The stereotype is that some women begin living their single lives when they are already in romantic relationships with their partners. This is after they emotionally check out of a relationship before physically exiting. The additional stereotype is also that by the time a woman is leaving, she had persevered much and cannot take it any more.
On the flip side, the stereotype that some men begin withdrawing from a relationship can be heralded with signs such as staying out late, emotionally withdrawing and avoiding conversations, seeking comfort elsewhere as well as picking fights over molehills, thus creating mountains where there should be none.
For some men and women, they chose to stay until they are emotionally, financially and even spiritually ready to leave and so they bide their time. They begin planning on how they will ghost their partners- whether it would take them three months or two years.
But then, if you are one of these people planning your ghost moves, if you don’t want to be caught biding your time and confronted or convinced to stay in the relationship, here are some things you must never get caught doing if you intend on having a clean exit:
- Avoid posting cryptic messages on social media. There is no time or space for those targeted anonymous quotes that will give away your intentions.
- Don’t leave your social media platforms with the read receipts on. They will know you are ignoring their messages if they can always see you online and not responding. Remove those receipts and blue ticks.
- Do not begin playing balancing games of being either affectionate or cold. This is the first red flag to be noticed.
- Don’t cut off mutual friends because they might alert your partner that things are going sideways and they need to act.
- Be careful about what you say around mutual friends. They are the first in line to sell you out when it comes down to juicy gossip.
- Remove those location sharing apps you have on each other. Additionally, any shared devices should have your info logged out lest your digital history gives you away.
- Don’t leave any kind of evidence of your intentions lying around. Evidence could include a new contract to a new house, a new job in another location, new banking details and so forth. New moves will put your soon-to-be-ex on alert.
- Avoid overexplaining yourself, especially if explaining yourself is something you never used to do. It would immediately alert someone to a potential coverup.
- Avoid being defensive when you are questioned about something. This will draw attention to your behavior.
- Don’t let your money moves be loud. Don’t be caught with large sums of money in place of where you were never handling such amounts before. They will figure out you are planning something and you are not keeping them in the loop.
- Additionally, don’t drop the financial bills you have been handling. Pay them so that you can avoid debt conversations after you ghost them.
- Don’t cancel plans you made in advance using flimsy excuses. They will figure out you are bailing on them for no reason.
- Do not create fake emergencies to keep you away from your partner. Do not kill someone who died 10 years ago or celebrate the birth of a non-existent baby in the next town. This may end up backfiring on you when you can’t keep up with your lies.
- Don’t forget to block them on all communication and social media platforms. You want to avoid that ‘Hi” 6 months later that may lure you back into a relationship/situationship.
- Last but not least, don’t be too obvious about your plans to have a new start before you actually exit the relationship. Don’t give yourself away and probably get dumped first and faster.
