I probably could have written the Modern Love essay, Exit Left, Wordlessly, in the New York Times. Not too I could have penned it much better than writer Aimee Lee Ball, exactly that I have a story which is frighteningly similar. Ball's tale is all about dumping a man only to have him resurface eight years later for round two. But instead of the happy ending that will ensue in Rom-Com Land, after a couple of months of \”too best to be true\” dating, the man disappeared from her life without explanation. \”No message. No note,\” she says. I make reference to this dating phenomenon as ghosting – whenever a man disappears with no trace.
\”Ambiguous loss\” as Ball calls it, is an especially heinous and cruel method to have a relationship end because you're left with no indication of what might have gone wrong.\”[It’s] unfinished business, without closure or understanding,\” Ball explains.
Once the man I was dating for the second amount of time in one decade dematerialized with no warning signs, I had been baffled. I quickly was bitter. Then I just walked around with an open wound that I expected would never heal. I'd try to tend to it, however i couldn't because I didn't know what kind of bandages to use. Explanations from him, I believed, will be the only aspect to result in the pain stop and also the wound close. However i knew intellectually I'd probably never get them.
\”There's a cauterizing process following any breakup, \” Ball says. \”Hardly anyone gets through life without hearing, 'I've met somebody else' or 'This isn't going the way I'd hoped.' Couples come to no more a road with each other for valid reasons or pointless, but they find a way to say so. Absent any saying-so, I began a lapidary process, chipping away at our history in a look for enlightenment.\”
I experienced my own search for enlightenment when the initial shock passed. I mined our time together for nuggets by what may have gone wrong. I came up with lots of theories. New theories constantly!
He got back along with his ex.
He relapsed on alcohol.
He didn't feel anything when he kissed me.
He didn't think he deserved me.
But the search for answers would be a fruitless one, as I'd never really know anything without a doubt. The ball found balm for her \”ambiguous loss\” by watching \”Mad Men.\” Don Draper's character reminded her of her ghoster – the person who only likes beginnings. I, on the other hand, poured over episodes of \”Intervention\” and browse all the addiction memoirs I could get my hands on. My ghoster was a drug addict and coming from a family (and relatives) containing no addicts, I did not understand the disease. Maybe basically had compassion for his illness, and understood his betrayal as a symptom, I would feel less enraged?
Not really. At least a year went by and that i still craved closure. Every couple of months, I had dreams where he showed up and that i asked him, \”Why? Why would you create a grandiose entrance back to my entire life after years only to screw me over again? What sort of a cruel person are you currently?\”
I fantasized about various scenarios of encountering him in real life. Would I kick him in the balls, spit on him, wave and on walking? A few months back, I finally did run into him. And when it happened, Used to do practically nothing. I pretended not to see him, rendered dumb and mute. I allow him to pass me by again, wordlessly. Next, I was forced to consider the possibility that maybe I did not want answers.
Have explanations ever made a break up less painful?
No. \”Reasons why we're breaking up\” are always bullshit. When you get to the crunch, the only real reason anyone is breaking up with anyone happens because a couple aren't right for one another. Grounds is a carefully constructed consolation prize to help assuage losing. Maybe I did not want answers if I got them, I'd need to go through the grieving process once again.
If that day, my ghoster had explained that he accidentally slept with his ex, or that he was afraid I knew an excessive amount of about him, or the way I kissed turned him off, wouldn't it have changed anything?
No.
Ball's moment of closure came when she considered the method by which her ghoster exited:
\”This man's method of ending things, I noticed, was as clear as an X-ray, not of bones but of character, and surgically clean from the platitudes, excuses and lies that often accompany a break up. The epiphany was one I resisted since it am easy to censure him. However in revealing himself that way, the cad actually did me a favor.\”
She seemed to answer the final question which was lingering i believe, the thing that is needed me cauterize the wound permanently. I do not really should know why he disappeared, I only have to know-how. And I do; there's nothing else to discover, forget about answers that will satisfy. His wordless exit may be the one thing I understand for sure.