Closure

I was with my ex for almost 20 year (engaged the last 7 years). Three days after major surgery, he had his mom come to care for me. He then went overseas and married a girl (27 years younger than him), that he has been dating for 1 yr and 2 mths, behind my back. I found out about his cheating about 5 mths before my surgery. But, because I was in a abusive relationship with him, I had to wait till he was gone to leave. So even though it was against medical advice to fly to another state (1 week and 5 days after surgery), I gathered my strength and left while he was not home. I left on his wedding day, that way I was sure he would’nt be home, so there wouldn’t be any type of altercation.

My family member flew to help me leave. I called him a few times but he never answered the phone. So I texted him asking him to apologize for hurting me. And to please give me closure so that I can move on. I messaged him twice about it. He would answer texts about my dog and my belongings etc. However, never anything about our relationship. I’m am devastated I spent 20 years with him, yet I can’t even get a apology. Makes me few so worthless that my love and my youth meant nothing to him.

Has anyone here moved out without closure? If so can you give me tips to move on without closure from him. I am so sad and devastated, I no longer can see my pet of 6 years. And because I had to sneak out to leave, I never got to say bye to dog at all. I would appreciate any type of help, if you have any advice on how I can let go without closure. Thanks for helping.

Welcome to this site, @Eternal Love!

I'm so sorry that you went through that ... Earth shattering experience. I don't have any tips or advice to share right now.

I wonder if you live in a state that recognizes common law marriage. After living together that long, perhaps you have a legal justification for taking some sort of action.

Also, I wonder how well you get along with his mother. It's possible that she feels awful about what he did. If so she might provide a bit of comfort.

Hopefully, others will join the thread.

Thank you for replying, the state we lived does not recognize common law marriage. His mom was always hot and cold with me. And I think his mom knew about his new wife. The reason I know this is because the time he went on vacation to another country with his mom, he also met up with his new wife. I know this because they got a locket engraved, with the date that he was traveling with his mom.

I called her to tell her I’m leaving him on the airplane (I snuck out she had no clue I was gone), told her today he was getting married. She didn’t sound too surprised at all.

After I left she only messaged me once. She texted me one at 3am, asking me how I’m doing. I replied the next morning, that I was in a lot of pain and I can’t believe after 20 years her son married someone else. And that I was sad he never even apologized. She never responded to my text. Also, she never once asked about my health, while I was recovering from major surgery. I thought that was very cold. Honestly, she’s always defending him even if he’s wrong.

Along time ago, before I moved in with him he cheated on me. During a holiday visit at his apartment, a few week after the affair, I opened up to her to tell her his cheated on me. I couldn’t believe her response, she said I don’t want to hear this stuff. Why did you even effing bring this up, she said it makes her uncomfortable to be put into our relationship. But, I thought since I've known her for at least 12 years at that time, and she was a woman too, that she was comfort me. Nope, turns out she got mad. I said this stuff in front of her and my ex, but he denied it said it was his friend.

But I had solid proof, as I spoke to that person on speakerphone, in the car with my ex. My ex kept trying to hang up, but that person called back, at least ten times to argue with me. There’s no friend” would do something like that. What friend would yell at someone girlfriend and make them cry? I cried in every phone call, they made to his phone. He was driving so he kept trying to the phone from me. But I kept fighting him to get the phone back, because I wanted to hear the truth about their relationship. Like how long has this been going on etc. That person was so sick in the head, that even told me about their sexual relations. I wanted to throw up, it was horrifying.

But I tried to forgive him and we worked through it. As far as I know after that, when we moved in together (6 years) and he didn’t cheat again. Until last March he went on a golfing with his friends, to another country that he meet his new wife. They met in March of 2023, started dating immediately, then got married in May of this year. Exactly 1 year and 2 mths together. I found out he was cheating as he started traveling a lot to another country. He started verbally abusing me and stopped eating dinner with me. I had a strong intuition something was wrong. While he was gone I searched his closet, there I found proof. I saw proof of photos, letters and trinkets he hide in his closet. And a few days before he left, I have also seen a copy of their marriage license, and pictures of their wedding rings.

