How Does The Ghoster Feel After Ghosting Someone?

After ghosting, the ghoster can feel a variety of different emotions, such as guilt, shame, remorse, anxiety, self-doubt, and relief. The most common and powerful emotion they feel is relief as they’re grateful to have escaped a suffocating situation and given themselves the freedom to do what they truly want.

Whether they left a friend, a family member, or a partner, they finally regained control of their thoughts and emotions and feel empowered because of it. Ghosting lets them finally focus on things they want to focus on and enables the person they ghosted to take care of his or her own wants and needs.

A person who ghosts may occasionally feel bad for disappearing without a word, but guilt is usually not enough for him or her to contact the ghostee and apologize for the sudden disappearance. Guilt is enough only for the ghoster to think about his or her immoral actions and regret causing the victim pain and suffering.

Despite feeling guilty, many ghosters still prefer disappearing over having healthy, productive closure conversations. Difficult conversations trigger their anxiety and urge them to run away from responsibilities. They don’t learn from ghosting because they’ve been doing it all their lives. Ghosting enabled them to avoid talking about their feelings and helping the person they abandoned.

So if you want to know how the ghoster feels after ghosting someone, usually, it’s a combination of guilt, relief, and happiness. The ghoster wishes he or she didn’t have to ghost but still considers ghosting the only way of dealing with an uncomfortable situation. The ghoster thinks that ghosting is acceptable when emotions overwhelm him or her and trigger a strong need to run away.

Initially, right after ghosting, the primary emotion is relief. The ghoster feels a weight lifted off his or her shoulders and feels free and ready to move on and enjoy life on his/her terms. The ghoster doesn’t care about the ghostee as he or she believes it’s time to be happy and in control of his or her decisions and feelings.

Life is better than ever as the ghoster feels relieved for getting rid of the burden.

A few days later, however, the ghoster may experience guilt. Whether he feels bad or not, of course, depends on the ghoster’s conscience. If the ghoster has at least some understanding of right and wrong, the ghoster is likely to experience feelings of self-doubt and question his or her method of parting ways. The ghoster wonders if he or she could have ended the relationship differently and reduced the number of problems and amount of pain the victim experienced.

The ghoster doesn’t stress about his or her actions and the victim’s pain, but he or she does experience moral thoughts and more unwanted feelings. A few days post-abandonment, the ghoster realizes that he or she traded feelings of suffocation for feelings of guilt, shame, and self-doubt. This can cause the ghoster anxiety and the fear of running into the ghostee and being confronted about his or her behavior.

The ghoster may realize that ghosting solved some issues but caused others. It ended up making him or her overly cautious and scared of confrontation just because he or she didn’t have to courage to end things properly – by talking about it.

Therefore, it may seem like the ghoster has cut the past off completely and is having the time of his or her life, but do keep in mind that if the ghoster has at least some conscience, he or she will feel guilty for ending the relationship without an explanation. Not only will the ghoster feel guilty, but he or she will also worry about unexpectedly bumping into the victim and not knowing how to act.

Ghosters don’t think about the future before they ghost. They see only the benefits of ghosting (such as being in control of their actions and lives). They worry about the consequences of their ghosting afterward. That’s their karma for thinking they could get rid of all their problems by running away from them.

Karma tends to affect their conscience and forces them to think about their actions.

Their greatest fear is seeing their victim in person and feeling paralyzed. It’s one thing to get ghosted on social media, but another to get physically ghosted in person. Both are difficult but extremely tempting for people who don’t know how to address unwanted thoughts and feelings. Ghosters typically look down or away from their victim in hopes of appearing busy or not interested in talking.

They quickly break eye contact and pretend they didn’t see their victim. This kind of behavior reveals they feel uncomfortable and that they want to keep running from their unwanted emotions and problems. They don’t have the skills, willpower, and courage to confront them head-on and stop being uncomfortable and afraid.

If you got ghosted by someone you cared about, you need to understand that the ghoster won’t change anytime soon. He or she won’t learn to express difficulties and difficult emotions maturely and healthily because he or she just ghosted you and showed you he or she has no desire to change and do better. The ghoster will probably keep ghosting people until the same thing happens to him or her and causes pain and reflection.

It could take years or decades for that to happen, though.

Sometimes it happens sooner and causes the ghoster to apologize and want to come back, but that doesn’t happen very often. When it does happen, something goes terribly wrong in the ghoster’s life. Something that hurts the ghoster immensely and makes him or her think deeply about his or her immoral deeds.

Everyone is capable of growth, including ghosters. But they have to suffer a lot and have no choice but to evolve. If they’re forced to do things differently, they might learn from their mistakes and admit that ghosting is wrong.

