Hello, Closure!

*Names have been changed to protect identity.

Mary* was a very social person, a true extrovert. She loved keeping in touch with her friends from college who had scattered after graduation. Facebook became a tool that allowed her to keep that familiarity while living miles away from her college friends. Her husband called it “Fakebook”, saying the only updates people put on the platform were fake and meant to give the allusion of a perfect life. He refused to have an account, even to keep in touch with old friends. While Mary agreed with the basic sentiment, and even stopped using it at one point for her own reasons, her husband relentlessly criticized people who used it, calling them stupid and fake. He would never in a million years be so stupid as to use Facebook and be like the people who did. This was one of his many, many rigidly held ideas that chipped away at their marriage and Mary’s self-esteem, eventually leading to much bigger problems and ending in divorce.

While going through the divorce, a friend introduced Mary to a support group that was only accessible on Facebook, so she decided to join back up in order to benefit from that group. To her surprise, her husband had opened a Facebook account! Out of curiosity, she looked at his page and was astounded at how happy he looked. She was overcome with anger as she wondered how he could be so happy when their family resembled the wreckage of a tornado. To make matters worse, her attorney’s secretary told her she had been matched with him on Facebook’s dating site. Not only were Mary and her husband not even divorced yet, but if not for her putting her foot down on some things, they wouldn’t even have been separated. How could he be on the market so soon? Had he already been thinking of leaving her? Had he already been dating?

Mary contemplated leaving Facebook again, but she decided not to due to the benefit of the support group. She decided not to give up one more thing, but it was admittedly difficult to see her soon-to-be ex pop up from time to time, showing how successful he was at work and how much money he was making. He seemed a lot happier without her. He had moved on without a hitch.

After they had been divorced for several years, Mary still struggled with closure. It wasn’t that she wanted to be back with her abusive husband, but the loss of her family, traditions, history, home, and much of her identity were proving too much to accept. She often wondered how other women moved on so much sooner than she was able. How was she going to stop being so devastated? She tried moving forward in work and relationships, but her heart clung relentlessly to what once was (or the idea that once was).

Mary finally spoke with her pastor about it. With all of her prayers and effort, nothing seemed to be changing. He listened compassionately as she described her fear that she would move on and her ex-husband would suddenly realize that he wanted his family back, but there would be nothing she could do to restore it at that point. To his credit, he did not laugh at her but gently asked if she really thought that was going to happen. “No,” came her weak answer. “He has not looked back once since he left me.”

Her pastor encouraged her to ask God for closure, and she left his office wondering if that could ever really happen. But she did begin to ask.

Not long after that meeting with her pastor, Mary was working on her computer when she saw a friend suggestion pop up from Facebook. It was her ex. “Lord!” she exclaimed out loud. “Why can’t I get away from him?” She again contemplated closing her account to avoid the triggers he still created in her. But something inside made her curious. Why now? she wondered. So she did not resist the urge to click on his profile.

His latest post was a tag from his sister about how much fun it was when he went to visit her family, with a comment from his mom about how much she loved them both and loved seeing them together. Mary felt anger rise up in her. She began to rant inside, remembering how his mom and sisters ignored them for the entire 20 years they had been married. His sisters didn’t talk to him except on holidays, and one time his mom commented that she hadn’t seen him in so long that she didn’t recognize him with all his grey hair. She had lived 15 minutes from them! It was ridiculous. Mary knew that photo and those comments were the epitome of a false reality, but what made her angry was that no one else did. If anyone saw what was portrayed there, they would believe it.

She quickly closed her computer, but when she went to bed that night, she found herself ruminating on that post. “Lord, I am asking for closure. Please!” she prayed fervently. She slept fitfully that night, but at one point of lucidity she found her spirit awakening to a new view on the reality she had been missing all along. It was as if she just had to turn it around in her hand and look at it from the other side.

She was right about that post. It was fake. Just like their life together had been. And she was exhausting herself and wasting her precious energy trying to come to the conclusion she already knew: her ex and his family were not good, sane people. They hurt her and her children, and it was a good thing to no longer be part of that. Not even to try to figure them out. For the first time, she saw what had been in front of her the whole time with new eyes, eyes of acceptance. It was suddenly ok that people might believe that post about his family. She knew the truth and it suddenly mattered more than the façade. The irony of the whole thing was that he was the biggest participant in posting a false reality on Facebook, the very thing he harshly criticized and belittled! Suddenly, the whole thing was right-sized and Mary actually laughed out loud.

The unintentional product of his trying to promote a false reality and make it look like he was so happy actually showed Mary how fake the whole relationship with him had been, and she didn’t want to be around people like that anymore. It just suddenly clicked.

Many times things happen that can’t be explained and will never have earthly closure. Sometimes people ghost us. Sometimes they just stop being who we thought they were. In a marriage, this can be devastating. In an abusive marriage, this is almost always the case. You may never know what your mind longs to put to rest, but you can have peace and move on with God’s help. Ask Him for closure and expect a breakthrough.