Your Absence Taught Them How Valuable You Are

Channel: Gentle Path Forward
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4Vsf5lEEco

The therapist's claim: people often only realize your value once you are gone, whether an ex, an employer, or coworkers, because absence shifts their attention to what they took for granted.

Key points

• Cites a 2013 study of long-distance relationships (measuring closeness after contact, communication mode, satisfaction, commitment, uncertainty, vs geographically close couples) and extrapolates it, including to people no longer together.
• They reach out of the blue: distance/absence makes people idealize you and focus on your positive qualities; the trigger that drove them away is gone, so they remember your kindness and realize they took you for granted. It feels random to you but follows a lot of internal processing for them.
• Work value: a project or business that declined after you left (example: a 5-year business handed to a brother that failed in 3 months) shows your contribution was holding it up, not vindictively but factually.
• Divided responsibilities: overachievers mixed with perfectionism and anxiety often do the work of three or four people for one salary without realizing they are overfunctioning. After you leave, multiple people must split your load. The speaker advises slowing down since you are not paid extra and it harms your mental health; a company paying several people to replace you proves you were valuable and cheaper to keep.
• Rebound contact: an ex who jumped into a rebound but still reaches out is avoiding admitting how much your absence hurt; they realized your value and do not want to lose you. Getting back together is framed as the viewer's choice.