I’ve seen people come back after ghosting. They were usually very apologetic, kind, caring, and patient. Something unpredictable and difficult happened to them that made them see that ghosting was disrespectful and unfair. Pain unlocked something in them that allowed them to put themselves in others’ shoes and gave them the motivation they needed to acknowledge their poor behavior.

Try not to expect anything from your ghoster, though. If you expect the man or woman to care about your feelings and apologize, you’ll keep waiting for something that may never happen. You could waste your time as many if not most ghosters don’t realize their mistakes. They may get in trouble, but they don’t suffer enough or have the capacity to understand their mistakes and shortcomings.

They tend to react to problems rather than give them some serious thought.

And that’s okay. The ghoster’s apology or return won’t matter to you forever. When you’re over the shock and pain ghosting has caused you, you’ll stop caring about whether the ghoster will come back and take accountability. You won’t care about how the ghoster feels after ghosting. All you’ll care about is yourself and those who remain in your life.

Right now, you need to process the ghosting. You need to understand the ghosting didn’t happen because you deserved it but because the ghoster considered it acceptable behavior. He or she felt pressured and thought it was the solution to his or her problems.

In this post, we discuss the stages ghosters go through after ghosting and how they feel during those stages.

Why do people ghost others?

Before we talk about the stages and feelings ghosters experience, we need to talk about the reasons ghosters do what they do. There are multiple reasons for ghosting, but the main ones are a lack of morals, care, empathy, and courage. They almost always have a fear of confrontation (due to something that happened in the past) and dread telling the truth.

They think the truth will hurt the person they can’t communicate with or resolve their differences with and bring a negative reaction out of him or her. That’s why they decide it’s better to avoid explaining themselves altogether and simply disappear. Disappearance allows them not to find themselves trapped in a situation with a person who makes them feel uncomfortable and scared.

It allows them not to face their fears and problems.

Ghosting stems from a lack of bravery and unhealthy habits. Many ghosters pick up their parents’ values and behaviors and ghost when they think there’s no quicker or better way to not deal with issues they don’t want to deal with. They convince themselves the person they’re about to ghost deserves it and that they have the right to be happy.

This kind of thinking makes ghosting okay in their minds and encourages them to be selfish and self-destructive.

Broken people break others

Ghosters are essentially wounded people. Something happened to them that made them afraid of confrontations and difficult conversations. Something like a bad romantic relationship, strict parenting, or self-victimization. Instead of hating them, you should pity them. Remember that they’re constantly fighting and losing internal battles and that they’re incapable of addressing (their) problems and having successful long-term relationships.

Ghosters like to think negatively of others and blame them for their unwanted feelings. They don’t understand they’re solely responsible for their emotions and reactions to those emotions.

Because they lack understanding of themselves, they tend to react to fear and emotions they don’t understand. It’s extremely challenging for them to empathize with someone (understand and care about his or her story and feelings) since they’ve been feeling overwhelmed and scared most of their life.

The instinctive reaction (first response) to emotional overwhelm has always been to run first and think later.

Breaking this pattern will take a lot of work. It will first require them to learn they have a ghosting problem and understand that they’re hurting people by denying them explanations. Once they’ve learned how ghosting affects people, they’ll have to get to the root cause of their ghosting and come up with ways to resist the urge to run away.

They’ll have to want to treat people fairly and have good/long-lasting relationships.

Therapy could help them discover their reasons for ghosting, but they’ll have to rewire their thinking themselves. They’ll have to develop self-awareness and the ability to respond rationally to emotionally charged situations.

Having said said, here are the stages ghosters may go through after ghosting.

1) The relief stage

The first emotion the ghoster experiences after ghosting someone is relief. The ghoster feels super happy that the person who smothered him or her for ages is finally and permanently out of his or her life. The abandonment triggered an immense sense of freedom, making the ghoster see only the positives in ghosting.

The ghoster sees that he or she can finally focus on him/herself and not worry about the ghostee’s emotions, feelings, problems, and expectations. The ghoster is finally free to think, feel, and do as he or she pleases and enjoy his or her life to the fullest.

How relieved the ghoster feels after ghosting depends on his or her conscience and self-victimization. The more victimized the ghoster feels, the more the ghoster blames the ghostee for forcing him or her to resort to ghosting. By self-victimizing, the ghoster justifies the ghosting and is able to enjoy his or her freedom and sleep at night.

