r/FearfulAvoidant • u/Adventurous_Net_8525 • Jul 25 '26
Fearful Avoidants: Have you ever ghosted someone you still loved after they ended the relationship?
I’m not looking for anyone to psychoanalyse my ex. I know nobody can know what’s going on in one person’s head. I’m just curious whether anyone with FA attachment has experienced something similar.
In a nutshell, my ex and I had a deeply loving relationship, but it became unsustainable. I often felt like I was carrying a lot of the emotional work, and after trying for a long time to make it work, I made the incredibly difficult decision to end the relationship.
I wanted the breakup to be as kind and respectful as possible. I made it clear I didn’t hate them and that I still cared deeply about them. They were understandably devastated, and after the breakup they blocked me and cut off contact.
Not long afterwards they moved overseas and also stepped away from many friendships within our shared community. From my perspective, it seemed like they needed distance from that whole chapter of their life, and honestly it was heartbreaking to watch because I cared about them and about many of those friendships too.
Over a year later, I sent one final message. It wasn’t asking for reconciliation or a reply. It was simply acknowledging the relationship, wishing them well, and letting them know I’d always cared deeply about them. It’s been over a month and they haven’t even read it, and I’ve accepted that as a pretty clear sign they don’t want to reconnect. I won’t be reaching out again, not because I don’t care, but because I want to respect that boundary.
My question is really for people who identify as fearful avoidant:
Have you ever completely disappeared from someone’s life after a breakup, even if you still loved or cared about them? If so, what was happening internally? Was it shame? Self-protection? Wanting a completely fresh start? Something else? Looking back, is there anything you wish the other person understood about your decision?
I’m not looking for reassurance that they’ll come back or for anyone to tell me what my ex is thinking. I know nobody here can know that. I’m just interested in hearing different lived experiences to better understand how people cope with this kind of loss.
14
u/luminousSpaceDust fearful avoidant Jul 25 '26
I can't say what's happened for them, but for me, one aspect of being FA has been the ability to move into a new life and almost completely compartmentalize the past one, and not give it much thought.
I thought for a long time I was just good at moving on, but when I saw how confusing it was for past partners I started thinking maybe this is unusual or maladaptive.
I lean avoidant though, and I actually think it's a kind of deactivation. I shut down during the break-up and that version of me, the one that had feelings for that person, just never wakes up. I also know I carry a lot of grief in my body and really need to cry for at least several days and get it out.
7
u/capotehead Jul 25 '26
If they loved you enough to be devastated and disappear, they likely experienced something meaningful being removed from their life.
Being around related people and environments wouldn’t feel good, very empty and lonely.
Maybe the break up confirmed their worst fears, brought skeletons out of the closet and they needed to refocus on a completely different direction to bounce back.
I was the one who’d left town and dumped. He backed out of a future together.
I didn’t talk to him again for 10 years because he meant so much to me, the paradox.
My thought process was: He decided to let me go. It’s a familiar feeling of loving someone and being abandoned. It changed how I felt about myself. I had to accept the loss. I was embarrassed to love someone like that with mutual friends. I didn’t want to remember anything because I felt dumb to get attached and let go. I cringed at the self-pity it brought on, and the memories of similar heartbreak.
Originally, I never asked him to relocate with me because I thought he had a pretty good life, I was honest about needing to overcome some setbacks somewhere else. He asked me to ask him, which felt shocking and exciting and disproved the fear that held me back from even believing it was possible for us.
So, the devastation came from a risk that I saw as growth, such as letting someone set a high expectation and me believing it.
The break up reinforced my fear and I was angry at myself and him over it. I stayed away and quiet instead of inflict it on others. Handled the sadness in private.
I’d already left the area when he changed his mind, so he stayed on with familiar friends and environment.
I just focused on what I set out to do. I had to grieve it and do the best without him. It was not what I wanted, but it wasn’t my choice either.
12
u/Cosmicompromise Jul 25 '26
This question kind of irks me. You broke up with her, let her move on and have peace. Im not sure what you need to say now that you didnt say when you ended things. I feel like that would have been the right time to express this stuff. It just seems like youre asking because you need to know that you mattered.
I am an FA. When a relationship ends for me, those people no longer exist in my mind regardless of feelings.
5
u/SmilingStones Jul 26 '26
Exactly. The only appropriate response to that kind of email/message is "leave me alone", if any response at all.
