16 People Who Were Ghosted By Their Long-Term Partners And Left With A Lot Of Questions
We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community who have ever been ghosted by someone they dated for a long time to share their stories. Here's what people revealed:
1."I was dating a guy for five years before I came out as lesbian and started dating a woman. He became my best friend while she and I raised her son together for six years. She and I broke up amicably, but then I noticed she stopped responding to me. I was still hanging out with my ex-boyfriend/best friend until he suddenly stopped responding to me. I found out three years later via the internet that they had gotten married around that time and had a baby. My entire family knew about this but never told me. Two people ghosted me at the same time."
2."We had been living together for a couple of years when he lost his job. He decided to take a solo camping trip to clear his mind. He was supposed to be gone for a week but never returned. A month later, a mutual friend told me he had moved to another state. He left me with all his stuff and HIS DOG."
—Anonymous
3."A year and a half into the relationship, he just started ignoring my messages. He'd say we would hang out later, and then he wouldn’t get back to me. He promised to spend the holidays with my family and then made excuses for that, too. He also skipped a New Year’s party I held. When I finally reached him, he said he had to think about things but refused to talk with me. A few days later, he woke me up with a text (!!) before the sun was even up deciding we were done. I’ve always wondered if this was because I had found a tumor, and he didn’t want to deal with emotionally supporting me. Thankfully, it was benign…not that he stuck around to learn this."
4."I'm the one who ghosted my husband of three years. I came home from a particularly difficult workday to find him lying in bed with another woman. I turned right back around and went to sleep in my office. I waited for him to leave for work the next day, quickly packed up all my things, and blocked him on everything. We’ve been communicating via his mistress, aka my SISTER."
—Anonymous
5."I was with him for three and a half years. The last nine months were long-distance. We spent family vacations together; I spent time with his children. The last time we got together, his children and parents came with him and stayed at my house. I couldn't get off work, so I was working all day, and they were hanging around the house in pajamas, watching TV, and making a mess of the kitchen. We texted a couple of times after that, but then he stopped answering my texts. Sometimes, he would do that when things got busy, so I didn't care too much. Then, one month later, it was my birthday and nothing! No text, no call, absolutely nothing!"
"The day after my birthday, I tried calling, and he sent me to voicemail. After several unanswered calls in a row, he finally texted, saying he'd call me later. I still hadn't gotten a call three days later, so I tried again. Still nothing. Finally, about a week after my birthday, five weeks after we last saw each other, I texted about the things he left at my house (clothing, golf clubs, motorcycle accessories). I typed, 'What do you want me to do with all your stuff?' His reply was, 'You can just donate it.' And that was it. Nothing else. Ever. I wish we could have had a closing conversation, especially after we had looked at diamond rings about a year before the ghosting, but I guess that would be asking for too much."
—Anonymous
6."I had been with my S.O. for almost three years, and we'd lived together for six months. I was in grad school, and I had the opportunity to do a semester abroad, with the possibility of staying for longer. We talked about it, and they encouraged me to pursue it. We agreed to try long-distance and maybe they would join me someday. So, I accepted the offer and moved abroad, but as soon as my first week rolled around, I noticed something was wrong. They barely texted back, and the two times I tried to call them, they didn't answer. I sent them a text asking about it, and they apologized, stating they were very busy with work (like I was not busy, having moved to another country and doing a Master's). They said they'd try harder to be available. That was the last message before they went silent. It's been seven years, and I haven't heard from them since."
7."I've sort of been ghosted. I dated this guy for four years, and he was supposed to move with me for grad school but decided to delay moving. He was supposed to visit me for the weekend and never showed up. The next day, he video-called me and dumped me. He'd visited the previous weekend and told me how much he loved me. On the call, he gave me some BS about how he planned to move to NYC and get a super prestigious job (completely out of the blue) and immediately blocked me on everything. I was devastated for a while, but then I mailed him his stuff with a 'good luck, buddy' note. After a couple of years, my friend checked out of curiosity, and he never moved."
—Anonymous
8."We were together for seven great years. We talked about kids and marriage and looked at houses together. We were both in our 30s, had good jobs, and were ready to make things official. I found out I was pregnant and told him, and he said having kids right now would ruin our lives. He said he would take me and pay for an abortion. We decided we couldn't go through with the abortion, and I thought everything was all good. The last time I saw him was eight days before I gave birth. I kissed him goodbye and wished him a happy birthday. That was the last time I heard from him. By the time I got to work, I was blocked on everything. I gave birth at the height of COVID-19 to a beautiful baby boy by myself. Four years later, he's still the best decision I've ever made, and we are doing so much better without his sperm donor!"
