After a breakup, nothing is more powerful than silence. Silence communicates in your stead and says that you’re keeping yourself together, focusing on activities and people who matter to you. It shows that you respect and love yourself and that you won’t reach out to an ex and beg for forgiveness, validation, and emotional support.
Although your ex will initially appreciate silence and won’t even realize you’re gone, your ex probably won’t feel that way forever. Thoughts and feelings could change when your ex fully processes pain, suffocation, anger, resentment, and discontent and sees the breakup from a different/healthier perspective.
That’s when your ex could realize that he or she treated you unfairly and that you deserve at least some respect for everything you did for the relationship.
You may not have done everything right and been the ideal partner your ex wanted you to be, but you loved your ex and remained committed to the relationship nonetheless. Unlike your ex, you never stopped valuing the relationship and showed no desire to break up and date someone else.
When things go south, your commitment to the relationship could start to weigh on your ex’s conscience. It could happen once your ex sees that you’re not chasing and feels that the relationship and the friendship aspect are gone completely. Your ex could basically feel guilty, nostalgic, or lonely—and decide to get in touch to see why you’ve been silent all this time.
It’s not a guarantee that your ex will reach out, but many dumpers do. They become curious about their ex and wonder if their ex is happy or happier without them and than them. If they see their ex happy on social media or hear it from their friends, they may do something about it.
They may reach out, unfollow, or even block their ex. It’s impossible to say what they’ll do because it depends on their maturity, envy, jealousy, and ways of dealing with unwanted thoughts and feelings. Every person is different, so don’t assume your ex will follow a specific pattern.
Therefore, the power of silence can affect your ex in numerous ways. It can influence your ex’s emotions and consequently, his or her perceptions of you. When you leave your ex alone for good (not just temporarily), silence could give your ex enough space and time to think about his or her words and actions and your pre and post-breakup behavior.
Slowly, your ex’s opinion of you could change in such a way that your ex goes from not wanting to speak to you to being curious about you and wanting to know what or who is keeping you entertained.
If you don’t do anything to embarrass yourself and go silent shortly after the breakup (respect your ex’s boundaries and yourself), your ex won’t find any additional reasons to remember you in a negative light. Your ex will likely just remember the bad times (at least for a while) and continue to keep his or her distance.
Once your ex has processed the past and let go of it, your ex will then need to encounter a problem he or she can’t get through on his or her own. When that problem comes, your ex could finally see that he or she took you and parts of the relationship for granted and decide to reach out.
Whatever you do, don’t expect your ex to reach out without a reason. Dumpers need a good motive to reach out. If they don’t find a good motive (if they just feel bored or curious), they could breadcrumb their ex and make their ex’s life even more difficult as a result.
You don’t want your ex to reach out to talk about random things that don’t interest you. You want the power of silence to change your ex’s opinion of you and trigger sentimentality and cravings for a better future. That’s when your ex can reach out to you and talk with care and respect.
So bear in mind that the power of silence can take time to work. It can take months to make your ex curious about you and years to make your ex fail in life and regret leaving you.
Unfortunately, silence on its own likely won’t make your ex feel any differently about you. All silence will do is give your ex time to explore life and determine if the life he or she chose is better than the life he or she left behind.
If it’s better or about the same, your ex will stay on the path he or she is on. Your ex won’t feel the need to indulge in recollection of past events and doubt his or her decision to leave.
Your ex will question his or her choice, happiness, and feelings only if your ex fails to find happiness without you and wonders if you can help him or her reach relationship and personal goals. Nostalgia and longing for a better life will then make your ex reflect on the relationship and want you back to feel secure.
I know you want your ex back now (not months or years later), but you have to be patient and wait. Wait for something or someone to let your ex down and recreate his or her romantic feelings for you. When your ex feels love for you and desires your closeness, your ex will come to you and show interest in working together as a couple.
Until then, remember that silence is more powerful than any words and actions. Silence shows that you value yourself and respect your ex’s feelings and decision to leave. It also encourages your ex to take back control of his or her life and chase happiness wherever he or she wants – even if it involves other people.
