I guess if I’m being honest it is because there is some part of that hopes her presence will lead to some situation where she shows up and tell me this nightmare is over.
If anyone on this site (or any other) tells you they never had these thoughts from time to time after BD - they’re lying. It’s totally normal mate.
Don’t try to fight it or hide it. The key with managing these thoughts is to do it for a short, fixed amount of time each day (search my post about rumination on my exercise thread). You let your imagination run wild for say 10 mins, then once your time is up, you get on with your life.
You need to reframe how you think about avoiding contacting her. At the moment, you say it as if it’s something terribly hard to do and you can’t get by.
Think of avoiding contact as depositing a small amount of money in the bank each day. At some point in the future, you’ll either be back together or you’ll be divorced and happy again. Avoiding contact each day is a small deposit towards that end goal. It will actually bring you resolution (however that might look) more quickly than if you find an excuse to make contact. Making contact undoes all that good work - like withdrawing all the money you’ve been saving and gambling it away.
Fours years in, I still have the occasional dream where my ex appears, begging for forgiveness and desperately trying to win me back.
Ironically, for me now, that is not a pleasurable daydream like it once was - but a horrifying nightmare 🧟♀️😳🫣
