Getting closure without contact is entirely possible. Thousands of dumpees every year get closure without their ex’s presence and assistance. They get it not because they don’t want their ex’s explanations and help, but because their ex doesn’t want to talk/talk about the breakup and help them process the abandonment.
Their ex often ignores, shifts the blame, or lies, leaving them no choice but to reflect inward and find closure without contact.
Closure comes from within. It’s not something your ex gives you, but something you create for yourself. You can and will get it shortly after learning what closure is and how it works for your healing process. If you allow pain to control you and convince you that you absolutely need closure from your ex to get over your ex, you’ll end up stuck in the past and take much longer to move on from your ex.
That’s because you’ll adopt unhealthy beliefs that cause immense pain, halt your emotional progress, and leave you dependent on your ex to mend your broken heart.
Always remember that you don’t need closure directly from your ex to move on. You just need to believe that you can get closure without your ex, understand how to get closure, and have the drive to actually get it. It will take some work to achieve the results you want, but rest assured that the process of acquiring closure will be worth it. It won’t just help you understand why the breakup happened, but it will also bring you emotional relief.
Once you understand that closure is when you emotionally accept the breakup and the reasons for the breakup, you won’t expect your ex to do all the internal work for you. On the contrary, you’ll consider yourself responsible for your problems and feelings and do what’s best for your recovery.
Some dumpees confuse closure for detachment and complete recovery, but that’s not closure. Dumpers can’t and don’t want to guide their ex through the whole healing process. They may want to help, but that help is limited to answering a few questions and offering some words of encouragement.
If the dumpee expects the dumper to converse every day and keep meeting up as if they never broke up, it quickly turns into an issue because it pressures the dumper and forces him or her to neglect his or her post-breakup feelings and plans. Yes, the dumper has feelings too. Feelings may not require closure, but the dumper still wants to self-focus and live life freely.
If you constantly reach out to your ex and remind him or her you’re unhappy or miserable, your ex won’t like you, let alone respect you. Your ex will consider you high maintenance and a waste of emotions and time. When your ex perceives you that way, it’s only a matter of time before your ex loses his or her composure and cuts you off for good.
When that happens, the best you can hope for is to be ignored. You’ll probably be told to leave him or her alone and look for someone else to help you.
Dumpers have a limit. There’s only so much they’re willing to tolerate before they lose their cool, react emotionally, and push their ex away.
So bear in mind that closure means understanding what went wrong and accepting it. It doesn’t mean that the dumpee relies on the dumper until the day he or she no longer needs to. It would take way too long and feel forced if the dumper were to assume the role of a healer and stand by the dumpee’s side from start to finish.
Although dumpers should help, they should do so by answering closure-related questions and offering occasional support. Occasional help should make the dumpee feel heard and important—and shouldn’t cause dumpers too much trouble. Constant texting, calling, or meeting up, on the other hand, doesn’t constitute support.
Instead, it creates stress, anger, and confusion, which makes it harder for both parties to move on.
It’s in your best interest to find closure quickly with your ex’s help or without contact. That way, you’ll reduce the chance of annoying your ex and receiving a negative/hurtful response from your ex. If you over-rely on your ex or rely on your ex when your ex doesn’t want to help, you’ll get rejected and hurt and need much longer to recover.
You may even experience anxiety attacks, deep depression, suicidal thoughts, extreme weight loss, and may need professional help—all for assuming your ex would provide the support you need.
Take it from me: your ex doesn’t care and/or isn’t someone to rely on for healing. He or she may have been extremely nice and empathetic when you were together, but that’s no longer the case. From now on, your ex is out of the picture and should be considered an obstacle to your health and happiness.
If he or she doesn’t want to provide you closure, it’s up to you to embark on the journey to find it for yourself.
And that’s what we’ll talk about today. This post is dedicated to dumpees whose ex didn’t help them get closure. We’ll teach you how to get closure without contact.
How to get closure without contact?
Before you can get closure without contact, you need to understand that dumpees who have been ghosted, lied to, deceived, or simply denied closure can move on just as successfully as those who had a closure conversation. They can detach, move on, be happy, and stop craving their ex’s closure.
