Finding Your Own Closure: Part 2

The second part of this series focuses on the unanswered questions. These questions can feel like they inhibit closure and are impossible to ever really answer. How are we supposed to get closure on questions we will never have the answers to? There are a couple of approaches to this.

Let’s start with the common questions that can be hard to get answers to. Here are some examples:

• Why didn’t he/she listen to me when I said I would eventually leave if this didn’t change?

• Why wasn’t I worth it for him/her to change over?

• Does he/she regret it?

• Were there more lies or do I know everything now?

• Would things have ever changed if I had stayed?

• Why didn’t I listen to my gut sooner?

• What are they telling their friends/family?

• … And endless other questions

Many people think they would feel closure if they only had answers to their questions. Often though, trying to get those answers just leads to more questions. Then, even when we get answers, we question whether or not those answers are the truth. That is why finding your own closure around these questions becomes so important.

Finding Your Own Closure: Part 2, Rain Into Rainbows LLC

We are going to look at two ways of doing that. The first involves finding your own answers by focusing on the possibilities that are most likely. First, write a list of all of the unanswered questions that are bothering you. Next, go through each one and write down the most likely possibilities based on what you do know. These won’t be perfectly formed answers because there will still be missing pieces. Just do your best to come up with what the most likely answer is. Once you have done this, you make the decision to accept this as your narrative. Anytime these same questions start spinning through your mind, go back and read what you wrote about the most likely scenario. Remind yourself that you are creating your own closure and peace by accepting this as the narrative.

The second option for working through this involves accepting the “I don’t know” version. You start out the same way: Write down all of your questions. In this version though, you focus on writing about how you don’t know and won’t ever really know these answers and you emphasize why that is okay. The focus here is that you will still be okay and can move forward and create a new life for yourself without having to know these answers. For example, maybe one of your questions is, “Did he cheat on me other times that I don’t know about?” Your answer might look like this, “I will never know the answer to this. But I know that leaving was the right decision and that cheating was happening during the relationship. I don’t need to know all of the details in order to be sure about my decision.”

It is often helpful to do option 1 first and then to do option 2 later on. Our brains crave answers, so trying to come up with the most likely scenario helps satisfy this. Once that is done, shifting towards accepting what you won’t ever know continues the healing process.