How Can I Get Closure?
sage
Join Date: Jul 2021
Posts: 704
I've been thinking about your words regarding closure. For me, that has multiple dimensions. As far as not feeling the deep emotional pain of leaving my XABF, coming to terms with the death of my AH, and healing from other relationships involving addiction, the pain has lessened over time. I can look at physical reminders of all these relationships and allow that I've let them go, and the pain is less, and I can be nonjudgemental.
The more difficult part of this healing, and that healing is ongoing and may always be ongoing, is working through the developmental patterns from an ACOA perspective, that there were so many behaviors I learnt from birth, or didn't learn that I should have. When I feel the emotional pain now, it almost always comes down to looking at how do I continue to heal, grow, and develop what I never did as a child.
The more difficult part of this healing, and that healing is ongoing and may always be ongoing, is working through the developmental patterns from an ACOA perspective, that there were so many behaviors I learnt from birth, or didn't learn that I should have. When I feel the emotional pain now, it almost always comes down to looking at how do I continue to heal, grow, and develop what I never did as a child.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Western US
Posts: 9,003
That is really interesting Saveher.
My sister lost her husband to a long illness. She had back damage from lifting him in the last year of his life. She has told me that that physical pain was kind of part of him that she didn't want to let go of. We humans are strange and grief is one of our strangest characteristics.
In my own losses in life, I have found less closure and more acceptance. This takes time. The sad/traumatic (relatively speaking I've had an easy life) events become part of who I am and have brought gifts of humility for myself and compassion for others. I am less judgmental than I was before I met my qualifier.
My sister lost her husband to a long illness. She had back damage from lifting him in the last year of his life. She has told me that that physical pain was kind of part of him that she didn't want to let go of. We humans are strange and grief is one of our strangest characteristics.
In my own losses in life, I have found less closure and more acceptance. This takes time. The sad/traumatic (relatively speaking I've had an easy life) events become part of who I am and have brought gifts of humility for myself and compassion for others. I am less judgmental than I was before I met my qualifier.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2021
Posts: 39
I think with the person you describe, closure is something only you can define. Like forgiveness, justice, words we ache for.
Someone who cannot offer you accountability or remorse will not be the person to give you closure in any form. It will come with time and I think one step is not depending on him, but on yourself and your own life, with everything you can do for yourself & all the surprises it will bring. This is not to say you do it alone, but without him, yes. I've been through similar more than once. It got to the stage that even when an apology came, I didn't want it because I knew it was hollow. That took time and releasing all expectations of someone who simply didn't have it in him to live up to them. Also a narcissist. They just can't deliver. Do I have closure? Of sorts. Deeply marked though.
Someone who cannot offer you accountability or remorse will not be the person to give you closure in any form. It will come with time and I think one step is not depending on him, but on yourself and your own life, with everything you can do for yourself & all the surprises it will bring. This is not to say you do it alone, but without him, yes. I've been through similar more than once. It got to the stage that even when an apology came, I didn't want it because I knew it was hollow. That took time and releasing all expectations of someone who simply didn't have it in him to live up to them. Also a narcissist. They just can't deliver. Do I have closure? Of sorts. Deeply marked though.
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