Texting, calling, sending presents, crying, and begging, on the other hand, will show that your self-esteem took a toll and that you can’t or don’t want to accept the breakup and leave your ex alone.
The purpose of silence after a breakup is that it prevents you from doing things that suffocate your ex and lower your ex’s respect for you. Silence shows that you accept your ex’s lack of romantic feelings and makes your ex entirely responsible for his or her happiness and success in life.
If your ex fails (as many exes do), your ex won’t be able to blame you for failing and feeling unhappy anymore. He or she will have to take accountability and rectify the mess he or she has caused.
If you stay silent, rebuild your self-esteem, and retain your worth, your ex could notice your strength and want to leech off it. Simply put, your ex could stop playing the blame game and return to you to obtain reassurance and feelings of safety.
Your job as a dumpee is to understand and preserve your worth. You may not be able to change the past, but you can use the power of silence after a breakup to invest in yourself and prevent your ex from getting annoyed with you.
The better you handle the breakup (the fewer breakup mistakes you make), the higher the chance that your ex will respect you, become curious about you, and give the relationship another chance when 💩 hits the fan.
In today’s article, we talk about the power of silence after a breakup. We discuss how silence can affect your ex’s negative feelings, improve your ex’s perception of you (or not make it worse), and help you recover emotionally.
The power of silence after a breakup
The power of silence after a breakup can work in your favor, provided all the conditions are met.
Firstly, patience is essential. Expecting it to work in a week or two is unrealistic and extremely unlikely to happen. It’s much more likely that silence will take weeks, months, or even years to work. Its success depends on how your ex processes negative breakup emotions, how mature your ex is, and what your ex does in his or her spare time.
If your ex dates and tries to start a new serious relationship, the power of silence could kick in sooner compared to an ex who sits at home all day and doesn’t take any risks. Someone who dates after a breakup could experience an emotional low after a high, feel victimized, hurt, and nostalgic, compare the past to the present, and ponder his or her next move.
Secondly, you must stay committed to staying silent. If you cave into anxiety and break the silence whenever you feel tempted to reach out, you’ll reveal emotional vulnerability and show you’re still around, waiting for your ex to take mercy on you and mend your broken heart. Every time you break the silence, you’ll destroy the positive effects silence has had on your ex and ruin your healing progress.
Thirdly, the power of silence after a breakup also (if not mainly) depends on your ex. If your ex doesn’t want to let go of the past and is incapable of maturing emotionally, your ex will likely continue to blame you for everything and sabotage his or her growth. Your ex has to want to grow and be open to seeing the good things you’ve done for the relationship.
He or she has to have a certain level of self-awareness and maturity in order to give you credit for the things you did well throughout the relationship.
Don’t expect your ex to come back solely because of silence (no contact). Silence on its own doesn’t do much. It merely gives your ex time to cool off and see if he or she has made the right decision to leave you. Of course, your ex won’t deliberately compare his or her current happiness to happiness from the past.
This will happen only if your ex has difficulty loving himself, loving someone else, reaching his goals, and dealing with unwanted thoughts and emotions.
Dumpers reflect and come back not when they’re happy but when they’re unhappy and lack the skills and determination to fix their problems (on their own). They return and beg for forgiveness because they notice their ex’s worth and consider their ex the only person in the world who can help them with their issues.
In breakup terms, they see their ex as a backup plan who can take their problems away and make them happy in the quickest time possible.
Don’t be afraid of being your ex’s backup plan when your ex wants you back. Be afraid of being his or her backup plan when he or she doesn’t want you back and merely wants to be your friend. By falling into the dreadful friend zone, you could allow your ex to give you false hope, string you along, and continue to make you dependent on him or her.
No matter how tempted you feel to converse with your ex, silence is the best way to go about it. Use the power of silence after a breakup to your advantage by keeping your ex in the dark and making him or her wonder what you’re doing and how you’re feeling.
