u/Tigalad

I’m struggling with the aftermath of what I guess technically counts as ghosting, but emotionally it feels more complicated than that.
I was in a deeply intense relationship with someone I genuinely loved and was planning a future with. Earlier this year he moved to my town, we were looking at flats together, talking about building a life, and I honestly thought I’d found my second chance at love.
Then over a relatively short period of time he completely withdrew. There was huge stress in his life around work and serious family issues back home, and from what I understand he became emotionally overwhelmed and shut down. The last time I properly saw him, he told me “I just can’t deal with it” and that I had no idea what was happening with his family.
I don’t think he did this out of cruelty. I genuinely think he lacked emotional capacity and withdrew as a form of self-preservation. But the outcome for me has still been devastating.
It’s now been almost two months of no real contact. I still think about him every day. Every part of my town reminds me of him because we built a life together here so quickly. I wake up missing him, want to tell him things during the day, and still struggle to accept that someone who felt so emotionally central is suddenly absent from my life.
The hardest part is holding two truths at once:
I believe he loved me.
And he still disappeared from my life.
I’m in therapy now and trying to understand my attachment, why the relationship became so emotionally consuming for me, and how to rebuild myself without him. I’m functioning better than I was at the start, but honestly some days I still feel like I’m grieving someone who is emotionally alive in my heart but unreachable in reality.
Has anyone else experienced something similar — where someone withdrew not out of malice, but overwhelm/shutdown? And if so, did it ever get easier to carry? Did they ever contact you again?