The narcissist will withhold closure from you as fiercely as they withheld love and affection from you throughout the relationship.
Every time you try to get the narcissist to see things from your perspective or you vie desperately for them to acknowledge some of the atrocious things they’ve said and done, you simply play right into their game. You hand over more and more of your life force energy by filtering all of your attention and focus into the narcissist, which is exactly what they want.
After leaving a narcissistic relationship, you’ll be left with so much confusion and so many unanswered questions that getting some form of closure feels imperative to your survival.
Some of the biggest questions you may be left with are…
- “Did they ever truly love me?”
- “How can they have just dropped me so easily and moved on without a shred of remorse or empathy?”
Whether the narcissist was the one to discard you, or you were the one to have finally escaped from them, you can be guaranteed one thing – you will get no closure from a narcissist.
What is Closure?
Before diving into why you’ll get no closure with a narcissist, let’s have a look at exactly what is entailed in healthy closure.
Closure
[noun]
Having clear answers as to why the relationship hasn’t worked out and has come to an end. It allows people to understand what has happened so that they can move forward and let go of the things that keep them attached to the past relationship.
Closure is the wish for an answer that leaves no doubt or uncertainty in one’s mind. It’s the missing information we need to fully understand the workings of the relationship from start to finish.
Emotional closure after the ending of a relationship allows both parties to understand what’s happened and gives them both the ability and freedom to move forward in their respective lives.
A huge part of closure is about taking responsibility for your own role in the relationship, no matter how things played out. Closure also helps people heal from things that have happened and be able to grow within themselves to create better relationships in the future. Being able to understand what’s happened offers the chance to learn from your own patterns, habits and beliefs and do things better next time.
Why is closure necessary?
- To help form healthier relationships
- For personal growth
- To be able to trust yourself and others again in the future
I’m sure you’re beginning to have some light bulb moments as to why you’ll intentionally get no closure with a narcissist. They don’t want to take responsibility for their part in the relationship, nor do they think they need to. And they certainly don’t want you moving on and improving yourself for future relationships that don’t involve them!
Why You’ll Get No Closure with a Narcissist
They Have Zero Empathy
Narcissists only have the resources and desire to care about one person… themselves. They don’t view you as an autonomous being, with your owns needs, values and desires. To them, you were only ever an item to be used in order to gain whatever it was that they wanted.
How you feel or what you need is completely irrelevant to the narcissist. They did not care about you in the relationship, so they’re not about to miraculously start giving a crap now.
The only thing the narcissist is concerned about is what they’re losing by the relationship coming to an end. If you were the one to have discarded the narcissist, they’ll be furious about losing control, losing supply and losing whatever else they got from being with you (sex, money, status, accommodation etc.). But it has nothing to do with you as a person.
If the narcissist discarded you, they’ve already got their new life set up, completely decked out with new supply. They couldn’t care less about giving you closure. In fact, giving you closure isn’t even on their radar because it doesn’t benefit them in any way.
If you try to appeal to their conscience as to why you need the narcissist to give you closure, it’s time to accept the truth that a narcissist has no conscience. There is no way for you to make them have any concern for you and be willing to give you closure.
| READ: Can a Narcissist Be Remorseful? → |
They Must Wield the Power
If you show your hand by revealing just how much you desire to get closure from a narcissist, they will only use this information against you.
No closure from a narcissist is all about power. Their ego truly believes that they are a God-like being, who has the power to giveth and taketh away as they see fit.
For the narcissist, feeling powerful and in control of you and your emotions makes them feel extremely important. It shows that even outside of the relationship, they still have control over you because they are that significant. Wielding control over closure feeds their ego and extracts more life force energy out of you.
They Wish to Punish You
If you ended the relationship with the narcissist, then you have triggered a massive narcissistic injury by way of rejection and abandonment, two of the narc’s biggest fears.
