Write the letter if there is something you need to express, but don’t send it.

To write a letter and send it primes your mind to expect a response and perpetuates the agony. Even if you say to yourself, “It’s okay if she doesn’t respond,” a small part of you will hope that she does.

I’m not sure where this concept of “closure” has come from and why it’s infiltrated the world of psychotherapy, but I personally think it’s bunk. I’m not a therapist, but in my humble opinion, trying to achieve “closure” is a rehashing of the past, it’s clinging to something that once was, and is now gone. It prevents people on both sides from letting go and moving on.

To borrow Matt’s term from another thread, I’ve been down that mental maze before; “Everything will be okay if they know how I feel….I’ll feel better if they just understood what they meant to me…If they just apologize, I’ll feel better…If we could just be friends, the world will be normal…blah blah blah.” Total and utter B.S.

Breaking up is painful. It sucks. It hurts down to the very essence of your core and being. And you know what, it’s suppose to. Why? Because it meant something. It was powerful. It was special. It was important. There is no “Let’s just apologize and be friends” like we see in movies and sitcoms. To be honest, that kind of attitude and approach actually insults the relationship and debases the experience.

This relationship is a learning experience. It says more about you than you may realize and therefore, use this experience to look inward. Looking to the other person to help you find inner peace and equanimity is a distraction from the work that needs to be done within.

You can working with your therapist by asking, why did you develop a relationship with a person who, in hindsight, was so unstable and broken? What unresolved issues might you have that propel you into unhealthy codependent relationships? How can you find more stability in your life without a relationship?

My experience is that for better or worse, people attract their perfect match. Broken people, attract other broken people. Strong and stable people, attract strong and stable people.

This relationship is over and, someday, you’ll find someone else. So, what kind of person do you want to attract?