Going through a big breakup usually means a lot more than losing a relationship or losing one person from your life. Often, we lose entire ecosystems — and seemingly overnight. Closure is elusive in general in a lot of breakups, and it shouldn’t always be the goal either. But there’s really a lack of closure when it comes to the other people brought into your life by your now-ex. I think of all the people who exited my life because of breakups and how neither of us knew our final conversations with each other were exactly that.
For me personally, a lot of these people show up in my dreams more often than any actual exes do. And if you find yourself similarly haunting by the ghosts of relationships past, you’re not alone! Here, seven queer people share who we miss from breakups other than our actual exes. (And yes, we all miss pets from past relationships, too. But for the purposes of their roundtable, we’re sticking to human answers.)
Thank you for writing, can empathize. What about pets? My ex kept the dog we shared and it’s so painful.
Ohhhgghh. These are all so bittersweet to read. I rarely miss my ex but I do miss her family, so much! They were somewhat emotionally constipated WASPs but damn they made me feel welcome and part of the family in a way I had never experienced before and probably never will again. It was nice to play at having a nice normal wonderbread family for a while. I don’t think they miss me at all but I sure miss them. Her brother, who had very similar mental problems to me (like… eerily similar) once kept me sane when an edible made me wayyyy too high and I thought I was gonna die! I truly miss that guy.
My ex and I had a dungeons and dragons group together that I ran, even though it was made up entirely of people I met through her. When we broke up, we said we’d keep playing, but then my ex got “too busy” and, when I reached out to the rest of the group about if we wanted to keep playing or start a new game or what, they all ghosted me. They were her friends first, and I mostly only hung out with them during d&d, but I had started to think of them as real friends and I cherished our games together. I had so many things planned for their characters that I know they were going to love. I’m at a point where I’m whatever about the ex but still feel like I need closure with those friends and the story we were telling together.