How do you get over being ghosted (especially when you thought you were too old for it)?

Every month, we share your doubts, questions and desires with our network of specialists to analyse what’s holding you back and to see how you can overcome it.

Welcome to the Coaching Couch!

If there’s one word we would add to the 2023 edition of the Dating Dictionary, it’s ghosting. If you’ve not heard of it, ghosting is when someone disappears out of your life suddenly and without explanation. This phenomenon is something that many single people have experienced as soon as they tell their date that they have a child (or children!). If you’ve been ghosted, you may know how much it can damage your confidence in yourself… and in the people you date.

Today, our coach is Margot Fried-Filliozat, a sex therapist, writer and speaker and she’ll be guiding us through getting over ghosting and moving on with your inner peace intact.

Even : Margot, why does it hurt so much to be ghosted?

Margot Fried-Filliozat:  When someone stops responding to us, it of course hurts a lot to feel rejected without knowing why. Very often, at this moment our mind throws itself into deconstructing everything, replaying the relationship to try to understand “What did I do or not do? What did I say to upset him/her?” All our fears run wild. But rarely do we say to ourselves that the other person wasn’t emotionally available or that they weren’t ready for commitment.

Even : Perhaps we’re more focused on our own fears after all, rather than on the other person…

MFF : Exactly. Starting a new relationship always activates our fears, our beliefs, our limiting thoughts about ourselves, all the more so if we feel vulnerable and lack self-confidence. I’ve observed in many of the people who come to see me that they often ask the question “Will they like me?” rather than “Will I like them?”. When we’ve been through a break-up and we’re out of practice at dating, it’s very understandable to feel insecure. So we concentrate on wanting to please and on receiving general validation, instead of what we want and how we want our lives to be going forward.

• [You should ask yourself] What do I want?
• For the other person to find me attractive or to be with someone who’s emotionally available?

Even : Have you ever come across ‘ghosting’ with any of your clients?

MFF : Absolutely. One of my clients had been on several dates with a man and had started to build a relationship with him, but from one day to the next she stopped hearing from him. She sent him some messages but he never replied.
Six months later, she received a message from him explaining that his dad had died suddenly and from then on he had become withdrawn, didn’t feel capable of interacting with others any more, had fallen into depression and had only just started to come out of it.
We need to open ourselves to the possibility that the person who’s ghosting us may have reasons that are actually nothing to do with us.

Even : What should we do when we find that we’ve been ghosted?

MFF : We should ask ourselves two things:

• Firstly, what part of this am I responsible for? Perhaps I projected my fears onto the other person? Maybe I was cold or distant without realising it? Maybe I had the fear or belief that ‘I’m not worthy of being loved’, ‘I’m not attractive’, and so on. Maybe the other person felt that in my behaviour, or perhaps I was constantly testing them to see ‘If they really love me’? It may be that the other person had had enough and distanced themselves. That’s what I call a ‘fair’ responsibility, to not say to yourself “I’m useless” but rather to ask if you could work on healing these wounded inner parts of yourself and to be truly available and conscious when building a new relationship.
• Then, the second aspect to this question is to be aware that the other person really exists. Perhaps they panicked, they realised they were not emotionally available, they weren’t attracted to you and they didn’t know how to say it. Don’t forget that this person isn’t just a him or her, they’re a real person! Also, not everyone on dating apps ghosts other people, many people are capable of explaining why they don’t want to continue communicating.

Even : You could almost say that being ghosted does you a favour…

MFF : Of course, it’s always better and fairer if a relationship ends with a discussion. This allows us to close the chapter, understand why it’s over and stops the person who’s been ghosted from obsessing deeply over it. But, if the person doing the ghosting doesn’t have the necessary interpersonal skills to set boundaries or explain how they feel, it’s normal that a relationship with them would reflect that.

If someone ghosts you, they’re not emotionally available. Isn’t it better, therefore, that the relationship ends now?

Even : And to finish up, how should you handle being ghosted after several dates, when it seemed like the beginning of a real relationship?

MFF : I’d say that it’s much more rare to be ghosted in this type of situation… without any warning signs. The problem is that at the beginning of a relationship, we want to believe. We don’t want to see red flags like ‘I’m not really ready to be with someone’, for example. We don’t listen to where the other person is at and we may think that with time, it will change. When we begin a relationship, we need to give ourselves permission to be honest. By dreaming too much about the situation, we lose sight of reality.

Thank you to Margot Fried-Filliozat for her advice and don’t miss her latest book [in French] Intimate Intelligence.

Margot’s advice for new relationships:

• Ask yourself first of all what you want, rather than trying to win the other person over at any cost
• Be honest about the situation and pay attention to where the other person is at
• If you feel the need, heal your inner wounds to put yourself in a better place to have a healthy relationship
• Remember that the other person has their own fears and limiting thoughts about themselves and that it’s not all about you