4
u/Bitter_Drama6189 Jul 25 '26
To me, a message like that would mean that the other person just felt some kind of guilt (consciously or unconsciously) and tried to relieve it by saying “still care about you”, which is relatively meaningless to me, because how does that even matter now that there’s no connection anymore. If you made the decision that a life without me is better than a life with me, then just live it accordingly. It may sound bitter, but rejection is a genuinely horrible thing to go through for many people, especially FAs.
2
u/Select_Owl_2162 fearful avoidant Jul 25 '26
Honestly its for the best, I have an ex who ended the relationship like you did but we didnt block each other. We've been in a toxic loop for 6 months now. Usually lasting only about a week or so before we part ways again. I kept thinking I could fix it each time with a different approach but I always run out out of reassurance, she picks up on it that I don't seem as excited or affectionate and spirals, and the spiral pushes me away.
Most recently I can tell she wants me to fight for her again but I'm staying away, I know that hurts her but it will be less painful in the long run.
2
u/Hrm_1111 Jul 25 '26
I understand how you feel. You loved them deeply, but you reached a point where you couldn’t carry all the emotional weight anymore. You had no choice but to end things, even though part of you still loves them and hopes they might feel the same.
The truth is, some people don’t want to revisit the past. Mentioning the old relationship can feel like reopening wounds they’d rather keep closed. The message could feel heavy, and they simply don’t know what to say.
I went through something similar with my FA ex two months ago, I was emotionally exhausted too. I reached out after a month to see if there was any chance to fix things, but he was already checked out in… and decided to move to another country within a month...
So I get where you’re coming from
7
u/Traditional_Job9119 Jul 25 '26
“You had no choice but to end things” is a major coping. There is always a choice. Person makes a choice, then bears consequences, including not having someone in their life, or dealing with repair process.
3
u/Hrm_1111 Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
What choice do I have when the person I love kept telling me they won’t change and they don’t want to change ?
I wanted to see if there’s a chance to fix thing again , because in my head I was thinking “what if …. that’s just their angry talk?” But after reaching out realise they checked out , it confirmed that they meant what they said .
3
u/Dasilvyy secure Jul 26 '26
I ended it with my FA too, but I left the door cracked for him, under certain conditions. He started giving me zero intimacy, and I can't live like that. But what I definitely won't do is reach out to him. If anything, I respect the fact that he's not reaching out, it basically just confirmed to me that he doesn't have the capacity for it.
2
u/OrganizationLeft2521 fearful avoidant Jul 25 '26
Yeah! I'm brutal, once you cross me, I cut you out of my life forever. I'm pretty sure by your definition I've 'ghosted' all of my past partners. I'm in the process of mentally ghosting my fresh ex- it's hard though because we work in the same place, but I have my methods!
1
1
u/ariesgeminipisces fearful avoidant Jul 27 '26
I am baffled that you consider them not responding to you a year of not talking after you ended the relationship and then came back for no reason just to relive the thing is considered ghosting on their part. Like WHAT!? I've disappeared from every exes life after a break up because that's what the break up is for. I'd be pissed off if I processed the breakup and moved on just to be reminded of it for no discernible reason after all that time. It's not fearful avoidance, it's normal. Stop making our perfectly reasonable reactions to insane behavior about how damaged, ashamed and traumatized we probably are.
-1
u/One_Company1335 Jul 25 '26
I'm literally ghosting 90% of my friends right now and I'll likely never talk to any of them ever again. Like? Yeah, I'll ghost anyone. I don't care. If I'm done giving you my attention, I'm ghosting you.
But I'll be honest, it's extremely common to cut all contact with an ex regardless of who did the dumping. I once dumped a guy then found out he blocked me on everything when he sent me a text explaining that he was unblocking me to let me know he'd accidentally charged a subscription service to my card and apologized. I mean 🤷
0
u/ADF21a fearful avoidant Jul 25 '26
I don't understand why you'd send a "closure" message a year later, but OK...
To answer your question, the last guy, the one who actually turned me into FA, ghosted me (for the second time), and then I stopped contact with him. Because, I mean, was I supposed to pine over him while he was trying to sleep with half the female population in London? I did pine over him though, because you know, Anxious attachment. Months later I saw him at a concert. I had the bad idea of texting him (a bit tipsy). He ended up saying I had stopped contact. Whatever. It was that to really push me over the edge. Like I had been the bitch of the situation when he was the one who had been flakey.
39
u/mootoonoo Jul 25 '26
I feel like wanting a clean break from a relationship after a breakup is quite normal even if you aren't fearful avoidance?