The reason they devalue you, crush your self-esteem and keep you bonded to them is ultimately because that’s the only way they know how to stop you from abandoning them. In addition to that, how dare you reject them! They are the most perfect ones, therefore any discard should rightfully be coming from them not you.
If the narcissist was the one to discard you, it’s because eventually, you ended up disappointing them. They believe they deserve a partner who is a 24-7 source of service and supply and you obviously failed them by not being good enough.
Either way, they’ve justified that you deserve to be punished!
| READ: Crying in Front of a Narcissist → |
To Validate Their Smear Campaign
As time goes on, your desperation from getting no closure with the narcissist makes you appear more and more unhinged. This gives the narcissist even more ‘proof’ that they are the sane one, which they will use to make you appear crazy in the public eye.
They think, “I must be so incredibly significant to be affecting this person so deeply.”
The narcissist will smear you in order to control the storyline and rewrite history so that people will validate their false version of events. This all serves to enhance their false image and destroy you in the process.
The narcissist needs to hear from everyone around them, “Yes, they are the crazy, abusive one. You’re right.”
Think of it as a stage show where the narcissist is the director.
The narcissist writes the script, which changes as they go while being in full control of all participating characters. But since the characters (flying monkeys) don’t realise they are being used as actors, the narcissist must work to get them to believe whatever their script says in order to keep the show running.
Then there’s you, sitting at the back of the theatre watching on, knowing that the whole thing is a sham. The narcissist knows that you’re there and feels so completely threatened that you’ll take down their whole show, so they must ‘kill you off’ to protect themselves and their production.
The more lies they tell, the more they manipulate mutual friends and family into believing that their made up version is the truth. And the deeper the narcissist gets into their own false reality, which has been completely fabricated by their ego, the more they believe it to be the absolute truth.
By this point, the narcissist is living in a world where you are the enemy and they are the victim. For them to protect this false reality (and their False Self), you must be annihilated so that you can no longer threaten the existence of their fabricated world.
Getting closure from a narcissist is futile, especially when your need for it works directly with their smear campaign, which is designed to crush you like an ant.
| READ: What are Flying Monkeys? → |
To Stop You From Moving On
The narcissist doesn’t want to give you closure because that means it’ll be easier for you to accept things and move on.
In the narcissist’s view, if they’ve owned you once, they want to own you forever. Even though they might not want you right now, that doesn’t mean they don’t want you sitting on the shelf waiting for them to return one day.
The more they withhold closure from you, the longer you’ll sit around wanting it and being left in a state of confusion.
By keeping you on the hook, maintaining No Contact will be much harder for you. This means that they can swoop back in with some manipulative hoovering tactics to insert themselves back into your world whenever supply is low elsewhere.
Remote Narcissistic Supply
Narcissists actually get off on thinking that you’re sitting around all day ruminating about them. It doesn’t matter whether you are or not, as long as it feels real in their made-up imaginary existence.
The thought of you pining over them, missing them, wondering what they’re up to and who they’re with all serves to remotely feed their ego. Even the mere thought of attention is enough for them to be gaining supply.
The sad fact is that by getting no closure with a narcissist, you are way more likely to suffer severely from C-PTSD. Obsessing over the shock, anxiety and sadness, along with the injustice and unanswered questions do psychically feed the narcissist with more of your life force energy.
This is one of the biggest reasons why healing yourself and getting your own closure from narcissistic abuse is imperative!
| READ: 15 PTSD Symptoms from Narc Abuse → |
The Next Supply Isn’t Locked In Yet
If the narcissist hasn’t fully locked in their next supply yet, they’ll want to keep their options open with you, just in case. At least they already have you trauma bonded and they know how to manipulate you like a puppet.
As exciting as new supply is for the narcissist, it can all get very exhausting pretty quickly. The ‘pretend’ person they have to be to hook in the new supply takes a lot of effort since it’s so far outside of the realm of who they truly are.
