Advantages of closing when a relationship ends

The dark humor television series Two meters underground It told the life of an American family whose business was a funeral home. The protagonists had to deal with their domestic problems and, at the same time, maintain a serious composure to help their clients manage their duels, which were often difficult due to the bizarre deaths narrated at the beginning of each episode. This was a way to represent the importance of making closure.

In the series, grieving was more difficult the more inexplicable and strange the loss suffered. Therefore, throughout each episode you could see the need for closure and the different ways to achieve it.

Ending a relationship is a significant loss for us. and, therefore, in all probability we are going to experience a grieving process. This process will be easier if we have a reasonable explanation for why it happened.

What is cognitive closure?

Cognitive closure is the need we have to find a satisfactory explanation for ambiguous or uncertain situations (Kruglanski and Webster, 1996).

When we end a relationship, we need to understand why the end occurred and, in this way, give it meaning within our vital narrative. This explanation will become part of our mental schemas and will help us in the future to better explain and predict the world.

However, when a relationship ends and the other person simply disappears, denies us an explanation, we don’t quite believe what they tell us or we don’t understand why they acted in a certain way, we are left with the feeling that something is missing. .

Lack of closure is an annoying sensation because not having information prevents us from knowing ourselves better and makes it difficult for us to understand the world around us a little more.

At the end of the day, we need to integrate lived experiences, give them meaning within our personal values ​​and use them to increase knowledge that in the future will allow us to describe, explain and predict our reality with more precision.

The need for closure according to personality

Although for most people it is necessary to some extent, Not all of us have the same need for closure. Depending on our personality, we will feel the need for closure in a more or less pressing way (Neuberg, Judice & West, 1997):

People with a high need for closure They are characterized by having great intolerance of uncertainty. They tend to be obsessive people, addicted to order, rules and predictability. They need very well-defined structures of reality. They can be authoritarian and dogmatic, as they are convinced that they know the “right way” to do things. They tend to be politically and socially conservative. On the contrary, people with a low need for closure are characterized by greater creativity, as well as a greater tolerance for uncertainty and surprise. They tend to be more impulsive people and also more cognitively complex. Their greater cognitive flexibility makes them more capable of moving and adapting in ambiguous or contradictory situations. Finally, they also There are people who need to avoid closure. In this case, the person suspends commitment to his or her own critical sense. In other words, the person prefers not to know what has happened, because he assumes that the explanation will do more harm than simple exposure to uncertainty.

What to do if we have not been able to obtain closure in a relationship and we feel we need it?

Of course, we cannot (should not) force other people to compensate for our needs. When the other person does not cooperate and distances themselves from us without explanation, we are left in a relational limbo.

However, as we often teach in therapy, Adopting a healthy attitude means accepting the challenge of managing our part of responsibility in each situation. In this case, we will have to be the ones who manage the lack of closure.

And what to do, exactly? To finish resolving a loss that lacks explanation, There is no choice but to renounce this explanation. It’s hard, it’s difficult, it’s unfair… but, if we think about it well, we will see that it is also convenient for us.

The alternative would be to remain trapped indefinitely in a continuous personal interrogation. ask us because? Why me? forever. At some point, we will have to stop doing it, to move forward.

Through the painful path of grief, after having dealt with emotions such as sadness, guilt or anger, In the end our goal must be acceptance. And to finally accept what happened, we have to let go of all the burdens that hold us back, including the search for answers, that is, the need for an explanation. Letting her go will set us free.

When does it happen?

Cognitive closure in a relationship occurs when we can access a plausible explanation for why things have happened this way.

We feel the need to experience closure because this explanation helps us understand aspects of ourselves, others, and the world around us.

Working on closing the relationship with the other person allows us to give meaning to the loss suffered and say goodbye properly to an important part of our life.

Unfortunately, many times relationships do not end maturely and closure is not complete, leaving us without answers to our questions. In these cases, giving up closure is a way to release ballast. Let go the need for explanation will allow us to move forward.

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