jQuery closest exclude self

Question

closest() will get the first element that matches the selector by testing the element itself and traversing up through its ancestors in the DOM tree. But I want

Answer 1

If you truly want only parent divs, then yes $(this).parents('.container') would work. If you want to look for the closest element and allow for it to be a sibling (which it seems might be what you are actually trying to accomplish) you can use $(this).prev('.container').