Whether you should block your ex is a question about what your phone does to you, not about what your ex deserves, and the cleanest test I know is this: if seeing their name or their photo on your screen costs you an hour of your evening, blocking is a reasonable thing to do, and it is allowed to be as plain as switching off a light. You do not need a fight, a final message or a good reason that you could defend to anyone else.
If you are asking, I would guess something small and daily is already going on, like checking whether they have been online, or opening their profile while the kettle boils, and not feeling any better afterwards. That is useful information, and it comes from you rather than from a card, so I would start there and let the rest of this be company.
Should I block my ex or leave things open
Blocking is usually the right call when the contact itself keeps you stuck: when you refresh their stories before you have even brushed your teeth, when a notification lands in your chest like a dropped plate, or when you have written and deleted the same message so many times that the drafts folder knows it by heart. In those weeks the open door is not neutral, because you keep standing in it, and a closed door gives your attention somewhere else to go.
Leaving things open can be the right call too, and I do not think it is a failure of nerve. If you share a child, a flat, a business or a friend group, or if the two of you ended on honest terms and a message every few months does you both some good, then a full block may cause more noise than it removes. In that case a softer version often works better, and I will come to it below, because there are more settings between everything and nothing than most people use.
What I would gently question is blocking as a performance, done in a hot hour so that they will notice, or unblocking as a test to see whether they have changed. Both of those hand the decision back to them, and the whole point of this one is that it is yours.
What blocking actually does for you
Mostly it removes the small daily choices. Every time you resist looking, you spend a little of the morning, and by evening there is less of you left for the things that are actually yours: the friend who rang, the soup, the book you were halfway through in September. A block takes the resisting off your plate, the way putting biscuits on a high shelf does more than a good intention ever will.
It does not make the missing stop, and I would rather say that kindly now than have you discover it on day three. You may feel worse for a few days, because the little hit of checking was also a little hit of company. That does not mean the block was a mistake. It means the habit was doing a job, and you are finding a new way to do that job, which is exactly what you were hoping to learn how to do when you asked.
The softer settings in between
Muting their posts and stories, archiving the chat, turning off read receipts, taking their name off your home screen and moving the app into a folder on the last page all count, and so does unfollowing without saying a word. These keep the door technically unlocked while taking the light out of the hallway, and they suit the person who is not sure yet and would like to find out how it feels before deciding anything bigger.
You can also set a time limit instead of a permanent verdict. Thirty days is a good length because it is long enough for the first sharp edge to wear down and short enough that nobody has to swear to anything. Put the end date in your calendar, and when it arrives you can look at what you want with a clearer head and a few weeks of ordinary evenings behind you. If you are already trying to stop texting, this piece on how to stop texting your ex goes through the first nights in more detail, and no contact day by day is a gentle map of what the weeks tend to feel like.
If you are afraid they will see it as a message
Some people hold off because a block feels like a loud sentence, as if it says something to the other person. On most apps they will not be told, and if they do notice, I cannot know what they will make of it, and neither can anyone else. What I can say is that you are allowed to look after your own evenings without giving a reason, and that a quiet decision about your own phone is not a statement about anyone but you.
If you notice you are weighing how it will look from their side more than how it will feel from yours, I would take that as a small sign that your attention is still living at their address. That is nothing to be ashamed of, and it is also a good sign that some distance would help.
Unblocking later, if you want to
A block is not a vow. Plenty of people unblock after a few months, usually because they have stopped caring whether the name is there, and that is a nice milestone in its own right. The moment to check is a calm Tuesday, not a lonely Saturday night, and the question is simply whether you can see their name and carry on with your cup of tea. If you can, you have your answer, and if you cannot yet, the shelf is still there and so are you. The quiz on whether to text your ex is a quick way to hear how you feel about it, and why you still miss your ex is worth a read on the days the missing is loud.
Your step for tonight
Tonight before bed, take your phone and decide one setting: mute, archive, unfollow or block, whichever feels like the smallest honest yes, and set a reminder for thirty days from now that says only, how are my evenings. Then put the phone on the other side of the room and leave it there until morning. You have already shown a lot of good sense by asking the question at all, and you know more about what you need than you are giving yourself credit for.
Come back and tell me how the first evening went, and if the answer is that you looked anyway, that is an honest answer too, and the setting will still be there tomorrow.
Clara
