Did you ever end a relationship without saying good bye?

No. I don’t know how to do that.

Why not send a “long time no hear from note,” shoot the breeze a bit and ask how things are going along in that person’s life? Often times life just changes in some way and then many things shift around that change.

Nope, although when I saw my ex wife for the last time, I didn’t hug or shake her hand. I simply said “cya” and walked away. This was when we moved out of our place.

I did this because at the time, I hated her guts and couldn’t bring myself to act like an adult and say bye the normal way.

A few yes .. it’s not that easy to not have closure.

@smilingheart1 I sent a note a year later.

Nothing.

Have you done this? Did you have a reason for it? That’s what I’m asking about.

@Hibernate—why did you do it that way?

There was somewhat of a bad situation between us. When I decided it was time to end it I found out they moved to another country. And they didn’t leave an address or phone number for contacts. So I feel bad now because I let it like this even if it was for a few weeks .. I can’t change it now.

Okay, confession time!! In my defence, I was only 17 & clearly a poster boy for the “young dumb & full of come” generation.
This girl i’d been seeing for a few months had this gorgeous sister &.........well, you can do the math. Long story short, the sister caught us one evening & let rip. She was literally beating me over the head with her shoe. I had no option but to defend myself & I don’t hit women, so I poured a jug of water over her head & fled the scene.
Needless to say, there was no goodbye :¬(

To me it’s a matter of caring. If I don’t, I can walk away and never look back, and have. It’s cruel and selfish but when I don’t care I mean it and as the closure is in that realization, there’s no hesitation.

However, that has been a very rare happening as I tend not to let relationships devolve to that point and because of it I usually feel the other person deserves an explanation, even when it’s obvious, as I would want the same.

I can see where some people would “just disappear” because they feel they can’t deal with the situation otherwise, to hurt the other person, because they don’t understand how painful that lack of closure can be, out of fear, accident, etc.

Sometimes it’s even unintentional, so much time passes and one just doesn’t know how, or is afraid, to begin again. I’ve always found that to be particularly sad.

Yup. The person in question was an ingrained pain in the ass and we got tired of it. It’s easy.

No. Never did that with face to face relationships and of the online kind, it’s seemed pretty obvious to me when people “move on” to knew infatuations or whatnot.

Yes, but none of them were internet relationships.

(1.) When I was 21 I briefly dated a much, much older man. I knew the relationship would never go anywhere and I wasn’t interested in sleeping with him. One day, I had plans with him for that night, and I got a phone call while at work that a friend of mine had committed suicide that morning. I was very upset and didn’t call the guy to cancel the date. He called me, angry for blowing him off, and when I explained the situation, he yelled, “You couldn’t have called me to cancel fucking hours ago?! I’ve been holding a table at one of the best restaurants in the city—”

I hung up on him. He emailed and called me to apologize multiple times. I never talked to him again.

(2.) An old friend moved to where I live. The last time I had seen her things had been weird; I had gotten in a huge fight with her boyfriend at the time (they had since broken up) and the friendship had mostly disappeared.

So she was moving close by, newly single, and wanted to reconnect. I hung out with her a couple times, and she was really needy and difficult. I brought a friend to a dinner party and she got drunk and insulted him to his face. She never apologized, and the next time I talked to her, she got really angry at me for not spending enough time with her and demanded I make her more of a priority.

So I stopped talking to her. She tried to contact me multiple times but I didn’t see the point. I just never responded.

I try not to ever do that to another person, I find it selfish cruel and callous, but other people as you know do it and have no issue with the fact that they do… So to avoid being accused of being a stalker on top of everything else, I don’t usually mess past finished anymore.

As long as “finished” is clearly defined. Which at times, people saying nothing at all is finished and it should be left there I say. If people care… they try. If they don’t they do not.

Sort of. But 18 years later I said goodbye.

@perspicacious Better late than never I say!

I suppose I did and didn’t in a way – family relationships have been ended without any closure as such. Luckily, I’m getting closure in my own way.
In terms of friendships and intimate relationships, I’ve never ended them without a goodbye.

I’ve not had the most romantic experience but I’ve had enough to understand I don’t want more. I had one relationship that I was planning on ending (don’t get me wrong, I loved him, he just didn’t return the feelings) but he brought it up first. We never really said goodbye because I guess we planned on staying good friends like we were prior to the romantic relationship. But he just pretty much stopped talking to me, stopped coming over to my house. I’ve tried to talk to him about how I [still] feel but he just promises we’ll talk about it next time we see each other. But nothing ever happens….