—Anonymous
9."He was cute, charming, funny, and charismatic. He was covered in tattoos and had eyes I could (and did) get lost in. We met in the fall of 2001. Both our chemistry and attraction were noticeable to everyone around us. There were rumors of us hooking up, but unbeknownst to those people, we didn't because we lost contact with each other. We met by fate two years later on a telephone chat line on Christmas 2003. I thought I had the perfect guy for me (with a few issues), but that wasn’t the case."
"Over the course of nearly 20 years, between his cheating and mind games, almost losing my career, and his six-year prison stint for a crime he committed in self-defense (public defender didn't see it as such), we broke up, got back together, and broke up again. Finally, things started to feel better during the summer of 2020. For years, promises of a future and sweet texts were exchanged, usually in the morning, while he'd go quiet at night.
I tested him. We got into ANOTHER argument, and I gave him yet another warning about how karma would come for him if he didn't treat me with respect. One week turned into two, which turned into five. He didn't call, and I had no desire to call him either. Finally, he called a week before his birthday, and I purposely waited over a week to contact him. I could tell he was mad, and I didn't care.
I found out he started dating a married woman who, in the end, chose her husband over him and set him up to be killed, which he survived. In the summer of 2022, we reconnected after ghosting. What I once found attractive made my skin crawl, and I had an anxiety attack. I couldn't breathe when I saw him; my hands were shaking, and I thought I was going to die in his presence. After seeing him, I raced home, relieved to be in my own safe place, and the next day, I realized I was ghosted yet again, this time for good. I was hurt, angry, confused, and sad. I didn't understand how or why this happened again.
Ghosts are better off left alone. It's been two years, and I got my dream job, bought a new car, and continued to rebuild personally and professionally. I've pursued my interests, one that led me to a producer who featured me on his podcast discussing pro wrestling. I've also reconnected with a past love, and I'm packing up my apartment to move in with him at the end of this month. Things are great and keep getting better. As for my ghost? He's 45, still living at home, riding around, picking up women in bars, and trusting total strangers. Me? A weight has been lifted, and I'm better than ever."
—Anonymous
10."I (28F) was dating my partner (28M) for a year and a half. Everything seemed to be going fine. One day, he came home after work with a folded-up piece of paper, handed it to me, told me to read it, and then left without explanation. He broke up with me using a vague, hand-written letter and refused to answer my calls. A month later, he was Facebook official with another partner, so I can only assume that was a thing, and he just didn't have the heart to tell me. I messaged him roughly a year later, asking to meet for closure before I moved away to grad school, and he told me he had only recently begun thinking about what he did and how it must have made me feel. That was the closure I needed. He was undoubtedly the most emotionally stunted human being I've ever met. Now, I am extremely grateful he broke up with me because I cannot imagine myself fulfilled with someone like that. Still very inconsiderate."
11."We had flirted for a year and decided to start dating officially on March 2. After that, she decided on April Fools Day that she was not interested in women and blocked me mid-conversation. Five days later, she returned to the boyfriend she had before me. We had a strong bond before dating, and she just decided, 'I never loved you like that.'"
—Anonymous
12."I dated a girl about 12 or 13 years ago for a year and a half. We lived in the same city for the first half of our relationship, so it was good. Then, she moved about an hour and a half away for a job. She still came home quite a bit, so we still talked. Then, the excuses started. 'My phone died.' 'I didn't have good service.' 'I canceled my phone plan to save money, so I can only text on Wi-Fi.' I was young and dumb. This went on for a few months. I don't believe in breaking up over the phone, so I had to wait until the next time she was in town to break it off. By then, I considered myself single and stopped trying since she clearly wasn't. Not much changed in my daily life when we did break up, but I was finally free to start pursuing other women."
13."My ex-fiancé ghosted me. We met in late 2019 and started dating in early 2020. He was on active duty in the military and was ordered to change stations to Europe in 2021. When it came time for him to leave, we discussed our future and agreed to a long-distance relationship. This was still the height of the COVID restrictions, so we didn't know when we'd see each other in person again. We would FaceTime all the time and talk every day. When restrictions were lifted, I flew out there to visit him in July, and he proposed. I flew out there again in December for Christmas, and while on my way to the airport, he called me, saying he didn't know if he could continue to do long-distance. I still flew out there, and we talked everything through together. I thought things were fine between us after we talked."
