Psychotherapy 101: Closure? Not Always

Charles left her with no explanation. Just announced, "Sorry, Beth," he said. No, actually, he texted it; and added "It’s not working." He wasn’t interested in hearing why Beth thought that in fact it was working; that it was a relationship and relationships needed a little working out now and again. She tried to reach him but couldn’t.

And he never came back.

Really? It always seems unthinkable, a lover running you over like a train, as though you were just something to be left on the side of the curb like roadkill. In all my years as an author and a psychotherapist investigating women’s loves and losses, this form of goodbye is the one that draws the most new, desperate psychotherapy clients to my office.

It is a tenet of psychotherapy that grieving any loss—a death, say, but also the death of a relationship--requires closure. It’s a lovely luxury, but closure requires details: How, and why, and where –all that we can possibly know about the end. How do you get closure on an event about which you’re deprived of knowledge?

You don’t. Closure is impossible. You grieve differently.

In my book, Drama Kings: The Men Who Drive Strong Women Crazy, I showed a few kinds of emotional experiences that must be treated like a natural disaster—a tornado; an earthquake; locusts. You can obsess and wish they hadn’t happened….or you can pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again. So, if you were in my psychotherapy office, I’d say:

Do not call, email, or text him, No "I just wanted to know if you were alive" (to which he’ll say, "I am"—and then what?). No "I was so worried when I didn’t hear from you!" (He doesn’t care). You ask nothing further of him. You are now—promise me this—unavailable. You’ll only be humiliated over again to be reminded that he headed for the hills without thinking of you.

You do not NEED this creature. You have a roof over your head, right? When you begin to feel sad, and tempted to play the self-blame game ("I should have known"; "I wasted a year of my life," "I blew it!" "All that work for nothing!) don’t go there. I mean it: You can train your mind not to obsess. You let the thoughts pass through; witness them without judgment; and let them go. You’ve been hit by a stun gun, yes; but "Stand by Your Man " suggests first, that he didn’t wield the gun and, more important, that there is a man there to stand by.

Dalma Heyn is one of the international best-selling female authors, Westport, Ct. psychotherapist and Relationship Expert whose focus is on women, helping them bring out their inner "erotic voice"—the source of their strength, creativity and wellbeing. She is the author of The Erotic Silence of the American Wife; Marriage Shock: The Transformation of Women into Wives; and Drama Kings: The Men Who Drive Strong Women Crazy.