Why do people just "disappear"?

[Diagonally]

This is happening to me at the moment and I am finding it incredibly distressing. Have been seeing the person for 7 months and as there has been no contact now for over a week and he has read messages in that time, I am pretty certain he is not in contact because he doesn't want to be, rather than he can't.

There are some difficult circumstances going on in his life ATM but I am finding it difficult to be compassionate when he just seems to have cut me off. We only saw each other the weekend before last and planned for me to go to his this weekend. He wouldn't even answer when I left a message asking whether I should make the travel arrangements or not.

I need to leave it be now, I know, but I am so desperately upset.

Thank you, I have been pondering all these replies which does make it easier actually, even though lots of different opinions and experiences there is probably something in all of them.

Conclusions I've come to so far..

• SGB I am definitely not a "stabber" even metaphorically. I'm not a "must get revenge" kind of person in life generally and not in relationships either. I get angry at obvious things but generally if anything I do the feeling sorry thing too much.

• I do tend to wear my heart on my sleeve rather so if he had done this in person I think I would have got upset and he probably would have too - so an e-mail or text might have suited the situation better - that's what I asked him to do if possible, when I left him a VM. I've managed to finish with people myself knowing they would be really upset, and it went better than I feared it would, and I've also been dumped in person and by phone several times, and I didn't go round the loop because of it. I think when you recognize someone is being dignified and brave and honest with you, it's easier to react in a dignified way back.

• I don't think I was being jerky or PA although I do admit to the full spectrum of behaviours in close relationships - in other words I probably do a bit of everything like most people do - I can be a bit sarcastic sometimes, suffer a bit from anxiety and I do cry when I'm particularly upset, but when serious discussion is required I try to go about it in a mature way.

• In terms of where we on the same page, well this is an interesting one. I thought so. It was an LDR and there was a lot of travel involved. Effort in visiting each other was definitely 50/50. As we'd got to know each other we'd had a number of conversations about things like when would be the right time to introduce DC, how might we merge our lives in future (due to the distance), dreams and hopes we had for the future, that kind of thing. I would say probably more initiated by him than me but on balance pretty equal, as the interest and attraction seemed very mutual immediately, so it was sort of a natural progression, really. I'd say where we were at before this happened, was happy to continue doing the travelling for a while longer - probably years rather than months due to our circs, but with a view to joining our lives together at some point in the future if things were still going well. There was no pressure on either side to progress faster than that.

But like I said he'd had some not so great financial news which was related to his divorce and seeing each other as frequently would have been harder for a period of time. Although i think there were some workrounds available, he'd obviously decided he didn't want to discuss them. Hard to think someone would just cut their losses like that without trying to find a solution, but probably only hard because I must have just wanted it more than he did and he hadn't really given me any indication that was the case.

A shame the way he did it caused me more distress than I think it needed to, because I had this agonising week of worry and that horrible sinking feeling when it could have been over in a few seconds of text.

And yes, it is definitely over.

Oh and he better not try and come back to haunt me because we work for the same company so i can't block him completely. Don't know, I've had two exes do it to me before but I'm not sure if he's the type.

Oh gawd at working in the same company , poor you.

Does this mean you'll have the opportunity to give him evils?