation and progress onto other things.

A few months ago my relationship ended and I have had many internal conversations with myself regarding several aspects of my relationship and trying to understand why certain  things happened. Many times I have convinced myself that I need closure and that could only be gotten by having a discussion with my ex. However I’ve never really made it to that discussion… yet.

I have had discussions with friends (male and female) regarding this need for closure. The conversations have been different. My female friends are generally more encouraging to pursue closure if I feel that would help me understand things and perhaps be able to file my experiences away and move on.

My male friends were more likely to discourage me from actively seeking a discussion as a means of getting closure. They raised points such as the futility of this conversation in changing past occurrences and also whether it might be beneficial or detrimental to myself or my ex.

To be very honest I have struggled with the idea of needing closure. I thought it was an essential part of my healing/recovery journey. It’s important to note that I didn’t have a nasty break up. Things were very civil and cordial and if I’m very honest with myself, it wasn’t all that much of a shock. However I still felt there was something to be gained by having a conversation post-breakup.

I now wonder whether having closure is overrated and potentially more detrimental to one’s emotional wellbeing. Or is it more a case of how that closure is obtained? Does closure need to involve a discussion or debrief of sorts with the other involved party(ies)? Can I obtain closure by my own internal conversations and perhaps discussions with friends for a more objective assessment?
When is the best time to try to obtain closure?
Does it matter who does the breaking up? So for example if I broke up with my ex would I still have that need for closure or would I have had a good think about things before broaching the break-up discussion?

I think I am currently at the point where I do have closure. I have come about this process by doing a lot of introspection, pouring my heart out to God, talking to loved ones. Are there questions I probably would love answering? Yes. Are they make or break? No. Can I do without them? Definitely. I can genuinely say I am happy and content with where I am. Could that change at some point? Possibly but I don’t think I would be initiating a discussion with my ex. I think I’ve come this far and I am at peace so best to let sleeping dogs lie.

Sometimes when a relationship ends it can be very traumatic and people can feel broken and disillusioned. In that frame of mind, it can be difficult to see through the haze of pain and tears to try and unpack the events which have occurred. On the other hand, when the initial sting of the trauma is gone or ebbing, it might feel like a step backwards to start rehashing what went wrong and trying to make sense of things especially if things were ended in a bad way.

I say all this to ask what do you think closure is?
Do you think it’s overrated?
In your experience, have you found closure helpful following a relationship breakdown?

What are your thoughts?