Obsessing about why someone broke up with you or why it didn’t work out is an exercise in futility

Let’s talk about the purported magical antidote for the pain of heartbreak; closure. Sometimes after a particularly nasty breakup, we feel we can’t let go until we get some sense of closure. We long for one last meeting with the ex to try and understand why things didn’t work out. In theory, the idea behind closure is that either by confronting the issues that ended the relationship or having a final airing of grievances, you will finally be able to close the door on that past relationship and move on. Here is the bitter truth; there is no such thing as closure. It is a myth, an illusion. You will never get closure with your ex.

Obsessing about why someone broke up with you or why it didn’t work out is an exercise in futility. First of all, the answers may leave you more hurt and confused. You may think that you need to know concrete reasons as to why he broke up with you but the truth may be nasty, hurtful and regressive. What if he told you he left because he didn’t enjoy having sex with you? Do you really need to hear that? Would that help you get over the breakup? Probably not. And even if he doesn’t say anything hurtful and says that he really did love you, you’ll just be all the more upset that it didn’t work out.

The other thing about closure is that more often than not, what we are really hankering after is vindication and validation. You want your ex to see how much he hurt you. You are angry and frustrated because you feel that you were wronged and you can’t let go of these feelings of anger until your ex acknowledges your pain and his role in it. You want him to acknowledge that he did you wrong. It is the unaddressed injustice that eats away at you. You just don’t want an explanation. You want one that explains why YOU are the wronged party.

To be quite honest with you, you may never get it. Trying to get a man to admit wrongdoing is a difficult thing. He might never admit his involvement or culpability in the hurt he caused you. He may know that he hurt you but still refuse to admit that he messed up and take responsibility to protect his ego. He will give you perfectly reasonable reasons why he wasn’t the bad guy in the breakup and nothing you say will convince him otherwise. He will deflect and dodge any hint of responsibility or turn it around and try to make you the problem. Continuing to make a fuss about it will only make you look like a fool. Some people are just sociopaths who screw people over and proceed on with their lives.

It is difficult to live with not knowing WHY, but you are better off not getting obsessed over past mistakes with an ex. Going back and rehashing old battles and re-opening old wounds in the name of ‘closure’ will only drag out the healing process.