Horrible. But you knew, deep down, that it would not end well. You probably did not expect he would marry a girl 27 years younger than he is, but you knew this would not end well, because why would one be engaged for 7 (!!!) years? People are engaged for what, 1 year, all the while they planning their wedding. Maybe a couple of years, but not 7. And you had been with him for so long prior to the engagement. And you yourself said that you were in an abusive relationship with him. So, clearly, even without ultimately marrying that girl, he mistreated you. He mistreated you so badly that you were afraid of an altercation and worked around that fear by leaving exactly on his wedding day.

So he mistreated you, probably he would string you along, he caused you to live in fear of altercations (or worse), and... you now expect an apology from him? An apology for hurting you? And you expect that to be a.... heartfelt apology? But had he actually cared not to hurt you, he would not have done those things to you in the first place. Would not have caused you to live in fear of altercations, for instance. Would have separated from you earlier and in a kinder way when he figured out he would be going off with that girl overseas. Would not have been stringing you alone, something you now resent so bitterly because your youth was wasted.

For this reason, a heartfelt apology is not possible, is not forthcoming, and a token apology would not be enough for you. You would definitely be able to tell a heartfelt apology and a token apology apart.

So there is nothing he can do that would make you feel any better now. Your loss is huge: you wasted your youth, and, on top of that, you are saying that you loved him, so your love went unappreciated. And then the dog. With the dog, maybe his mother can mediate an agreement between you and him. At least he is communicative via text about the dog, so there, not all is lost.

You wrote that you want him to please give you closure so that you can move on.


You do not depend on him for moving on. I think you need to examine why you stayed in a dead end relationship for so long, wasting years. The relationship was obviously dead end. Did you not see it? Did you deceive yourself, trying to avoid seeing the obvious, the red flags? You chose Eternal Love for your name on this forum, so did you say for so long because you loved him and only him all your adult life?

People can live long these days and it is possible to form relationships during later years. But you need to separate from the man inside your psyche before you can go on to form better relationships than that one. It will take time, the process will be painful, but it is possible, and you do not need his OK for you to move on.

Regarding getting closure, most people do not get it. So you are not at all alone. Getting closure is an exception, not the rule.

Eternal Love is just a song that I like, that is all it means. I’m not into fairytales, or has my head in the clouds. I know for a fact not everyone’s relationships will last forever. I know that only people who are truly blessed end up with good lifelong partners. And I only wanted closure, because I guess I wanted to feel, at least through all that I’ve been through with him, I wasn’t with a person who was 100% heartless. That there’s a little part of him that feels bad. I would 100% be at peace if he had apologized. I would have said to myself, okay it’s seems that after everything we went through, we weren’t meant to be. But at least he felt bad about it. But because he wont apologize, it makes me feel as if I was in a relationship, with a 100% heartless person that really never cared for me. Like I was with a complete monster. I know none of this makes sense to you. And that’s okay. Usually people from the outside, cannot understand how someone else feels, unless they are in the almost same type of relationship. I want to thank you for taking time to reply, and sharing your insights with me. I want you to know, that some of the things you said really resonated with me. I will keep your words in mind as I try to move on.

And we were engaged for a long time, because for some reason I couldn’t marry him. Because of trust issues with him. He pressured me for so many years to marry. Even to the point he bought a suit just for that occasion. But I rather just stay as his partner, instead of being married to him.

Have a nice weekend.

Oh, I see. So it wasn't he who wouldn't marry you.

What emerges from your posts is that you consistently have good intuition but you do not trust your own judgment and act contrary to what your intuition tells you. You could have been rid of this man a long time ago had you not second guessed your own judgment. Having a good intuition is an asset you can leverage. It is not that hard to learn to trust your own good judgment when you have. It would have been far worse had you not had good judgment; that is so much harder to fix.

I do not know if discovering lessons learned from this horrible experience is currently relevant for you, but if it is, I would propose trusting your intuition and acting in congruence with your intuition and not contrary to it as one such lesson.