Sometimes the narcissist just likes to temporarily go back to the comfort of old supply so that they can take their mask off for a minute, but still be able to get attention and validation. And since they’re completely entitled, they don’t see why you wouldn’t let them back in for a little more use and abuse.
My ex-husband used to do this all the time in the early days after the separation. He’d come over to pick up the kids and slip back into all of the old habits of the relationship, hooking me in with the sense of familiarity. Once I realised that he still had no respect for me, still threatened and blamed me, plus still got me caught up in word salads and gaslighting, it was finally game over for me.
To Devalue Your Existence
Much like the narcissist worked to devalue you throughout the relationship, they will continue to do so even on the other side of it.
By not getting closure from a narcissist, you are left feeling dismissed, belittled and rejected, which can hold you in a state of unworthiness and shame.
After months, years, maybe even decades of giving everything you had to the narcissist, they have walked off into the sunset without so much as a backward glance. That alone is a very harsh, silent way of saying, “You’re worthless to me and you deserve nothing.”
It reiterates what they want you to think about yourself, which is that you’re unworthy and unlovable. They want you to feel so insignificant that you are unable to move on to a beautiful healthy relationship with someone else because that would cut out the opportunity for them to forever control you and pillage your life force energy.
| READ: 4 Stages of Narc Abuse → |
Should You Give the Narcissist Closure?
You might feel that if you give the narcissist some closure, then they’ll reciprocate the favour back to you. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but unfortunately, you’ll be sorely disappointed.
Or, if like me, you think that giving them a little closure may help them be a better person in future relationships, you’ll actually be dealt with more abuse.
In my case, I was the one to leave the narcissist after being with him for two decades. As you can imagine I was met with every manipulation tactic under the sun to try and get me to stay in his abusive grip. Rage, guilt, suicide threats, love bombing, devaluations, the whole nine yards.
The night before I left, he said to me…
“If there’s one thing you could change about the relationship, what would it be?”
Although I wasn’t fully aware of his covert narcissism at that point, I still instinctively felt unsure if it was safe to answer his question. But I thought, ‘I’ll just be honest as this might help him out in future relationships.’
So, I responded with…
“Well, I hate how you’ve always spoken to me like absolute rubbish.”
Well, the mindfuckery of a conversation that ensued was second to none.
- He started with…
“I don’t know why I do that.”
👉 Meaning – “It’s not my fault.” - Then moved on to…
“I never talk about it because I don’t want to bring it up again later.”
👉 Meaning – “I’m not taking responsibility for this.” - Finally ending in a rage…
“I obviously say something that triggers you, which means you say something to trigger me, which is the reason I snap and swear at you. It takes two you know, you’re not an innocent party here. But of course, I’m always the c*** aren’t I?!”
👉 Meaning – “It’s all your fault!”
He had asked me for closure and thinking that it would be helpful, I gave it to him. Yet he used my genuine honesty against me by completely shifting the blame right back onto me and avoiding any accountability for two decades’ worth of verbal abuse. His true tactic was to bait me into speaking my truth so that he could rewrite the storyline whereby he was the poor victim and I was the perpetrator.
He was true to his personality disorder, right up until the close.
A couple of months after I’d left and was still fielding his threats, hoovers, gaslighting and manipulations, he sent me a message one day saying…
“Hey, can I have a talk to you? I just want to get some closure on a few things… you know, just to help me move on.”
My insides lurched because I just knew he was trying to coerce me into a manipulative conversational corner, which was dangerous territory.
Here’s what I felt he was trying to achieve by grilling me in the guise of ‘getting closure:’
- He wanted to rewrite my memory of things that had happened so that he could control what I was telling other people.
- He wanted to catch me off guard with questions that had no right answer (which I’d already experienced with him and knew needed to be avoided like the plague!).
For example, he’d ask, “Did I ever make you feel like you couldn’t spend any money?”
If I replied with yes, he’d gaslight me until he was confident that he’d manipulated my version of events to suit his agenda. If I said no, then I’ve just okayed his false storyline. Therefore, if I ever come out saying that he was controlling with money, then he’d have the ammunition to throw back at me, “You said to me that I never made you feel that way. Why do you lie?”
