If you’re reaching out to your ex and getting ignored by your ex, you’re supposed to get hurt like hell. You’re supposed to suffer immensely and struggle to love yourself. This is because you got used to being with your ex, developed plans/relationship goals with your ex, invested in your ex, and created feelings and high expectations of your ex.
Now that you’re no longer together, you don’t just want your ex to value you and be with you. You need him or her to be with you to feel validated and important. The love and support you received throughout the relationship gave your life meaning and released happy hormones into your brain.
It made you extremely happy and provided a sense of safety.
Because you got so close (attached) to your ex, you can’t instantly replace these hormones and feelings. You have to learn to live without them until you slowly wean off your ex and find your own strength and purpose. It will take some time to be happy without your ex and stop caring about what your ex is thinking, feeling, and doing, but time is on your side.
Time will show you that there’s more to life than your relationship with your ex. I know this is hard to believe, but it’s true. The longer you stay away from your ex and the harder you focus on yourself, the less you’ll need your ex to love you and commit to you.
Right now, you’re having a hard time coping with the breakup and your ex’s behavior because the breakup broke your heart into a million pieces and made you emotionally dependent on your ex. Your ex showed you that your emotional investment didn’t matter to him or her and that you’ll have to cut your losses and rely on yourself for self-love.
Obviously, you’re not ready to rely on yourself. Your heart still belongs to your ex. That’s why every time your ex says or does something that goes against your expectations, you feel unwanted, abandoned, and hurt.
Your ex’s undesirable behavior shatters your fragile self-esteem and utopian hopes for reconciliation. It puts your ex higher on a pedestal and stalls your healing. The worse your self-esteem is, the more you can expect your ex’s ignoring to hurt you and hinder your recovery.
You must understand that you’re currently in the process of recovering from the breakup. The only problem is that you’re trying to recover and feel better with the help of your unreceptive ex. You want your ex to respond in ways that empower you, boost your damaged self-esteem, and do the work for you (get rid of the pain).
Unfortunately, your space-deprived ex doesn’t want to do that. He or she has priorities outside of the relationship and wants you to rely on yourself or find help elsewhere. He or she doesn’t consider him/herself your go-to person anymore and thinks the breakup cleared him or her of moral responsibilities.
Responsibilities such as:
- talking to you
- supporting you emotionally
- keeping you company
- and giving your life purpose
Your ex can just focus on himself or herself and let you deal with the breakup yourself.
So if your ex is ignoring you and it hurts, you need to ask yourself why your ex is ignoring you. I’m not saying you should find out why your ex is the person he or she is (although that could help too), but you should figure out why you’re putting your ex in a position to ignore you.
Why are you reaching out, stopping your ex in public, or interacting with your ex online and putting your ex in charge of your feelings and healing? Are you hoping that your ex will pay attention to you and take you back? Are you scared your ex will meet someone else? It’s okay to be scared. But it’s not okay to act on fear.
Figure out what you’re trying to accomplish so that you can look for different ways to reach your goals and get rid of your unwanted feelings.
At the moment, you must understand that your ex isn’t interested in helping you feel better. He or she is enjoying post-breakup space, freedom, and happiness. Your ex will feel relieved for a few months and leave you with no choice but to rely on yourself and others. Literally anyone will do a better job than your ex at helping you feel better and get your life back in order.
In this post, we discuss why your ex is ignoring and hurting you and give you some valuable tips.
Why is my ex ignoring me?
Let’s get some things straight. Your ex is ignoring you because your ex has all the power. He or she dumped you and feels in total control of the breakup. Due to detachment, anger, bitterness, or resentment, your ex expects you to respect his or her feelings and need for space.
If you don’t respect your ex’s space (reach out on your terms), your ex thinks that he or she doesn’t need to respect you either and that it’s okay to put himself or herself first. This means your ex can ignore you, block you, express anger or disapproval, play jealousy games, or even get a restraining order against you.
There are no limits to what your ex can or cannot do. When your ex feels victimized, your ex can justify his or her feelings and behaviors any time he or she wants. Your ex just needs to convince himself or herself that you made him or her uncomfortable and forced him or her to ignore you.
Of course, you didn’t put a gun to your ex’s head and instruct your ex to ignore you. Your ex did it of his or her own volition due to a lack of morality and inability to deal with excessive/unprecedented power and difficult emotions. Instead of talking to you about it like an adult and asking you not to reach out or say certain things, your ex decided to ignore you and show you how little he or she cared about you.
Your ex showed you that he or she wasn’t interested in speaking, explaining things, giving you closure, helping you get over the breakup, or being your friend. Whatever you wanted from your ex, your ex wasn’t willing to give it to you. He or she had different expectations of the breakup. Expectations that didn’t involve you.
Due to a loss of feelings, respect, and common goals, your ex knew that he or she didn’t have to be nice anymore and that he or she could get away with anything. Even with ignoring. That’s why your ex used the power he or she took from you against you and made you face the consequences of seeking his or her attention and validation.
Needless to say, mature, moral, and responsible dumpers don’t treat their exes poorly just because they can. Even though they can get away with it, they don’t do it because they care about their ex’s feelings and their morality. Such men have good moral values and the ability to put themselves in their ex’s shoes (empathy).
Deep inside, they know their ex doesn’t deserve pain for making mistakes and the person he or she is.
Abraham Lincoln once said, “If you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” Power (which is the right or ability to use your position or situation to your advantage) says what kind of person you are. Are you the kind of person who helps others or do you help only yourself?
How you act when you have the power to harm another person and get away with it shows how good your moral values are. The better the values, the less harm you’ll cause to people you don’t like or want near you.
