The closure trap: why waiting for an apology after a breakup could be keeping your heartbreak alive

Words: Amy Mica Marsden. Images: Shutterstock.

No matter how long the relationship or how good or bad the breakup, it’s only human to want answers from our exes – but holding out for an apology or an explanation could do more harm than good, and even hold us back from healing.

Najwa Zebian, activist and author of The One Who Broke You Can’t Heal You, shows us how to find our own closure and make peace with the situation instead – no exes in sight.

The myth of closure

As humans, we have a fundamental need to be seen and understood, especially by the ones we trust to love us, Najwa explains. When there has been a breakdown in trust or love, it’s hard to let go of the version of our partner we have in our minds – the version we trust to show up, take responsibility, to apologize, or just to soothe the pain.

But a sense of finality to a chapter in our lives doesn’t need to come from someone else, she adds. Why do we believe that is the only way? Well, according to Najwa, it’s simply human nature.

‘The myth of closure is that we think the “why” will help us heal. We think that if we can understand the reason they hurt us, our healing will be easier.

‘But the truth is, just because you understand why someone backstabbed you, it doesn’t mean you don’t still have a knife in your back and a wound that needs healing,’ she explains. ‘Your closure isn’t why they did what they did. It’s the fact that they did what they did.’

Looking for the ‘why’

Especially if a breakup or a loss of trust came out of nowhere, it can leave us reeling, wondering how and why things went the way they did.

But Najwa says that reaching for this understanding doesn’t actually make betrayal or heartbreak hurt any less – it actually just extends it.

‘There is no amount of understanding their behavior that will make your pain any less intense,’ she says. ‘It’s not your job to excuse or justify their decision to hurt you. Sometimes all that does is keep you bonded to the version of them you never thought would hurt you in that way… Your healing is made “less” when you tune into yourself and your pain and give yourself the right to feel it.’

Trying to understand someone might make us feel vindicated, but it won’t take away the pain or the trauma that already occurred.

‘Waiting for closure keeps you in a state of putting your healing on hold until you get the reason,’ says Najwa. ‘And when you do that, you accumulate emotional debt that you will have to pay for in your future relationships with others and yourself.’

‘If you got into an accident that injured you,’ asks Najwa, ‘would you wait to know why the other person crashed into you before you get yourself the tests and help you need at the hospital?

‘What do you risk by waiting? Your wounds might get worse. Your healing might take longer. And your suffering is prolonged.’

How to move on without closure

Are your thoughts stuck in a loop of reminiscing about the past, rather than staying in the present moment or thinking about the future? It could mean you’re trapped in the search for closure, says Najwa.

‘You have to tell yourself, I am no longer living there. I might visit every once in a while to have conversations with the version of me that went through all of that and attempt to bring them with me to my present, but I will not ever live in the past again.

‘An affirmation you can repeat is: it did happen. It was that bad. I didn’t deserve it. I have the right to be hurt.’

And if you’re still waiting for an apology or an explanation that will never come, but you still can’t stop thinking about it, Najwa recommends taking the following three steps:

1. Cry in the places you once laughed. This is the poetic definition of grief. In order to radically accept what happened, you have to be gentle enough with yourself to get to a point where you see reality as it is: what you thought you had is no longer there. What once was a source of love is no longer.

2. Let go of your need for the last conversation. There is nothing you can say to help them understand how they hurt you. They know. They were there. And if they cared enough, they’d ask you. Make the decision that the last conversation is what they did.

3. Don’t wish for their suffering or wait for it to move on. Seeing them get their punishment won’t heal what they broke inside of you. 

Finally, Najwa says it’s important not to get into the habit of blaming ourselves for staying in the relationship, even if it was not great, or for seeking closure.

‘That version of you was just trying to survive,’ she reminds us. ‘That version of you didn’t believe you could live without them. You didn’t stay because you [wanted] to be hurt or abused. You stayed because you saw in them the version they worked really hard at the beginning to convince you they were.’

Najwa Zebian is an activist, TEDx speaker, and bestselling author.  Her new book, The One Who Broke You Can’t Heal You (Yellow Kite, $27) is published on 25th August 2026.