During my last serious relationship, my then-boyfriend would semi-regularly recall out of nowhere. One of his favorites was that she kept several domesticated pet cockroaches in her dorm room. (Too close for comfort, IMO.
) Whenever , he’d bring up Cockroach GirlTM and compare how she would’ve handled our current conflict differently, even though he broke up with her shortly after they made their . Yet, there I was, almost two years into relationship, living together and losing my mind over the ghosts of her and her cockroach farm. I’m not the only one whose partner’s ex has unknowingly haunted a long-term relationship.
went viral on the app after sharing how one of her guy friends still brings up his ex-girlfriend. “Even though they broke up five years ago and haven’t spoken since, he still thinks about her all the time, and he is happily in the best relationship he’s ever been in his life,” she says in the video. Hundreds online, including therapist , stitched the video and examined how the scenario is a classic case of the .
The term “phantom ex” was initially defined by and , in their book , as a past significant other that your current partner frequently dwells on and compares to you. A phantom ex can appear in a relationship when one partner has a persistent emotional attachment to that person, and their memory seeps into and impacts the stasis and health of their current relationship dynamic. But they’re not attached because they’re still in love.
