Keen Home  | Blog Policies  | Help
Welcome to Community Sign in | Join | Help

Boundaries

How to keep healthy boundaries in your relationships

Closure....

I came across a message board on aol about relationships and one of the  biggest complaints on that board was people complaining that either the other party had ended it in a bad manner or they had not achieved closure on the relationship and were waiting for it from them. And my favorite quote from a book I highly recommend is * Some people do not have have relationships, they take hostages* and the name of the book is Calling in the One by Katherine Woodward Thomas. But it is true, we have our expectations but we as human beings have to remember that people will not always meet them nor is it their duty to do so and we cannot hold the people we have relationships with hostage to our expectations. A hard lesson to learn, but a fact nonetheless. In reality the word closure is one of those new ones added to the dictionary in the past few years such as google etc....

 

I of course, felt the need to chime in and say first of all there are no right or wrong ways to end a relationship...... there are no rules of engagement for that sort of thing and like it or not people handle things differently. I personally would not like to hear, I did not do it in bed for  that person, or my arse was too big, or whatever the *reason* was it ended, I just want to hear or see from behavior that it's over and that's all I care about. I suppose it's easier to be the dumper rather than the dumpee, unless they demand their closure from you :-) And boy is that a hard one, well let me see, why do I want it to be over,  well that's just a conversation I will avoid like the plague.... Sorry, it might not be the right thing, but I have not ended that many relationships so it's not like I am an expert at it.

Sometimes they do not say it's over, sometimes they just *act* like it's over,  and then you have to listen to the actions and even if we do not like those actions they might harder to hear if the words are saying what we want to hear.

Sometimes when we can look at a situation without the emotions, we can see, truly see, that it might be best to seek closure and peace about a situation on our own rather than give power to another by waiting for it from them. It really is all about our boundaries.  What if they are unable to give us that conversation that we seek? What if they are passive agressive and avoid taking our calls? What if they avoid our emails ? I say their actions are speaking louder and you should not call or email again, they are either unready or unable to deal with us and our messy emotions, and so are avoiding us..... that is easier for them. And we have to understand that. A harder thing yet is for us to learn to control our emotions and to say what we mean &  mean what we say and only choose to deal with individuals who do the same .......just a thought.

Joan

 

Published Monday, December 06, 2010 7:19 PM by DruidsGlenTarot

Comment Notification

Subscribe to this post's comments using RSS

Comments

# re: Closure.... @ Sunday, December 28, 2008 6:50 AM

I like this blog. I think that the need from closure is still trying to get the person to respond to us on our terms. I do not believe that a person can get closure from another person. It comes from within after the person asks theirself what did they get out of the relationship that ended. That need for closure is still a search for validation.

justaskdrdonna

# re: Closure.... @ Sunday, December 28, 2008 9:46 AM

My feeling on closure is the person seeking closure's need for the actions and words to match however we as human beings listen to the words when they suit us and the actions when it suits us...
joan

DruidsGlenTarot

# re: Closure.... @ Monday, December 29, 2008 2:32 AM

LOL you guys said the same thing basically and I agree. If you have a certain thing in mind to what is defined as closure, how can you expect another to give you that, when their definition is different? Not to mention their way of communication is different as well?

I have seen people really hurt by bad and horrible methods of ending relationships. Heck and some not even saying in any form the relationship is over. And I have to wonder, where are the manners anymore?  We have lost that ability to have good manners because we do not want to deal with the hard stuff. I wanted to add that as well. Maybe thats something we need to teach our children as well, how to end something well. I know we teach them about love but do we teach them about how to be graceful and kind yet get our final goodbye done? Bet its a subject that is hardly spoken about.
Kelley

Lady Hope

# re: Closure.... @ Monday, December 29, 2008 6:01 AM

Manners are one thing and so is honesty, however like I said in the blog IF the reason the relationship was ending was my lacking in something in bed, or my looks no longer attracted the person ending the relationship I am not sure I would like to hear their version of closure...in a case like that I would not consider it manners to have the person tell me why it was ending...
A relationship can also end by the person acting like it rather than facing the other person and voicing their reasons and it is our expectations that again let us down IF we expect them to tell us why it was ending.....
Joan

DruidsGlenTarot

# re: Closure.... @ Tuesday, December 30, 2008 7:16 AM

Well, telling someone they are no longer attractive to someone else, is a breach of good manners lol. BTW, it can be voiced differently, if thats the manners being discussed not to hurt that way but what I was really trying to say is...

The thing about manners is at least letting the other person know the relationship is over.
There are so many people who simply walk away and/or do not call anymore and leave the other hanging. Thats what I was talking about. To me it means at least giving the other person some notice. There are so many left hanging onto nothing as they try to figure out if the relationship is even done. That is the worse kind of nonclosure. I think that leaves another in torment. And I believe is just plain rude!

Lady Hope

# re: Closure.... @ Tuesday, December 30, 2008 9:16 AM

Lady Hope, that IS what I said that telling someone they are no longer attractive is NOT manners if being honest about why is necessary. LOLOL And OBVIOUSLY it could and should be voiced differently but some people have lost their filters, its become much more common these days....
And simply because we have expectations of the other person they may not be able to give  that to us (the closure reason or conversation) for some people being passive aggressive find it easier to just let it go and not address the issues to the person they are wanting to break up with so it may be necessary to be aware of their actions as well as their words.
If you have to wonder if its over or not, it pretty much IS and as to whether that is right or not is a totally different argument :-) It may be rude but I am not sure it is intentional on the part of the other person...
Joan

DruidsGlenTarot

# re: Closure.... @ Thursday, January 01, 2009 6:39 PM

This was a good blog and I
for one can definitely relate to the "leaving you hanging and wondering" type of ending.
Sometimes there can even be an extra circumstance added to the mix to furthur confuse.

Speaking from personal experience,I was involved with someone with a severe case of ADD.To say it affected the ending of our relationship is an understatement-actually it affected our WHOLE relationship.
In any event,I always prefered an open communication as opposed to the silent treatment and "they will get the hint"

By the way even if someone manages to say it's over and thinks we are getting closure that way we all know they may pop up at a later time even if it's years.
Life is interesting that way.




Jewel265

# re: Closure.... @ Friday, January 02, 2009 10:21 AM

Open communication is always preferable, however that is not always possible to get from others, people do not always give us what we want :-)
Joan

DruidsGlenTarot

What do you think?

(required) 
(required) 
(required) 
Enter the numbers you see into the
field below.
(required)