By: Amanda Anderson-Niles
“The biggest mistake most women make is believing they need closure to a bad relationship. The truth is that once you discover a man no longer wants you, that’s really all the closure you need.”
I think I have lost count of the number of times I have heard a woman say she needed closure from the same man that dogged her the majority of the relationship. I myself have sought closure from someone I probably should have never dated in the first place.
Why do we do this?
I have a few guesses, but I would have to say the problem stems from our overcommitment to men who have never bothered to commit to us. We do this occasionally as an attempt to work things out with people who have no desire to put any work into their half of the relationship. We should walk away happily when we realize that we have been involved in an unhealthy relationship. But instead, we need to hear why we’ve been treated this way, when it doesn’t matter why but the fact that we were mistreated should be enough to move on.
Another problem is our sense of entitlement. After putting up with so much disrespect from one person, we feel they finally owe us some respect for our decision to stay way too long. But they don’t owe us what we owe ourselves, and that’s knowing better, and eventually doing better.
We simply feel entitled to the wrong things. Instead of feeling that closure is owed to us for our devotion to someone we had no business being with, we ought to feel entitled to being respected the first moments we embark in any relationship, and throughout the relationship. Simply put, we ought to feel entitled to a good man! So much so that staying with just any man won’t do.
Why do we wait until the last moment to make demands?
I’m a true believer that when a man wants a woman, he’s going to do what it takes to keep that woman. So if we’ve made our needs clear and he still won’t oblige, it’s quite clear that he is not trying to keep you. And by you hanging on to a man that isn’t trying to keep you, you’re loudly confirming without words that your needs and happiness aren’t really important. And it’s hard to make anything work out with a man who realizes you’ll give up your own happiness just to keep him around.
It’s best to require any man that has an interest in you to treat you right from the beginning, anything else and you’ll have to settle for closure.
So many truths!