Closure isn’t limited only to certain people. Each and every one of us can learn why the breakup happened and come to terms with it. The reason so many people struggle is that they feel blindsided and expect the person causing them pain and confusion to explain everything clearly.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen. Many dumpers ignore dumpees, treat them badly, use breakup excuses and cliches to justify their decisions and behaviors, tell half-truths, white lies, or pure lies, or refuse to give closure. They avoid telling the truth because they’re afraid their ex or others will judge them and give them a hard time.
It’s easier for them to say things like, ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ ‘I still love you,’ or ‘We weren’t happy.’ Such words inspire hope and create false expectations. They also make it impossible for dumpees to understand what went wrong and what they should work on to avoid breaking up for similar reasons in the future.
Breakup excuses and lies are acts of cowardice, but what’s even worse is when dumpers intentionally withhold closure. A lack of understanding about what went wrong leaves dumpees without clear goals or purpose. It forces them to crave explanations and need longer to reflect, come up with their own interpretations, and figure out their next steps.
There’s nothing wrong with reflecting, but dumpees can get back on their feet quicker if they receive the closure they need from the start.
If you want to know how to get closure without contact, you must truly want to get it without contact. You must give up on reaching out to your ex and hoping to get a validating response from your ex. Your ex’s responses, or lack thereof, only reopen your wounds and make the healing process harder.
Once you’ve committed to getting closure without contact, you must accept that you might not get all the facts and that it’s okay. You don’t need to know all the details anyway because many of them are unnecessary and painful. They force you to obsess over them and delay the time it takes to process the breakup.
For example, if you learn that your ex was secretly getting close to another person, you may despise your ex’s values, but you’ll also compare yourself to that person and feel insecure. That’s not something you need to heal. What you need is the understanding that your ex lost focus and detached due to a lack of investment in the relationship.
Moreover, consider venting your emotions. Your ex may not listen to you, but that doesn’t mean that no one will. Your friends and family should lend you an ear and help you process some emotions. If they don’t help you or help in ways you want them to, there are many professionals who will. They may not be free, but some things are worth paying for.
If spending money can bring you relief and peace of mind, it’s hardly a poor investment.
There are also free alternatives such as journaling. Writing down your thoughts on paper or even electronically can put your anxious mind at ease, as it has a similar effect to talking to another person. You can even write a letter to your ex. Just don’t send it, as doing so may attach your feelings and expectations to it.
Your ex might feel that you’ve invaded his or her privacy and crossed personal boundaries.
Writing is for you and those who can and want to help you. It’s not for your ex to see what you feel, think, and want.
The most important thing you can do to find closure is to reflect. Think about your ex’s behavior before the breakup and consider the things your ex said or did. If your ex seemed angry, blamed you for everything, or refused to work together, it wasn’t you who caused the breakup. It was your ex’s lack of bonding, problem-fixing, poor communication, or something completely different and unrelated to you.
You’d be surprised how many dumpers leave good relationships because they’re stressed at work or by something unrelated to the relationship. They have poor stress management techniques, so they take their stress out on their partners and lose feelings.
The point is, you should reflect on your ex’s behavior and determine what or who might have made your ex disconnect emotionally and lose interest. If your ex was on dating apps, prioritizing friends, or spending lots of time with one particular person, your ex bonded with someone else instead of you and left you when he or she developed feelings, urges, and doubts.
By all means, analyze your own behavior as well. If you were highly reactive, disrespectful, neglectful, or unwilling to compromise and be more compatible, you must acknowledge your mistakes and differences and work on them. By working on them, you’ll forgive yourself, outgrow who you were, and become a better partner.
Consider the breakup a rare opportunity to see the relationship from a clear perspective, learn from your mistakes, and evolve.
You don’t need to ask your ex millions of questions to move on. Questions certainly help, but they’re not required. You were a part of the relationship and breakup, so you already know who your ex is and what your ex said and wanted. Your ex may have intentionally hidden things from you, but that doesn’t matter. His or her attitude toward you still revealed how he or she perceived you.
Dumpers find it incredibly difficult to hide animosity, bitterness, and disinterest. These emotions tend to leak out through their actions, words, tone, or body language, often long before the breakup actually happens. Looking back, you may realize the signs were there all along. You just didn’t think much of them because you were still together.