So if your ex is ignoring you and it hurts, bear in mind that your ex isn’t ready for the kind of interactions you were trying to have. Whether you were hoping for reconciliation, friendship, or a quick closure conversation, your ex felt smothered and decided the best thing to do was not to respond. By not responding, your ex was able to stay in control of the breakup and live life on his or her terms.
It didn’t cost your ex anything to respond. But your ex knew that if he or she engaged in conversation with you that you could get your hopes up and say or do something he or she wasn’t ready for. Something like explaining your side of the story, begging for another chance, and putting more pressure on your ex.
Your ex wasn’t open to conversation anymore and chose the safest, yet the most immoral option – the option not to respond. Your ex decided to ignore you and show you that he or she didn’t feel comfortable and excited to talk to you.
Therefore, the reason your ex is ignoring you is simple. Your ex lacks empathy and doesn’t care about your feelings enough to treat you with respect. He or she doesn’t want to talk because there’s nothing in it for your ex. Your ex sees only the negatives in talking to you after the breakup and wants to feel positive emotions after the breakup.
It’s no secret that ignoring you makes your ex happier than talking to you. It gives him or her a sense of peace and control. Your ex had been wanting to cut you off for a while, so this is your ex’s chance to finally do it. By cutting you off, your ex can stop seeing you hurt and that you’re eager to converse. He or she can just self-prioritize and explore other romantic and non-romantic options.
Having said that, here are 8 reasons why your ex is ignoring you after the breakup.
Why is my ex’s ignoring hurting me?
Your ex’s ignoring is hurting you because you have romantic expectations of your ex. You’re still in love with your ex and emotionally depend on your ex for healing and happiness. You didn’t expect to break up, let alone to be treated like you didn’t exist. You hoped that the person you loved (and still love) would act maturely and communicate his or her problems as he or she did when you were together.
Since your ex chose not to communicate maturely, you took your ex’s behavior personally and got hurt by it. You immediately assumed something was wrong with you and let your ex’s ignoring affect your self-esteem. You didn’t know that your ex ignored you because of who your ex is rather than who you are.
You couldn’t see it that way because you got rejected and blamed yourself for making mistakes and not being as developed as you could have been. This is the mistake most dumpees make. They believe the breakup is all their fault and that they need to win their ex back and singlehandedly repair the relationship.
They think that way until they recover emotionally and see things from a more rational perspective. That’s when they stop thinking highly of their ex and poorly of themselves.
So if your ex’s ignoring is hurting you, bear in mind that you still have romantic expectations of your ex and/or need your ex to validate your importance. It’s too early for you to knock your ex off the pedestal and see your ex as a person who made mistakes (maybe even more than you). Due to emotional attachment, your ex’s words and actions still affect you deeply.
They give you hope when your ex does something you like and destroy your hope when your ex appears mean and seems not to care.
Give yourself time to detach and I guarantee that your opinion of your ex will change. It won’t happen immediately, but soon, you won’t care what your ex says and does because you’ll love yourself much more than your ex. Your ex will lose importance in your eyes and turn into someone you want to stay away from.
What to do when your ex ignores you?
There’s only one thing to do when your ex ignores you. Stop reaching out to your ex and giving your ex reasons to ignore you. Cut your ex off immediately and show your ex you can be happy or happier without post-breakup interactions.
Your ex will never respect you and want you back if you keep giving him or her power on a silver platter and allowing your ex to disrespect you, use you, or come back to you only when it’s convenient for him or her.
Dumpers respect dumpees who know their worth and leave their ex alone. They think about such dumpees because they don’t need a relationship to be happy. They’re happy with their own company and look strong and mysterious as a result.
Exes who constantly pester them with their problems don’t pique their interest and make them want to initiate a conversation. They present themselves as needy and clingy individuals who aren’t willing to get over the breakup. Because they aren’t complete on their own, they scare dumpers and get ignored.
I know it hurts and that you probably want to take revenge and hurt your ex back. But despite getting ignored and feeling hurt, don’t get angry with your ex and do something you’ll regret. Impulsive behavior will show that you disagree with your ex’s behavior, take it personally, and struggle to accept it. It will force your ex to fight back in ways your ex usually fights with people he or she no longer wants to be with.
This means your ex could ignore you, block you, or even argue with you.
No matter what your ex does when you express pain and anger, it won’t help you reconnect with your ex. It will drive a wedge between you and your ex and make your ex glad that he or she dumped you.
Your ex may not have ignored you when you were together, but you were a couple back then. Now that you’re an ex-couple, your ex has no romantic expectations of you. He or she lacks feelings and can ignore you because it allows your ex to control the situation and avoid facing the consequences of hurting you.
If you want to feel better, pay close attention to how your ex treats you and write down your ex’s negative traits and behaviors. Make a list of all the times your ex disappointed, hurt, and mistreated you. It will help you see your ex for the person your ex is and stop you from blaming yourself.
Remind yourself that your ex isn’t the person you thought he or she was. Your ex is someone who ignores hurt exes with feelings and expectations. He or she isn’t compassionate and someone you wish to befriend, let alone be with romantically.
So don’t do anything drastic when your ex ignores you. Act as if your ex’s ignoring didn’t hurt you and carry on with your life. Your ex could become curious about you and reach out when you focus on yourself and stop caring about your ex.
Is your ex ignoring you and causing you pain? What are you doing to make your ex ignore you? Let us know in the comments section below.
And if you’re looking for help with your ex’s ignoring behavior, reach out to us directly through our private coaching.
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.
