How to get closure when you can't move on
Severing ties and dissolving the emotional bond
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Closure is acceptance and peace about a relationship loss and its absence from your life. Closure often refers to relationships with people that have ended and can also refer to endings at different stages of life.
Relationships are more than a physical experience. They are held together by an emotional bond between two people. When a relationship between you and someone else is over, an emotional bond can remain even in the absence of any physical interaction.
Relationship endings and closure
Endings are difficult for all of us, especially if the ending was unexpected or unplanned, and can often be filled with challenging emotional states. Sometimes endings are traumatic and can prolong the mourning and closure process. There are a number of relationship ending scenarios that can influence the ability and effort involved in getting closure.
Positive endings
Endings can be mutual and amicable when both parties decide to part ways because of the completion of a project, therapeutic process or a body of work. Closure tends to come easily to both parties who experience and have a say in a mutually beneficial ending. There’s no need to sever the emotional bond that connected both parties because the bond is not problematic or likely to cause problems in the future. The bond enables closure.
Adversarial endings
Endings can also be mutual because of conflict between two parties. The ongoing resentment between both people will prevent either party from gaining closure and either party are at risk of holding a lifelong grudge against the other. The animosity between both people sustains the emotional bond and will prevent either party from ever achieving closure.
Abrupt endings - when it’s not your choice
Some endings are unpredicted, abrupt and shocking. Sudden endings, where you’re at the mercy of the another person in control of a decision regarding the relationship or life’s surprises catches you off guard, take more effort to gain closure. When one person wants out of a relationship with you and you feel differently, you’ll be left with mixed feelings ie. rejection and regret, that you will have to process before you can even accept that the relationship is over. The lingering feelings cause you to ruminate about what happened and why, feeding the emotional bond and sustaining the connection with the other person. Closure in this case will take longer and require more effort.
Abrupt endings - when it is your choice
When you’re the one who ended a toxic or narcissistic relationship, closure doesn’t need to involve forgiveness or gratitude as many suggest is necessary. Closure can refer to feeling indifferent or neutral about the other person and that the other person is rendered irrelevent and nonexistent in your life. Feeling at peace when you think about the person who once caused you so much pain, which is different to apathy or emptiness, can indicate the successful dissolution of the emotional bond.
There are other relationship scenarios involving abusive or criminal behaviour that lead to abrupt and traumatic relationship endings. This article will not be referring to these scenarios.
Emotional bonds are sustained by any emotion, whether it’s love, guilt, resentment or hatred. The way to sever an emotional bond is to no longer feed the relationship your emotional energy, including your hopes and desires for that other person or for the future of the relationship.
What keeps you stuck
What keeps you stuck in getting closure is also what delays you ending a relationship that isn’t working. You still hope that something you do or say will magically change them and improve the relationship. When you finally realise that the other person isn’t meeting your needs and admit to yourself that they will never be able to meet your needs, you will then be able to take the next step to end the relationship.
The next hurdle to closure is your hidden hopes and desire that they will regret not working harder to improve the relationship. You secretly hope that they will acknowledge how important you’ve been to them and make an effort to change. It’ll be another stab in the heart when they reluctantly oblige with your decision to end things and is the one to show decreasing interest in you before you get to detach from them.
In a sense they’re depriving you of the empowering ending you envisioned when you decided to end the relationship. This dissatisfying outcome can cause resentment, regret, embarrassment and shame to resurface, sustaining the emotional bond and prolonging the transition period toward closure.
People often think they need the other in the relationship to give them closure and can feel stuck in a suspended transition state until the other person makes the right move to end things properly. The 'right move’ to facilitate closure tend to require the other person admitting to wrongdoing, apologising and asking for forgiveness and another chance. It’s no surprise anyone would be stuck feeling resentful and rejected when these socially accepted expressions of accountability aren’t forthcoming.
Given that most people are self-protective and will do what’s necessary to preserve their self-image, it’s more likely that they will continue to avoid accountability, ignore their conscience and other reminders that your lack of closure is your problem.
Closure is dependent on you and your ability to dissolve the emotional bond between yourself and the other person in the relationship after the relationship has ended.
You are entirely in control of your closure process regardless of the other person’s involvement or their need for closure.