So think back to how your ex treated you. Was your ex unloving, dismissive, impatient, or unusually argumentative or critical? Did your ex’s affection fade or feel forced? When you determine your ex’s behavior, figure out if it had something to do with you. You should soon know if your ex left because of how you functioned together or if something or someone else tempted your ex to leave.
This might have been your ex’s friends, family, coworkers, or another romantic prospect.
If you can’t figure out exactly who or what inspired or forced your ex to leave, that’s okay. All that matters is that you weren’t entirely responsible for the breakup and that you needn’t blame yourself for making trivial mistakes. Your ex isn’t doing that either, so try not to worry too much. Leave the guilt to your ex.
While you’re working on that, make sure to frequently remind yourself that your ex’s silence doesn’t define you. Your ex is silent and unwilling to help because he or she feels relieved by the breakup and pressured by your emotions and expectations. Your ex doesn’t deal with emotions of power, such as anger, resentment, control, and pressure well, so your ex ignores you and makes you feel entirely responsible for the breakup.
If you take all the blame, you’ll end up searching for closure in places where it doesn’t exist.
I also encourage you to learn more about breakups. Learn from reliable sources, talk to those who’ve been through (difficult) breakups, and compare their experiences to yours. You may notice similarities and gain valuable insights on how to gain closure and move on. The more breakup information you absorb, the fewer breakup errors you will make.
Use this time to change your view of your ex and improve your self-esteem. By doing so, you’ll be able to see the breakup more objectively and realistically and recognize your ex’s shortcomings, which will help you gain a clearer understanding of the reasons the relationship ended.
Having said that, here are my tips for getting closure without contact.
Can I move on without closure?
It’s possible to move on without getting closure from your ex. In time, you’ll find closure even without actively looking for it. You’ll come to accept an explanation for the breakup that makes sense to you and move on once and for all. Try to remember that closure helps (not makes) dumpees move on. It encourages them to move forward rather than backward and search for explanations.
Even if you don’t find closure, you’ll eventually move forward without your ex. It might take you weeks or months longer, but you’ll still detach fully and find purpose without your ex. You’ll grow accustomed to life without your ex and feel grateful for the people who remain by your side.
Even though you can move on without closure, I encourage you to look for closure. First, try to get it with your ex. Tell your ex that you don’t want to bother him or her and that you’ll leave him or her alone after a few questions. If your ex doesn’t care enough to provide closure, you can then thank your ex for his/her time and move on to plan B – getting closure without your ex.
You will find it when you fall back in love with yourself and see your ex for the person he or she is.
Dumpees who suffer the most are those who refuse to look at the relationship objectively. Such dumpees keep their ex on a pedestal and stay hooked on their ex emotionally. They reject closure and need significantly longer to detach and enjoy their life.
I strongly discourage you from going down that path. Instead of making your life all about your ex, focus on things that bring you joy. It will shift your energy toward healing and help you rebuild yourself from the ground up. Your ex may have hurt you more than anyone else, but you have the power to take back control of your life. You can do anything you set your mind to.
Moving on takes time, but that’s because your ex destroyed your ability to love yourself. Once you regain it, you’ll have better people and things to focus on. Things that actually make a difference in your life.
So forget about your ex and focus on what’s in your power to control. Sooner rather than later, you’ll wean off your ex and regain your passion for life. As long as you want to heal and feel better, you’ll improve because of the breakup, become stronger, and eliminate your desire for explanations and love from your ex.
Are you still wondering how to get closure without contact? Share your thoughts and experiences below.
Lastly, if you need help and want to discuss your breakup situation in detail, consider reaching out to us through our private coaching program. We’ll analyze your breakup and share some valuable tips.
My name is Zan and I’m the founder of Magnet of Success. I enjoy writing realistic relationship and breakup articles and helping readers heal and grow. With more than 5 years of experience in the self-improvement, relationship, and breakup sphere, my goal is to provide advice that fosters positivity and success and avoids preventable mistakes and pain. Buy me a coffee, learn more about me, or get in touch today.
