Help! Long After My Breakup, I Still Need Closure

March 4, 2016

My ex has long since moved on from me and has been in a relationship for more than a year. I am actually happy for her, but I can't move on the way she did. I don't feel like I have closure. I don't even know what closure is or how to recognize it if and when it comes. I'm also not sure how to go about getting closure at this point since she stopped talking to me after our breakup after I kept pestering her for answers. I loved (no, love) her more than life itself. I feel like the obvious solution here is to just let go and move on—that's what everyone around me keeps telling me. They make it sound so easy. I am telling you it's not. In fact, it feels impossible. Everything reminds me of her. I can't even watch movies involving relationships without reflecting on ours. I obsess about a relationship I haven't been in for quite some time. Other women have shown interest in me and I've even been intimate with a few, but I still feel emotionally attached to my ex and thus unable to open my heart to others. Without closure, I feel like I'm in some sort of purgatory. Any advice for me? —Hanging On

It sounds like you are still in a great deal of pain after the loss of this relationship. I hear you when you say moving on is more difficult than it sounds. I also hear you expressing a very common belief that you need to be able to speak to your ex in order to gain a sense of closure, but the good news is … you don’t. In fact, it often seems that continued contact with an ex (especially if the contact revolves around rehashing what went wrong) just leads to more questions, fewer answers, and an emptier feeling.

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I suspect the answers about what keeps you hanging on lie within you. I imagine the sense of “purgatory” you reference as being less about seeking answers from someone you can’t access and more about the inability to access answers you already possess. It sounds like you have spent a good bit of time trying to resolve this by talking to her, by talking to your friends and family, and thinking things through on your own. I would suggest trying something different—like partnering with a therapist. Friends and family tend to give well-intentioned advice, and while that can be helpful, it isn’t going to help you access the deeper thoughts and feelings that might be preventing you from healing and moving on.

I imagine the sense of “purgatory” you reference as being less about seeking answers from someone you can’t access and more about the inability to access answers you already possess.

A therapist will listen to you and ask questions and make comments that will allow you to dig deeper. Maybe you will learn that you believed your ex-girlfriend was the one you would spend the rest of your life with and those unmet expectations have left you with insecurities and fears; insecurities about your ability to accurately assess your relationships or fears of being hurt like this again. Maybe you will learn that the relationship was actually quite unhealthy in some ways and that is what has made it so difficult to heal and move on. Maybe it is something else entirely that is holding you back. A therapist can help you unpack and examine with compassionate curiosity whatever it might be.

With the limited information I have, all I can do is make general speculations, but working with a therapist will give you the opportunity to understand why the end of this relationship has been so painful for you. Identifying whatever that is and healing from it may offer the closure you seek and maybe even lead you to a new, healthier, more rewarding relationship.

Best wishes,

Sarah

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