Re: Closure...imho (from BBS posting)

While going through the various local bbs postings I stumbled upon an ongoing argument regarding people's various expectations regarding giving closure to an ex-lover. I was amazed at some of what I saw there, horrified, stunned about how some of the people were so vicious to their ex-lovers. It seems that more and more the incessant need for humans to be competitive at all costs is tearing down the greatest aspects of human civility. Certainly unhealthy competition between the sexes cannot be a good thing. I don't feel I was 100% in the development of this idea, but it got the basic idea across. In that vein, I posted this:

Closure:
I personally find it of great interest that we as a group of people have such a completely messed up process for getting women and men together. We start out the process and it IS a GRAND competition. Women for the most part do their best to attract partners using their sex appeal. (historically because I would guess that not too many men are attracted by their respective level of financial, social, or otherwise personal definitions of success.)
Women pit men against each other in order to find the alpha male. They may be unaware that they do this, but they do. This goes back to primitive reproductive strategy.

The point is here.....is that it IS a competition for mates.

Where it gets strange is, that AFTER a couple has become exclusive, then suddenly we all like to relax. We like to kid ourselves that the elements of competition are no longer in play. The partners are matched and that is the end of the competition. Yet, that's really not what goes on. Everything is fine so long as both partners are happy, but once ONE of the participants in the relationship begins to have wandering eyes, well then the competition aspect comes BACK into play. (whether or not the poor partner is aware of it or NOT) At this point the partner in the relationship who is loyal and happy will be being judged by the other participant in the relationship. The one with wandering eyes will be silently comparing their companion to OTHER possible companions WITHOUT their companions knowledge. (My experience indicates that woman are especially guilty of this behavior, as it ALSO is a very primitive behavior built into human females reproductive strategy.) But I will be fair and recognize that it's likely that it has it's share of men who also engage in this behavior.

To clarify: now we have a situation where ONE partner thinks the relationship is solid, while the OTHER partner has re-opened the element of competition by comparison and contrast between what they have, what is available, and what they want.

This is usually, obviously the point at which the relationship breaks down. The unskilled people engaging in this behavior will unknowingly alert their partner that they are becoming critical and experiencing wandering eyes. However the SKILLED people engaged in this behavior DO SO WITHOUT THEIR PARTNER EVER REALIZING WHAT IS GOING ON. The HIGHLY skilled partner can not only engage in this behavior but may actually engage with other partners on the side and manage to juggle them all without any of them becoming the wiser.
EVENTUALLY, the partner engaging in this behavior will make a selection between one or more of the partners they have and the partners who don't make the cut are completely BLINDSIDED. They will experience extreme distress because they believed the relationship was doing okay. They put forth their trust in the other individual and were loyal to them, they took their partner at their word, and are nearly destroyed at the complete betrayal of their “love”.

This is the point where we come to the topic of CLOSURE. The people who are the MOST GUILTY of engaging in this behavior are also usually the people who feel absolutely NO OBLIGATION to OWN UP to their behavior. They are usually the people who have the biggest problem with providing their ex partners with reasons why the relationship didn't work out. The reasons why they feel that way in this model are fairly obvious. They do not wish to allow the betrayed partner to know of their behavior. It is interesting to note that they also usually become absolutely rabid at even the slightest SUGGESTION that they owe their ex any type of explanation. The reason for that is also obvious. They have no integrity and to own up to their behavior is beyond them, because they basically feel that it is within their right to do this to another human being and they are not responsible for the pain and suffering their lack of integrity has caused. It is usually one of the behaviors found in the repertoire of less mature people.

Closure is when you give the previous partner the reasons why you feel it necessary to dissolve the connection. It is a behavior that comes between two mature adults who do in fact care for one another and yet realize that the partnership isn't working out. Closure is the opportunity for a partner who hasn't been 100% honest about their feelings or change of heart to communicate this in a mature polite way to the person that they USED to consider worthy of their connection. Closure has NOTHING to do with competition. It has NOTHING to do with being spiteful or nasty during the course of a breakup. Closure is something that happens between two EVOLVED human beings who otherwise cannot or will not continue a partnership.

It's a sign of CLASS people. You don't have to offer it to your ex, but if you do it, and you are honest, it does make you a better person.