Dear Ex-pert
I’ve gone through a breakup that wasn’t really mutual. I never got closure, and I felt like I would never be able to properly move on. Despite still thinking about him a lot, things are starting to get easier. After two months of not seeing each other, he’s reached out asking to “talk about everything” and “finally” get closure over coffee. Is it worth having the conversation to fully move on and stop thinking about it? Or will it just make me spiral?
From
Woman-with-no-self-control
Dear Woman-with-no-self-control
Thinking that a breakup is one-sided is always tricky because it makes us feel like things are even more out of our control than they should be. There will never be a perfect breakup, but if you feel like you’re an active participant in a relationship ending, it’s always going to be easier to accept.
As it feels like an uneven break, it’s totally understandable that you’re seeking closure. After all, your ex has had time to do the mental work of splitting, and you’re earlier on in that journey. But you have to ask yourself, what does closure actually mean to you?
Do you want to understand the reasons why your relationship ended? List the ways that you were wronged? Vindicate your self-worth and make them realise that they should have never ended things at all?
It’s easy to think of closure conversations as the ‘wonder mop’ that will wipe the pain of a breakup away. But the thing about closure conversations is that they never really go the way you want them to, particularly if you schedule them in advance.
You can plan a script in your mind, practice it in front of friends who have half an eye on Instagram, and imagine the victory of finally getting the response you crave. Except there is always one thing you can’t control – your ex’s reaction. If I had a penny for every conversation with an ex that’s gone awry, I would have between eight and eleven pennies. But if I had a penny for every conversation that went well? I’d have zero.
And that’s because relationships are complex things. There will always be two sides to a story, and most of the time, no one is completely in the right or the wrong. Your interpretation, no matter how correct in your own head (and I’m not doubting you here; I’m sure you are right), probably doesn’t quite line up with their experience. They probably have wounds of their own that you don’t know about, so they won’t act the part you’ve given them in your rehearsals.
In essence, the search for closure is about trying to find the answers to soothe your ex-inflicted pain. But the reality is, now that you’re single, you’ll have to find those answers from within. The perspective, judgements, and analyses from your ex actually don’t matter anymore because you’re no longer in a partnership.
Now you’re just you – and you need to do what’s right for you. So, if you say things are starting to get easier, maybe you should listen to that.
Yours
Ex-pert