Thankfully, that ‘closure’ conversation never played out because he found a new supply a week or so later, so he no longer needed to keep trying to extract energy out of me. He had a new, willing victim who was totally buying his whole, “Poor me, my wife and kids left me for no reason. All I do is help people and they just keep hurting me.” She was putty in his hands.
In conclusion, do not attempt to give the narcissist closure as they will just use it all against you in one form or another. Above all else, you will get no closure from a narcissist, so don’t grant them any more of your precious life force energy by giving them any.
How to Achieve Closure within Yourself
What you’re really seeking from the narcissist is justice. You want them to express that they’re sorry and you want to see that they’re broken in their new life without you, just to validate that you did truly exist to them.
But the truth is, they will never apologise because they don’t believe they need to. They’ve totally justified to themselves why you’re the one to blame for the whole demise of the relationship. And actually, they’re not broken without you at all because they’ve switched you out for a new, fully topped-up energetic source.
The only way that you’re going to get closure after narcissistic abuse is to grant it to yourself. You achieve this by accepting some incredibly hard truths and turning inward to heal yourself.
The narcissist’s whole game is based on controlling you through fear and guilt. They learnt how to locate your deepest wounds throughout the relationship so that they could painfully open them up and expose them.
One of the scariest things to a narcissist is someone who’s fully aligned with themselves and standing in their true power. The narcissist’s tricks cannot work on that person and their complete inauthenticity shrinks in the light of truth.
Once you make the healing of your wounds a priority, they will no longer have any ammunition to take you down with and they’ll have no choice but to move on to someone else.
How to find closure after narcissistic abuse:
- See and accept the narcissist for who they truly are, not who you thought they were or needed/ wanted them to be.
- Recognise your deep inner beliefs and programs, which drew you to the narcissist in the first place.
- Understand where you’ve handed your power away to sources outside of yourself, in the hopes of finding the love, approval and security that you’ve always been searching for.
- Acknowledge your deepest traumas and shift them out of your consciousness so that they no longer drive your current and future experiences.
- Know and truly believe with your whole being, that you are whole and complete exactly as you are (you don’t need anyone or anything to provide that for you).
- Move forward through life with your true, authentic soul in the driver’s seat, rather than allowing someone else to take the reins.
Removing the Wounds Energetically
In my own experience, healing with the help of a spiritual medium and coach (see below) has been the quickest and most successful way to clear the deepest of traumas out of my body for good.
If you’re ready to take the steps, your life will begin to shift in such a positive way, you’ll never look back. In fact, you may even begin to feel grateful for the narcissist to have come into your life and point out those very wounds that needed to go (crazy, I know!).
By this stage, the narcissist is so obsolete in your world that you no longer crave any closure from them. You are so good within yourself that you do not need them to see things from your perspective or understand how much pain they’ve caused you.
Because, let’s be honest, you were never going to get those things from them anyway.
Energetic Healing from
Narcissistic Abuse
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✭ Ask your guides questions & get direct answers
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Conclusion
For a narcissist to grant closure would mean for them to give up their whole false charade, stop lying and actually take responsibility for themselves and their actions. All of those things go directly against the narcissist’s ego. In fact, to be accountable and give closure would mean the complete exposure and downfall of their False Self, which is a fate worse than death to a narcissist.
They need their False Self in order to avoid sinking into who they truly are, deep inside. That is a scared, emotionally immature child who’s filled with self-disgust, shame and utter unworthiness. They would no longer be able to alleviate their pain by sucking out the life force of others. They’d become the epitome of seething resentment, anger and self-loathing, with no way out.
You will never get closure from a narcissist and quite frankly, you don’t need it. You are a strong, beautiful, authentic soul, which they can never be. You don’t need a narcissist to give you something, which you can totally grant for yourself.
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