What is “completion” versus “getting over”? The notion of “getting over” someone or forcibly “moving on” in the case of a divorce, is not a helpful notion. “Getting over” implies that you are supposed to “forget” that person. Likewise “Just move on” implies that you shouldn’t bother with serious efforts at emotional completion.  If you’ve had a long relationship and the person has been significant in your life, it is not possible to totally “forget” and if you forcibly try to “just move on” you won’t know what to do with your fond memories or your painful ones.

It is possible to obtain completion in a healthy way so that you are not bringing uncompleted emotional baggage into your next relationship. The thing to realize is that you may not be able to get completion directly with your ex. You likely will need to do it on your own. This is something that really hit home for me during the last months of the divorce process. Without realizing it, I was still turning to D, wanting to get completion through communication with him. During one of our divorce talks about how to split up material objects, the conversation turned toward emotional upsets that had occurred in the marriage. D had a strong reaction to something emotional that I brought up. He swore and stormed out of the house. I was so shocked that our conversation had had this result, that I phoned my therapist.

My therapist explained to me that I was wanting closure from someone who could not give it. He said to me in a clear definitive way: “The relationship is dead.” And after that, something shifted for me. It was important for me to realize that I was unconsciously looking to D, to get my closure, and that I could NOT get it from him. And it helped to hear the words, and to let them truly sink it: “The relationship is dead.”

After that I never had a need again to turn to him for “completion.” After that I noticed a shift. I was in fact not turning to him at all anymore. I had arrived at the point where I didn’t care, which is a wonderful place to arrive, when you’re in a divorce process. It didn’t mean I won’t care about him down the road. What it meant is that I had finally disentangled. I was finally “me on my own.” I was no longer turning to him in my head. It meant I truly understood that I could not turn to him to get resolution for the wounding that had happened in the marriage. It meant I was going to do what I needed to do, to get completion on my own.

A good place to start, with the process of “completion” is to understand that you are responsible for your feelings. “When you hold someone else 100% responsible for your feelings, you place yourself in an emotional jail. The other person can never let you out, because it’s a jail of your own construction. It is built on the idea that not only do others have the power to make you feel but you must keep feeling it until they release you.” (from the book: Moving On by Friedman and James.)

This is a simple but very good concept to take on. If I continued to have a need to get completion via my ex, I would be in an emotional jail that only he could release me from. My therapist’s words and my own willingness to see my failings and to do “the work” has released me from that jail. And I must say, I am experiencing a lot of freedom lately. I did the exercises on completion in the above-mentioned book, which took me many days to do, and then I read out loud to my therapist the “completion letter” that is the last piece of the exercise. The authors are adamant that the letter must be read out loud to an empathetic listener. They are equally adamant that the letter cannot be read to the person to whom it is written.

I no longer have angry dreams about my ex. The wounds that had a lot of intensity for me during the marriage, have very little charge now. It is not that I will completely forget that those wounds happened. Again, the idea is not that it is possible to totally forget. The idea is to get a true sense of completion.

My advice is do not listen to anyone who says: “just move on, just get over it.” This results in shoving your emotional wounds under a rug, putting on a false bright face, trying to behave as if you’ve moved on, while bringing unresolved emotional baggage into your next relationship. I am pleased to say that I am now seeing the results of all my efforts to do the divorce in a healthy way. I am feeling a much greater sense of completion than even a few months ago and I am certainly in a much stronger place than I was a year ago. One thing I have realized is that time does not “heal wounds.” If you have emotional baggage that you are hanging on to, consciously or not, time is not going to take away that baggage. You must face the demons and do the hard work.

Completion means that you’ve communicated everything that was unfinished in your past relationship. It doesn’t mean you won’t be sad again. Completion allows you to have an emotional memory of someone, but you’ll no longer have a reaction that stings of wounding or is charged with anger. Proper completion is freedom.