Closure: Why You Want It, And What Wanting It Does To You
Demanding closure is trendy these days. But is really benefiting you?
By Gary McClain
I spend a lot of time talking with clients about closure. Here are a few examples:
A client I’ll call Allie and her boyfriend recently broke up after being together for over two years. Things had been getting rocky between them for the last couple of months. She’s still not sure why. And the breakup itself happened suddenly, an argument that led to them both deciding to walk away from the relationship. Allie and her now ex have texted a few times since that night, just checking on each other. She has asked him to get together and talk about what happened, but he refuses to. “I have to have some kind of closure,” she said to me. “Why won’t he give that to me?” I’ve had many similar conversations with clients who are ending a marriage.
Another client, who I’ll call Tommy, was recently laid off from his job. He had been there for five years. He and his boss didn’t always see eye to eye, and his boss jumped on him more than once when he wasn’t happy with Tommy’s performance. But overall, Tommy thought, they were getting along fine. And then Tommy was called into HR and given his lay-off notice. His boss wasn’t in the office that day, so Tommy…