Relief feels extremely empowering after the ghosting. It’s especially empowering if the ghoster and the ghostee had a romantic relationship. Ghosting after a serious relationship lets the dumper ghoster escape the suffocating relationship without talking and providing answers and closure. It makes the ghoster feel happy and in control of his or her life until the ghoster meets someone else and goes through a similar situation with him or her.

Ghosters tend not to handle intense relationships well. Relationships overwhelm them and cause them to gravitate toward people with fewer emotional reactions and romantic expectations. Many ghosters are avoidants or fearful avoidants. They despise strong connections and experience emotional fatigue. The only way they can be happy is to distance themselves from their stressors and feel relieved.

2) The guilt stage

Not all ghosters feel guilty as guilt requires a decent moral compass. But those who do tend to start feeling guilty days after ghosting. They realize they’ve confused and hurt the person who likes them and that he or she deserves at least an explanation for why they didn’t want to maintain the relationship anymore.

When guilt hits them, ghosters tend not to reach out and apologize. They don’t like how they ended things, but that doesn’t change the fact that they need space and want to stay away from the ghostee.

They still think the relationship needed to end and that they’re happier on their own.

Ghosters’ emotions constantly change. One day they feel happy and relieved and the other, they feel remorseful and unhappy. The thought of ditching a person who liked them makes them wonder if they’re bad people who can’t express themselves properly.

They don’t know how to forgive themselves and not feel guilty, so they try to distract themselves. They hang out with people who make them feel positive feelings and help them forget the past.

Usually, they’re quite successful at keeping themselves busy and not thinking about their immoral actions. But there may also be times when they can’t help but wonder if they’ve hurt the ghostee and made his or her life unnecessarily difficult.

The less busy they are, the more they regret ghosting and the consequences ghosting had on the person they abandoned.

3)The self-forgiveness stage

After a while (typically weeks after ghosting), ghosters are finally able to forgive themselves. They stop thinking about their ghostee’s problems and think about all the things they’re able to accomplish as a result of ghosting. They see that ghosting opened new doors in their life and that they needn’t worry about the ghostee’s feelings.

The ghostee can worry about his or her feelings him/herself while they think about their newfound freedom and independence.

When ghosters accept the situation fully, they finally alleviate their guilty conscience and move forward with their lives. They focus fully on themselves and those who fulfill them. The people they ghosted don’t, so they forget about them and enjoy their new life.

Most ghosters intentionally look for reasons to justify their ghosting. Some blame their ghostee’s personality or behavior whereas others blame their unfortunate circumstances and stressors. All ghosters, however, convince themselves they have to do what’s necessary for their happiness and that they’re better off without the ghostee.

Your ghoster did this too. He or she continuously reminded himself or herself of your negative traits and the things that weren’t working for him or her. This is how the ghoster was able to disappear from your life and stay away from you.

4) The regret stage (conditional stage)

It’s obvious that many ghosters don’t regret leaving the person they abandoned. The most moral ones regret ghosting (hurting the ghostee), but they don’t want the ghostee back. They’ve villainized the ghostee and self-victimized themselves too much to see the ghostee differently and want him or her in their life.

Only the ones who get hurt and engage in introspection realize that the ghostee was a good person, that he or she didn’t deserve the kind of treatment he or she received, and that they can benefit from reconnecting with the ghostee. Such ghosters often start feeling guilty late (weeks or months after ghosting) and may even reach out to apologize.

They’re in pain, so they may want their ghostee to forgive them and/or accept them back. They’d rather talk to someone they mistreated and abandoned than deal with their issues and pain alone.

Don’t wait for someone who ghosted you. By all means, learn what caused him or her to ghost you and if you contributed to it, but don’t wait for this person to return. He or she may never return. Most ghosters don’t because they convince themselves the ghostee is the issue and make it impossible for themselves to see the ghostee in a better light.

They want to keep thinking negatively of the ghostee to consider themselves victims and not feel guilty.

Also, don’t think about reaching out to someone who ghosted you. If you seek the ghoster’s attention, you will likely get ignored or blocked and feel even more because of it. Simply leave the ghoster alone and let him or her reach out to you if he or she wishes to do so.

What do you think about this topic? Share your thoughts on how the ghoster feels after ghosting someone.

Or conversely, if you want to confide in us about someone who ghosted you, reach out to us directly by subscribing to our coaching services.

Zan

My name is Zan and I’m the founder of Magnet of Success. I enjoy writing realistic relationship and breakup articles and helping readers heal and grow. With more than 5 years of experience in the self-improvement, relationship, and breakup sphere, my goal is to provide advice that fosters positivity and success and avoids preventable mistakes and pain. Buy me a coffee, learn more about me, or get in touch today.