Let’s talk about closure.  Or — rather — the lack thereof.  So many relationships end abruptly (and rarely mutually) where both parties agree with the decision to split:  whether it’s an employment situation, a friendship long outgrown, a short term romantic relationship, or a marriage complete with children and memories and stuff.  So. Much. Stuff.  

Ellen Goodman says, “there’s a trick to the Graceful Exit. It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over – and to let go. It means leaving what’s over without denying its validity or its past importance in our lives.”

The corporate culture now seems to be one where the parting employee is granted an “exit interview” to lay out the reasons their employment is no longer a good fit — regardless of which parties’ choice it is to move on.  I love this concept and wish we would put it to better use in our interpersonal relationships when it’s decided to part ways.  Instead, ghosting has become the norm.  If you’re like me, the days and weeks after the split are spent replaying every conversation and every interaction between the two of you to determine if THAT was the thing that caused the rift or if it was THIS moment or was it a both THIS and THAT and everything in between?  Wouldn’t you love to ask:  how have you grown in your time in this relationship?  What could this relationship have given you that you needed?  How does the leadership in this relationship support your personal goals?

I’m one of those people who wants to know.  I want answers to my questions.  I want to put all the pieces in the puzzle.  I want to make sense of what happened that led to the rejection — because, you see, I’m not the leave-er.  I get left. Every broken relationship I have is one where the other person ups and decides to move on without an explanation.  Sometimes it’s sudden — talking one day and radio silence the next — and other times it’s a long and drawn out slow and gradual death.  The end result is the same:  one person making a choice about the other and leaving them reeling and wondering what the heck happened.  Despite being rejected dozens of times, the thing about me that is universally despised eludes me.  I want to know so that maybe — someday — I can learn to behave the way others’ want me to so that they stick around.  

I have long suspected that there is some fundamental defect in me that renders me unlovable, or hard to love.  I’ve known this since I was a child.  So — newsflash — there is nothing you can say that would come as a surprise because I’m already aware of my many, many frailties and flaws.   

But also, there is something to be said for courage and honesty and having the hard conversation even when it’s uncomfortable.  This isn’t working for you anymore?  Cool.  Say so.  Don’t just run away like a coward.  Are you pouting about something I said or did?  Ok, speak up. How can I apologize or take it back or make it right if you say nothing?   My pride and my ego are never more important than my affection for the other person. The usual course of sequence is that I object to something — a rude comment, an insult, a lie — and when I bring it up to say “hey, that’s not ok with me”, the other person bails.  As though I am not a person worthy of talking through a misunderstanding with and instead am summarily dismissed.  

This is the part I don’t understand:  I hear all the time that the best relationships are built on communication, but what I have since learned is what that really means is the other person wants to do all the talking and to catalog your faults and to say or do whatever and for you to just accept it…your feelings be damned.  I get excuses like “it’s not what you say but how you say it.”  What? You hurt me and the expectation is that I will not feel what I’m feeling because telling you I’m hurt hurts YOUR feelings?  I need to amend or soften or preface the remarks so that my hurt doesn’t sting you?  Hey. How about take responsibility for your own bull$h*t?  Instead, instead of validating or understanding that something you did hurt me, I end up apologizing for bringing it up and/or being hurt in the first place without ever getting to the root of the issue.  We ignore the thing that caused the conflict in the first place and you walk away because you didn’t like how I reacted to the thing that caused the conflict in the first place.  Huh? 

My feelings don’t matter.  Ever.  And I understand that people are going to say or do things that are unintentionally unkind.  People say and do stupid things with no malice or ill intent.  I get that.  I also get that I’m sensitive.  But there’s a difference between intent and impact and you should be allowed to say “ouch” when someone steps on your toe even when they didn’t mean to.  People don’t seem to understand the healing power of a simple apology:  it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are wrong or that I am right — an apology sometimes means just that you care more about the person you hurt than your own ego.  I should be able to question something that doesn’t make sense. But I don’t dare, because whenever I do, I end up here.  Alone.  Broken. 

It matters to me because when I do or say something that hurts another person, I want to know so that I don’t do it again.  So to me, it doesn’t seem crazy to tell another that something they did or said hurt me.  Or was confusing.  Or didn’t make sense.  Or was scary.   But over and over I am told, “too bad.  This is how I am.  Deal with it.” What I hear is, “you are not worthy of kindness,” and also, “you don’t get to be how you are.”  I suppose I should be grateful that another person bothers with me at all, so I try to bite my tongue and not feel the feels and ignore the slings and arrows.   

Until I can’t. 

But I am ready to admit that I’m not going to get the apology I deserve, or the explanation I want, or the answers to my questions.  I accept that people are not going to treat you the way you treat them with the same consideration and courtesy you are entitled to simply because you are a human being.  Closure is a concept invented by the movies…or therapists.  There is no exit interview for a failed relationship or a broken friendship.  You can’t put the genie back in the bottle.  Unring the bell.  You move on because you have to and hope that you can piece together from the scraps what went wrong so that you don’t fail at the next one.  Which, if you’re me, is inevitable.  

I have been told that my strengths are: brutal honesty, direct communication, ambition, confidence, boldness, authenticity.  Positive attributes that we value in men. 

When I assert those qualities in a relationship, I’m a b*tch. 

I’m finally ok with that. There’s a trick to the Graceful Exit.