Keep It Classy In Your Closure

Loneliness is one of the most difficult aspects of being single. I thought my loneliness was profound. I can’t help but laugh at my naivety because the loneliness you feel when a relationship ends cannot even compare. One aspect about my last marriage that always seemed intense was how fast we moved. By our third date, I knew it was the real thing, and by the third month, we were in a committed relationship, and we married three years later.

When a man crosses paths with a woman who is capable of straightening him out, a strange rewiring occurs. Of course, not all men need to be “straightened out,” but before I met my last ex wife I was, as a former coworker once labeled me, “A hot ass mess.” Don’t get me wrong; I was employed, working on plenty of ideas to advance my personal goals, writing and enjoying my life. However, I was also lazy, lacked purpose and struggled with motivation. When I met my soon-to-be girlfriend, all of that changed. For the first time in my life I met a woman who I felt was worth fighting for, and for the time being, I had found my purpose in her.

The thing that confused me the most about our relationship was the fighting. Of course, no relationship will be daisies and rainbows all the time, and fighting is normal. However, when there is total harmony between you and your partner, fights can sometimes feel like a blind-side football tackle. One of the toughest lessons I learned as my ex and I moved through tumultuous times was to not break up while in a fight. So, what was particularly difficult about the end of my relationship was that we weren’t fighting anymore. We were in a normal, day-to-day state. However, I knew in the back of my mind I wasn’t seeing the future of us anymore.

We divorced after bitterness and indifference settled in, but that didn’t make it easy. Counter-intuitively, it was hard not to question my decision because I didn't make it in a sound state of mind. Instead, like many others, I relied on anger or frustration to motivate my lack of good judgement. It took me through a hard lesson because at that point of my life, I thought I knew better. Still, it’s rewarding to know my relationship ended and now we're on good terms. In the future, I may even get the chance to catch up and enjoy her company again. At the end of my marriage with her (which lasted maybe a year in total), I learned these five rules to executing and maintaining a classy breakup:

1. Commit - This goes for both men and women: If you could not commit to the idea of being in a relationship with your lover, then commit to the idea of not being with him or her. For most couples, it’s easy to fall back into each others arms the moment loneliness strikes, but you’re simply cheating yourselves. When you make the decision to end a relationship, understand and embrace that it is truly the end, no matter how much it hurts. Then, you must challenge yourself to never speak to that person again. That sounds intense, but opportunities may come up down the line to reconnect. However, the wounds must heal first. It’s essential any contact with your ex isn’t driven by a desire to get back together, to search for closure or to simply feel something. Rather, contact should only be initiated if you have fully and truly moved on. For many, it’s possible that time may never come. Embrace it.

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2. Stop searching for closure - I was unprepared for the finality losing my lover and friend. After a few good cries and some absurdly long showers contemplating the demise of my relationship, I finally came to understand not everyone gets closure. Few relationships are neatly wrapped up like a bow on a Christmas present. Endings are painful, and it was particularly shocking for me after I experienced my first “honeymoon” phase. Accepting that closure may not be in the cards for you is hard, but that realization initiates the healing phase.

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3. Heal in a positive way - Personally, I’m not the type to go out and have crazy, meaningless sex or to turn to drugs and alcohol anymore. Rather, I will just toil in a potent cocktail of self-loathing and depression. When my relationship ended, days started to blend together. I felt that core, hallmark feeling of depression I had felt before: helplessness. I think my saving grace was the gym. I’m no fitness expert (and my diet sucks), but pushing myself through a few workouts while blasting powerful music really helped me heal. 

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4. Don’t look back in anger - A failed relationship is a failed relationship, and ultimately, it takes two people to bring it down (most of the time, anyway). An immature concern of mine after my relationship ended was publicly establishing who broke up with who. When I found out from friends of my ex that word had spread I had broken up with her, I was elated. “That’s right, I broke it off!” Looking back, I am borderline ashamed of my childlike mindset. Ultimately, my desire to publicly define the breakup came from my insecurity of what other people thought of me. I didn’t want to be looked down on for being broken up with. I wanted to be respected for having initiated the act myself. In reality, my time should have been spent trying to understand where I had failed my ex as a husband and how I could improve upon those failures in the future.

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5. Understand the price of love - In the classic movie, “Annie Hall” by Woody Allen, I spent 90 minutes exploring a relationship from its formation to its demise. As the movie came to a close, the couple having been broken up for some time, Alvy (Woody Allen) unexpectedly runs into his former lover, Annie (Diane Keaton). They decide to grab a cup of coffee, and as they share laughs and effortlessly rediscover their old chemistry, the movie transitions into a montage, as it runs through memories of their relationship. After the montage, Alvy begins to narrate, “After that it got pretty late, and we both had to go, but it was great seeing Annie again. I realized what a terrific person she was, and how much fun it was just knowing her; and I thought of that old joke…”

“I thought of that old joke, this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, ‘Doc, uh, my brother’s crazy; he thinks he’s a chicken.’ And the doctor says, ‘Well, why don’t you turn him in?’ The guy says, ‘I would, but I need the eggs.'”

Alvy concludes his narration, “Well, I guess that’s pretty much now how I feel about relationships; you know, they’re totally irrational, and crazy, and absurd, but I guess we keep going through it because most of us need the eggs.”

That ending has always haunted me. The idea that you can love someone so deeply, only to become nothing more than a stranger is terrifying. However, watching “Annie Hall” after my last marriage ended was unexpectedly different because I felt as if I had grown with Alvy. I felt comfortable with my understanding of the madness and the irresistibly addictive nature of relationships. With that understanding, I discovered the closure I had been searching for. Of course, it wasn’t entirely satisfying. I learned it may never be, but I felt like I could finally close the proverbial door of my failed relationship. I’d be lying if I said I don’t often turn around and stare at the closed door of that relationship as a montage of my own relationship runs through my head. At that point, it’s tough to resist reaching out for the doorknob...

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