Why do people ghost after intimacy or conflict in relationships?
Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma
Release Date: 04/27/2025
Can Love Survive When Illness and Grief Take Over?
Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma
What happens when illness and grief collide in a relationship? How do you move forward when the person you love has already turned away—and the end of your marriage feels like one more loss to grieve? In this episode of Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma, Angela Amias responds to a listener whose wife has asked for a separation after years of emotional distance, infertility struggles, and the ripple effects of chronic illness and loss. Angela explores: • How chronic illness can be mistaken for emotional withdrawal in a relationship • Why grief can change our capacity...
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Does loving unconditionally mean letting myself be treated like a toy?
Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma
Is unconditional love in relationships supposed to mean accepting hurtful behavior? What happens when someone is hot and cold in a relationship, leaving you drained and full of self-blame? In this episode of Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma, Angela Amias responds to a listener who wonders whether unconditional love means staying in a relationship that feels confusing, inconsistent, and painful. Angela explores: Why hot-and-cold dynamics in relationships create such an addictive cycle How unconditional love differs from unconditional relationships Why boundaries in healthy...
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I ended a bad relationship. But now I feel stuck.
Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma
What if leaving a traumatic relationship doesn’t bring relief—but leaves you feeling numb, disconnected, and stuck in a new kind of grief? What if the part of you that once cared deeply now feels lost beneath the weight of emotional exhaustion? In this episode of Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma, Angela Amias responds to Heather, who left a painful relationship only to find herself in an unfamiliar state of apathy. She wonders how to begin the process of relationship trauma healing when it feels like she’s trapped in a bad relationship with herself—and the self she...
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She’s waiting for me to change. I’m trying to figure out how.
Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma
How do you fix a relationship when love is still there—but your partner is burned out from carrying the emotional load? Especially when you never learned the relationship communication skills you needed to begin with? In this episode of Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma, Angela Amias responds to Jazmin—a listener who’s in the healthiest relationship of her life, but now facing a painful turning point. Her wife is exhausted from years of emotional labor and waiting for Jazmin to do the work she couldn’t do earlier in the relationship. Now, Jazmin is trying to figure...
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Our Traumas Got the Best of Us. How Do I Break the Cycle?
Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma
How do you trust yourself to love again after a toxic relationship—especially when trauma got in the way of the love you had? In this episode of Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma, Angela Amias responds to a young mother navigating a painful breakup with her child’s father. The love was real—but so were the trauma patterns that made the relationship untenable. Now, she’s wondering how to heal, when to start dating again, and how to break the cycle for good. Angela explores: • Why even loving relationships can turn toxic when trauma is unhealed • The importance...
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He’s a black-and-white thinker. I see the gray. How do we talk?
Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma
How do you communicate in a relationship when you and your partner speak very different emotional “languages”? In this episode of Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma, Angela Amias responds to a listener who wants to improve communication with her husband—a man who prefers direct, black-and-white answers—while she tends to communicate with nuance and emotional context. Angela explores: • Why communication styles differ—and how to bridge the gap between them • The distinction between high-context and low-context communication • How people-pleasing and fear of...
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I want to be a better listener—but I can’t stop interrupting my partner!
Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma
How do you become a better listener when emotions are running high—and the urge to interrupt takes over? In this episode of Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma, Angela Amias responds to a listener who wants to stop interrupting his spouse during tense conversations—but finds it hard to stay quiet when big feelings are stirred up inside. Angela explores: • Why interrupting often stems from caring deeply—not from a lack of interest • How emotional discomfort drives the urge to respond too quickly • The role of the “inner translator” in distorting what your...
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After 15 years of gaslighting, how can I be sure I wasn’t the problem?
Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma
In this episode of Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma, Angela Amias responds to a listener who spent 15 years in a marriage marked by gaslighting—and is now left questioning whether he was truly the problem all along. Angela explores: • What gaslighting actually is, and why it’s so damaging • How gaslighting erodes your ability to trust your own reality • Why people who worry about being good are rarely the problem • How internalized voices of abusive partners keep us stuck in cycles of self-doubt • Why proving your goodness never leads to...
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Why won't my partner take emotional responsibility in our relationship?
Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma
In this episode of Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma, Angela Amias responds to a listener who’s grown through self-reflection and personal responsibility but feels stuck with a spouse who avoids doing the same. Angela explores: • Why trying to convince your partner to change often backfires • The difference between blame and honest self-reflection • What emotional responsibility looks like in healthy relationships • How to speak your truth without getting pulled into defensiveness • Why it’s not your job to manage your partner’s growth • What to do when...
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I grew up with constant fighting. Now I shut down during conflict. How can I work through this?
Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma
What do you do when your body goes into shutdown mode during relationship conflict—especially when you want to do better but feel frozen in the moment? In this episode of Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma, Angela Amias responds to a listener who struggles to stay engaged during difficult conversations with his girlfriend: shutting down, freezing, and going blank under stress. Angela explores: • Why your nervous system may interpret conflict as danger • How the “freeze” response is a trauma-based form of protection • What it means to expand your “window of...
info_outlineWhy do people suddenly disappear after a deep connection—or after a conflict? Is it about you, or about their own fears?
In this episode of Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma, Angela Amias responds to a listener who asks why men often ghost after intimacy or when tensions arise.
Angela explores:
- Why ghosting is often a fear-based response to vulnerability, not a personal rejection
- How trauma histories can make intimacy feel dangerous instead of safe
- Why conflict, even minor conflict, can trigger fight, flight, or freeze responses in relationships
- How ghosting can function as a desperate attempt to regain emotional control
- Why the search for closure often leaves us stuck—and how to create it within ourselves
- How to move forward when someone leaves without explanation
If you've ever been ghosted and found yourself endlessly questioning what went wrong—or blaming yourself—this episode offers grounded, compassionate insights to help you heal and move on.
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✫ Because love after trauma takes a different kind of wisdom—and you don’t have to figure it out alone.
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