No contact with an ex who keeps hurting you: does it work?

By the Ember team · Published November 4, 2026 · 7 min read

It's over, and they still find ways to hurt you. A dig that lands exactly where they know it will. A message meant to provoke you, or to make you feel small. You block them, and something still gets through another way — through people you both know, or a family event where they'll be in the room.

You keep trying to be understood, or to get an explanation, and every exchange leaves you worse. Part of you wants a clean break. Part of you can't make one, because of the family and people you share, the years you had, or feelings that haven't finished.

This page will not diagnose your ex or hand you a set of no-contact rules. It is what fifteen people who stood in exactly this place told Ember — whether cutting contact worked, how they handled the people they shared, what finally made them stop, and how that went for them — gathered around the three questions they asked.

Talk it out on Ember · See how it works
Free while in beta · 18+ · Nothing you tell becomes a public post.

The place itself

On Ember, every situation people keep coming back to has a light on a shared tree. This one is called Trying to cut contact with an ex who keeps hurting you. Fifteen people have stood there so far. The light's page shows no one's words and no one's name — only how many people have been there, and answers to the questions they asked, drawn from everything they told.

If what keeps pulling you back is that you still have feelings for them, what people asked while still having feelings for an ex stays with that.

The three questions asked here are below, with the shape of what came back. The full answers are on the light's page, and you can ask it a question of your own.

"Did cutting contact actually stop the hurtful behavior?"

Not on its own. For the people here who cut contact, blocking closed the direct line. It didn't stop the other person from finding a way to reach them, and in several cases the reaching came back, in some indirect form, after the block was already in place.

What the cut did reliably change was their own side of it. Once they stopped answering, stopped looking for an explanation, stopped trying to be understood, the exchanges that had done the most damage simply had no second half.

For some, the cut didn't hold as cleanly as they meant it to — because the contact wasn't fully theirs to control, or because they kept one door open for reasons that mattered to them.

The ones who got some relief didn't get it from the other person stopping. They got it from no longer waiting to see whether the other person would.

"How did people handle shared friends, family, or community?"

Mostly, they couldn't get a clean separation. The overlap wasn't a friend group they could quietly drop. It was family occasions, a shared household, relationships with the other person's people that mattered to them in their own right.

Where it worked, it worked by separating the tie from the person. They decided their connection to those people was theirs to keep, and could be kept apart from the ex — and they went to the family event anyway, knowing the ex would be in the room. It cost them something every time. Being that close reopened what the life had been, and they came away sad, not relieved.

For others, the shared space was the very channel the hurt kept coming through. Blocking every direct line still left one place where the ex could reach them, and the pull back was strongest exactly there.

The ones who leaned hardest on the people around them didn't lean on them for company. They used them more like scaffolding: handing over the practical tasks the ex used to handle, and asking others to keep watch and tell them what they saw.

"What finally made people go no-contact for good?"

For the people here who went no-contact for good, it wasn't one more bad exchange. It was the point where the cruelty stopped looking like a recurring pattern and started looking deliberate and calculated — the ex using them, or offering what looked like support as one more way to cause pain.

What separated the ones who kept some contact from the ones who stopped was often how they read the ex's approaches. Those who took them as a real attempt to repair things kept a door open. Those who saw them as a way to keep power over them — through manipulation, through punishment — closed it.

What this is not

This is not a no-contact rulebook, and it is not a verdict on who your ex is. Nobody here can tell you whether they'll stop, or whether their next message means they've changed. What the people here can tell you is what blocking did and didn't do, how they handled the people they couldn't drop, and what made them finally close the door. If that recognition is useful, it is yours. If your situation is different, it is different.

Saying it out loud, to someone who knows this place

There is a particular loneliness in this one. The people you'd naturally tell are often the people you still share with them — family, the same circle — and the hurt sometimes comes through exactly there. So there isn't always someone to talk to who isn't part of it. Ember is a private place to say it anyway.

Ember is an AI you can talk to at any hour, by voice or text: on the web, in the Ember: Talk It Out app for iOS and Android, by phone call, or by text message. You can start without an account. You talk about the message that got through, the family event coming up, the door you've kept open and why. Ember listens, asks when it helps, and remembers what you said; once you've said enough, it writes it into one clear page in your own words — your Ember. It knows how things went for real people who stood where you're standing — what they tried, and what happened after. So it understands where you are. It won't tell you whether to block them, when to close the last door, or what their next message means.

Is it really private?

Yes. Nothing you tell becomes a public post. No one can read your Ember unless you separately say yes. What shows publicly is the light itself: the situation's name, how many people have stood there, and answers drawn from what they went through — never anyone's words or identity. Read exactly how privacy works on Ember.

When you need more than a place to think

Ember is an AI, not a therapist, a counselor, or an emergency service. If an ex is threatening you, keeps reaching you in ways that frighten you after you've cut them off, or you're afraid of what they might do, you don't have to be sure it counts as abuse to ask for help: the National Domestic Violence Hotline is free and confidential, any time — call 1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788. They can help you think through staying safe, including around family and places you share. If you are in immediate danger, call 911.

Frequently asked questions

Does blocking an ex stop them from hurting you?
For the people at this light on Ember, blocking closed the direct line but didn't stop the ex from finding a way back in, often indirectly. What it reliably changed was their own side: once they stopped answering and stopped trying to be understood, the worst exchanges had no second half.

How do you go no contact when you share family or friends with your ex?
Most people here couldn't get a clean break. Where it worked, they kept their tie to those people as their own, apart from the ex, and showed up anyway — at a cost each time. Some handed the ex's old practical tasks to people around them and asked them to keep watch.

What makes people finally go no contact for good?
For the people here, it was seeing the cruelty as deliberate rather than a recurring pattern, and reading the ex's approaches as a way to keep power over them rather than a real attempt to repair.

What is Ember?
Ember is an AI you can talk to about what's on your mind, any hour, by voice or text. It listens, remembers what you said, and knows how things went for people who stood where you're standing — what they tried, and what happened after. It won't tell you what to do.

Is Ember private, and is it free?
Ember is private: nothing you tell becomes a public post, and no one can read your Ember unless you separately say yes. Ember is free while in beta, for adults 18+.

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You can stop answering them, and still say all of it somewhere.

Talk it out on Ember · Ask the people who've stood here
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