"I flew out there once more in June 2022 to see him, which ended up being the last time I saw him in person. We'd been together for two and a half years at that point, engaged for one, and while there were some issues due to long-distance, I didn't think anything was off. He was supposed to fly back to the States for Christmas and had sent me the flight confirmation and everything. When his flight was taking off (at 2:30 a.m. Eastern time), he texted me a long message blaming me for his stress and saying he couldn't do this anymore. I was completely blindsided.
He planned this because he sent the text message and then had me blocked on everything immediately after the message was sent. I was confused, blindsided, hurt, and desperate to know what was happening. I reached out to one of his coworkers, who was of a higher rank than him, and for two weeks, I asked him to have my ex-fiancé call me. I was going through all the stages of grief while not knowing what was going on. He finally reached out in early January 2023 and said he was burnt out and didn't know what to do. I was trying to work things out with and support him, but it was all manipulation on his end.
By June 2023, we had fallen back into the same routine we had before, and he was supposed to visit me for a month so we could reconnect. He did the same thing a week before he was supposed to fly to the States. He texted me and said he needed some time because of a stressful email, then blocked me everywhere. Turns out, he was cheating on me with multiple women the entire time he was in Europe. I got my stuff back, sold the ring, and haven't looked back since. However, I have been in therapy. How can someone do that to someone they say they love and have been in a long-term relationship with? I was questioning everything and didn't know what to believe. I didn't even trust myself.
Not knowing what was happening/why it was happening and feeling helpless, especially being thousands of miles away and relying on calling/texting or social media to contact him in the first place, took such a toll on my psyche. I wasn't sleeping and wasn't eating. It took me a while to trust myself again, and therapy has been beneficial."
—Anonymous
14."I was very close friends with this girl at an all-girls boarding school. She was openly bisexual, and I didn't know I was a lesbian yet. After we graduated high school, we shared an apartment together very briefly. I realized I had romantic feelings for her after she broke up with her then-boyfriend. When I was ready to tell her, she got back together with her ex-girlfriend. I didn't think I could remain her friend and hold in my feelings for her while they were together. I decided to tell her how I felt and let the chips fall where they may."
"I had to tell her online because she was traveling and unavailable for a phone call. She replied that I could return as her friend once I overcame my feelings for her. She refused to have a conversation over the phone or in person. This was exclusively over DMs and email. I never saw or heard from her again after that. All our mutual friends chose her in the 'divorce.' She didn't keep it quiet either, and I was essentially outed despite not necessarily being ready to tell everyone I was gay. I was 19.
It royally messed me up for someone I had known intimately during my formative years to abruptly exit my life without any in-person rejection or proper goodbye. To this day, I find myself subconsciously bracing for relationships to end suddenly. It takes me longer than average to relax and fully trust relationships. Fortunately, I have an incredible and patient girlfriend of almost five years. We're planning a life together, and I couldn't be happier."
—Anonymous
15."I had this friend for approximately eight years, and we both had some feelings for each other. We would talk every day, though it was long-distance. Even so, we were pretty close. One day, I said I had a crush and got the response, 'I'm very attracted to you and feel love towards you, but I don't have a crush on you. Crushes cloud the judgment.' I apologized, and we agreed just to keep going with the friendship. They said everything was cool. NOPE. After that, the talks became less frequent, and when I asked if something was wrong, I got accused of being dramatic. When we did speak, it was all minimal and calculated. Usually, messages that previously took five minutes to answer took weeks to get a reply, and the replies were filled with contempt and apathy until they eventually turned to no replies at all."
—Anonymous
16.And: "I was dating a man from Brazil. We had both been married previously and were starting to date again. We had some definite communication issues, including a language barrier, but it was only a problem if we didn't have our phones to help us translate. We lived about two and a half hours from each other, so we met about every other weekend. We had fun together, like dancing, camping, and traveling. I met his Brazilian friends, and they were all amazing people! He, of course, was still learning English, so I took up Portuguese on Duolingo. I could make basic sentences."
"We spent a year and a half together, and then he wanted to have a discussion. He wanted to know what I thought about getting married. We decided we would eventually get married but would move in together first. It seemed best for me to move to his city, so we started researching apartments. About a month later, I saw a post on his second IG account, and the person filming him in the video was a woman I had never seen before. I sent him a message asking about it, and he blocked me on everything: Facebook, IG, Messenger, and phone. I never got an answer as to who that woman was. I'm very grateful we never found an apartment."
—Anonymous
UGH! I'm so sorry to everyone who went through this. If a long-term relationship has ever ghosted you, tell us about it in the comments or through this anonymous form.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
