How To React When Your Loved One Suddenly Disappears

A Story About Ghosting

There isn’t a nice way to end a love affair: either it is the wrong moment, or it’s explained with the wrong words, or it is unexpected. For both members of the couple it is a painful experience. Yet, I think the worst breakup is based on ghosting. Your boyfriend suddenly disappears; from a real person he becomes a ghost, because he chooses to do so.

Some time ago, I was dating a nice man who lived in the United States. We couldn’t meet very often, yet in that phase of the relationship it didn’t seem to be a problem at all. I felt the relationship was growing and things were going quite well.

It all changed one day, when I couldn’t speak to him on the phone. We lived in different time zones, so it was not always easy to get the right time for a call: when I went to bed, he started working. But that time he didn’t call back on the same day, or on the following day.

Strange, I thought. The first doubt I had was: maybe something bad happened, like a problem at work or worse, a car accident. Maybe he had a family constraint. He must be in trouble. His telephone is not working, or he lost it. He had to leave on a business trip and couldn’t find the time to inform me.

I know it sounds ridiculous.

I thought about everything to avoid the worst-case scenario: he doesn’t want to speak to me, he might not love me anymore. It’s over and he doesn’t dare to say it. He simply chose the fast way: disappearing, better and easier than making up casual conversations or saying it directly. Days became a week. When I called his office, his colleague told me he was not there. Was it the truth?

Then a deepest pain and awareness started creeping in, followed by offense. In fact, to avoid facing a difficult conversation, he put me in a worse situation: I had to understand his plans, to react, to face the end of the story without knowing why. It gave me a lot of doubts on myself and affected my self-esteem: maybe I did something wrong, I said the wrong words, I disappointed him. Or maybe he met another person.

It is very complicated to survive a ghosting. Now I find it a lack of respect and of affection. It is like getting rid of you dog before you go on holiday, and he keeps waiting for you in the middle of nowhere, and he doesn’t understand. I know it is difficult to explain why love ends, there is never a specific reason, but people need to be respected even more, when you are causing them pain.

Waiting is the most common reaction you can have, yet you might give yourself a time limit. And, instead of passively waiting for some message out of the blue, you might react and force a reply: wait for him out of the office. Call him when he doesn’t expect it. Call his friends. Force him out of his secret hole. You don’t need to get obsessive. Just ask him to give you some deserved explanation. Listening to his words may be painful, but it gives an answer. Then you can start facing the lost.

Your time is valuable: the sooner you overcome the loss, the better. It is also a way of closing the relationship: saying “It is over” forces him to know you are not there waiting forever. He can’t come back in the future with some excuse. The end of a love affair is part of your story. It is a death. There are steps to take before you accept the saddest truth: nothing lasts forever. You must face pain to overcome it, and not anesthetize it. One day, talking about that experience will not be difficult anymore, like it is for me, and you will be ready to love again.

In fact, if my American boyfriend hadn’t suddenly disappeared, I wouldn’t have met the love of my life!