One of the biggest regrets I have about some of my past breakups was the way I got stuck in the loop of needing “closure.” I thought that if I could just get a final conversation, an explanation, or even a neat little summary from my ex, then I would finally be able to start moving on.
But the truth? All it ever did was keep me waiting, sometimes for weeks or months, for communication from someone who was no longer invested in me. It left me humiliated, chasing after scraps of conversation, trying to schedule a time or place to meet just so I could extract some answers. And when those answers never came, I felt stuck, restless, and even more confused than before.
That period, what I now call “the dead time”, was painful because I was waiting for someone else to grant me permission to move forward. It took me a long time to learn that closure isn’t something someone else gives you. In fact, that belief is what keeps so many people trapped in cycles of overthinking, especially after betrayal.
The myth of closure
We often ask: How do I stop overthinking after being cheated on? How do I feel better? And in that search, we convince ourselves that the only way out is to hear the truth directly from the person who hurt us.
But here’s the reality: closure, at least the way we imagine it, is a myth. We picture it like this: one last meeting, a heart-to-heart conversation, a tearful explanation that finally makes everything make sense. Afterward, we walk away lighter, healed, ready to move on.
That’s not how life works.
Most of the time, the person you want closure from isn’t capable of giving it to you. If they were mature, communicative, and self-aware enough to offer the kind of closure you need, you wouldn’t have been cheated on, ghosted, or lied to in the first place. You can’t expect clarity from someone who was the source of your confusion.
Healing simply cannot come from the same place where you were hurt.
What real closure looks like
Closure is not an external event, it’s an internal decision. It’s something you give to yourself.
Real closure comes through growth, self-reflection, and what I like to call an emotional autopsy of your relationship. It’s about turning inward, examining what happened, and pulling apart the threads of the story you were living so you can rewrite it with honesty. That’s also work we can do together – get in touch if you’d like to chat.
If you watch as much true crime TV as I do, you’ll know that autopsies are not pleasant. They’re messy, difficult, and often heartbreaking. But they provide critical information, the kind that allows investigators to understand what really happened and how to prevent it from happening again.
Your emotional autopsy should work the same way.
Conducting your emotional autopsy
When you look back at your relationship, some of the findings you might uncover include:
- This is the story I kept telling myself to try to keep him.
- This was the huge red flag I should have listened to.
- These were the mini pink flags scattered from the beginning.
- His doing XYZ was why I was obsessed with making future plans together.
- This is what I was always afraid of happening.
- This is what was driving me to stay.
- This was the type of chaos I was actually normalising.
Writing these down is not about shaming yourself. It’s about gathering data. Each piece of evidence is a clue about you, your needs, your patterns, your triggers, your boundaries (or lack of them).
When you approach it with curiosity instead of self-blame, you start to see the relationship not as a waste of time, but as a case study in your personal growth.
Turning lessons into liberation
Closure begins to take root when you use these insights to create new rules of engagement for yourself. Instead of obsessing over why your ex did what they did, you shift your focus to what you will or won’t tolerate in the future.
That looks like saying:
- Next time, I will trust my gut when something feels off.
- Next time, I will leave at the first sign of disrespect.
- Next time, I will not confuse chaos with passion.
- Next time, I will value consistency over intensity.
These mantras become the building blocks of self-trust. They signal that you’re not waiting for someone else to define your worth or your healing, you’re taking control of it yourself.
Creating rituals of closure
Closure isn’t just mental, it’s emotional and symbolic, too. Sometimes, your body and heart need a ritual to mark the end of a chapter.
Some powerful closure rituals include:
- Write the unsent letter. Put everything you want to say on paper. Pour it out raw. Then burn it, shred it, or delete it. The act of release is more important than the words themselves.
- Cleanse your space. Donate or declutter items that hold painful memories. Make room for new energy.
- Reclaim music. Create a playlist that reflects your healing journey, not the relationship. Let the soundtrack of your recovery replace the songs that once triggered sadness.
- Speak it out loud. Stand in front of a mirror and say: I will not get healing from the person who broke me. Healing is mine to claim.
These small, intentional acts can be surprisingly powerful. They give your mind and heart a clear signal that it’s time to stop looping on “what ifs” and start living in the “what’s next.”
The freedom of self-closure
When you give yourself closure, you stop waiting for an apology that may never come. You stop handing over power to someone who already showed they couldn’t handle your trust. And most importantly, you begin to rewrite the story.
You are no longer the victim of unanswered questions. You are the author of your own ending.
Closure is not something you receive. It’s something you create. And the day you give it to yourself is the day you stop asking, Why did this happen to me? and start declaring, This happened for me—to teach me, strengthen me, and set me free.
Final thoughts
Breakups, betrayal, and heartbreak are never clean or easy. But waiting around for closure keeps you tied to the very person and the very story you’re trying to escape. When you learn to create your own closure—through reflection, rituals, and rewriting your narrative, you reclaim your power.
You don’t need someone else to finish the story for you. You get to decide how it ends. And more importantly, you get to decide how your next chapter begins.
Georgina x