Your ex will think about you and respect you more if you remain mysterious and reveal little or nothing about your post-breakup life.
Post-breakup silence has multiple purposes. Most dumpees go silent to give their ex space, make their ex curious, and reattract their ex. Only the most experienced/knowledgeable dumpees understand that silence is meant for them to detach from their ex and indirectly make their ex curious about them.
Curiosity can over time increase to nostalgia and fear, provided they leave their ex alone and let their ex run into bigger problems than he or she can handle.
So if you’re trying to get back with your ex, feel free to rely on the post-breakup power of silence. Let silence tell your ex that you’re not going to chase and embarrass yourself for an ex who lost feelings and desire to work on the relationship.
If you stay silent long enough, your ex will see that you’re set on staying away from him or her and capable of taking care of your needs without his or her presence and assistance.
This, on its own, won’t make your ex come running back, but it will force your ex to respect you and consider you an emotionally strong person he or she can rely on in times of need. Your ex could, of course, just use you for emotional support and relationship perks without committing to you, but your ex could also rediscover your romantic value and want to be exclusive again.
You need to stay in no contact and continue to enhance your self-esteem and independence. The longer you stay away from your ex, the better you’ll feel and the higher the chance that your ex will hit a snag and want your help and closeness.
Silence after a breakup is permanent. It starts with a breakup and ends with reconciliation or friendship. If you can’t or don’t want to get back together and be friends, you should keep your distance and do things that increase your zest for life.
With that said, here’s what the power of silence after a breakup can do for you.
What if silence doesn’t affect my ex?
There’s no guarantee that post-breakup silence will make your ex regret dumping you and want you back. It could just make your ex feel nostalgic and guilty (or less guilty) and let your ex move on.
Silence doesn’t always reattract a detached ex. Sometimes it gives the dumper the space to self-prioritize and not worry about the dumpee.
Despite that, it’s important to go silent after the breakup. Let your ex do what he or she wants so that your ex doesn’t feel smothered and blame you for the way he or she feels. You must understand that silence is the most powerful tool after the breakup. If silence doesn’t create the results you want, it doesn’t mean that communication (the opposite of silence) will.
Communication and a lack of silence will only give your ex more power and put you at your ex’s mercy.
No matter how successful the power of silence after the breakup seems, you must stay committed to it by remembering that sometimes it takes months or years for it to work. It takes that long because it waits for the dumper to experience difficulties and need the dumpee to make his or her life better.
Breaking silence prematurely is not advisable. Although your ex could process the breakup and want to talk by the time you reach out, it’s unlikely that he or she will want you back as well. It’s much more likely that your ex will feel empowered by your reaching out and directly or indirectly reject you and hurt your feelings again.
So avoid breaking no contact just because it seems like no contact might not be working. Even if it doesn’t seem like it’s working, it’s giving your ex freedom and happiness (the things your ex wants). Your ex must feel in control of the breakup and life in general until something shocks your ex and shows him or her that life will be difficult without you.
It’s okay if your ex doesn’t come back! In the worst-case scenario, the power of silence after a breakup will help you move on and be happy again. It will show you that you matter and that life goes on with or without your ex.
You probably can’t envision a life without your ex at the moment and want your ex to heal your broken heart. That’s perfectly normal. Continue to stay silent and away from your ex—and your opinion of your ex and yourself will gradually change. It will change from needing your ex to be happy and not loving yourself to understanding your worth and being okay without your ex.
The power of silence after breaking up will slowly but surely take care of you. Put your faith in it and it’s only a matter of time before you reap its rewards and recover from heartbreak.
Are you wondering how the power of silence after the breakup can help you cope with the breakup and get your ex back? What are you hoping post-breakup silence will do for you? Share your expectations in the comments below.
However, if you want to discuss the effects of post-breakup silence with us, check out our selection of coaching options here.
My name is Zan, and I’m a writer and a breakup analyst. I write relationship and breakup articles and strive to strike a harmonious balance between empathy and realism. If you appreciate my content, feel free to leave a comment or support me by buying me a ko-fi.
