When your ex goes back to his ex, he either never lost feelings for his ex (always loved her and wanted her back) or redeveloped feelings when he realized he wasn’t getting what he wanted and needed. Either way, he monkey-branched from one relationship to the next and betrayed you in the worst way imaginable.
He showed you that his professions of love and promises were meaningless and that he didn’t value you as much as you valued him. He had different thoughts, feelings, and expectations that excited him more than the relationship with you. The relationship required a lot of work and didn’t progress naturally or at the speed he wanted, so he slowly lost interest in you and went back to his ex.
But if that’s true, why did he waste your and his time? Why didn’t he just get back together with his ex rather than make things difficult for you and him? He could have saved himself a lot of guilt and you a lot of anxiety and pain.
When he got involved with you, he didn’t want to be with his ex. He found you highly attractive and craved your validation and time. He saw himself staying with you (at least in the short term) and didn’t think the relationship would end anytime soon. The guy still had feelings for you and high hopes for the relationship.
Things went south when he got to know you better and got back in touch with his ex. I don’t know what happened, but his ex may have reached out, apologized for leaving, and showed him she was still open to getting back together.
That was when he immediately took the opportunity to abandon you and reconcile with his ex, thinking his new relationship would enable him to experience mostly positive emotions and live the kind of life he wants to live.
What he forgot was that his relationship with his ex already failed at least once and that the next time, it would require much more work and patience to maintain it. It would take two self-aware and highly invested individuals to work through their problems rather than run away from them.
Although exes can reconcile, reconciliation is only the first step. A much harder part of the reconciliation process involves forgiving and trusting each other, improving their thinking and behavior, and breaking old patterns that turned them into exes. If they get back together without addressing any of their shortcomings and reasons for the breakup, another breakup is not a matter of if but when.
It’s only a matter of time before they encounter a problem they lack the tools and drive to do anything about.
So if your ex went back to his ex and you don’t know what to think, feel, and do, bear in mind that your ex essentially betrayed you. He either used you for emotional support to ease his separation anxiety and loneliness or to have someone by his side and figure out his next plans. If your ex was a dumper in his previous relationship, he may have connected with you to be with someone different and fully move on from the past.
Many dumpers date the first person they meet because they feel relieved and want to replace their ex with someone different. It doesn’t matter who it is as long as they feel attractive and desired.
If they don’t feel emotionally close to the new person after a while, they decide the relationship isn’t working and break up with their partner. And if they feel hurt by him and realize their ex was better than they made him out to be, they reconnect with their ex and run back to him.
They don’t care if they’re with someone new already because they tell themselves people make mistakes and that they deserve to be happy. In other words, they justify their cheating and monkey-branching and do what feels right rather than what is right.
If your ex went back to his ex, you need to remember that of all the people in the world, he chose his ex – a person he already knew. He must have found him attractive and realized he still had respect and feelings for him. If he didn’t have any of these feelings, he wouldn’t have gone back to a former partner. He would have kept moving forward rather than backward.
Maybe the relationship with you didn’t meet his expectations. But if that’s all that was to it, he would have found a different person – someone he didn’t know and didn’t fail with. So clearly, he thought better of his ex than he let on and still considered his ex a good backup plan for when his romantic life didn’t go according to plan.
If he told you how he felt, he would have risked losing your trust and affection. He feared you would have lost interest in him and found different people to bond with. That’s why he kept you in the dark about his ex until he knew he was ready to move back with her.
Many people bash their exes to their friends and new partners and say they can’t believe they wasted so much of their time. They convince people they don’t like, nor respect their exes—but then go back to their exes anyway. Such people still have feelings for their exes and don’t hate their exes.
They just hate that their exes don’t give them attention and reciprocate their feelings.
That’s why (angrily) talking badly about an ex is one of the biggest signs that your partner is still in love with his ex. Anger shows that he hasn’t let go of the past yet and that he can’t focus on the present. Not until he’s stopped thinking about his ex and talking about his ex’s negative traits.
A few mentions here and there are fine, but when a person gets furious, sad, or depressed, and wants revenge, his emotions and actions show that he hasn’t processed the breakup and isn’t ready to start a new serious relationship.
Many people think their partner is done with their ex because he talks poorly about his ex, but that’s not the case. Their partner is desperate for recognition and would dump their partner in a heartbeat for another chance with his ex. They’d run back to their ex as soon as they got an opportunity to do so.
In today’s article, we explain why your ex went back to his ex and share some tips on what you should do now that your ex is with his ex again.
Why did my ex go back to his ex?
You won’t like to hear this, but your ex went back to his ex because his ex was able to give him something you couldn’t. Whether his ex had a house to live in, a lot of money to share, or made your ex feel the most validated, respected, and listened to, your ex chose the person he knew and understood, benefited the most from, and had the strongest feelings for.
He prioritized familiarity and safety over his morals and decided to be with his ex even though they couldn’t make things work the first time.
He could have stayed with you and worked on the relationship with you, but that would have required a lot of emotional investment and self-restraint. The guy would have to appreciate his relationship with you, understand and care that he’d be cheating, and be developed enough to resist the desire to seek his ex’s validation.
Unfortunately for you, your ex didn’t care or understand what he was doing. He followed his intuition instead of morals and showed you how quickly he discards people when he gets an opportunity to be with someone else.
So if you want to know why your ex went back to his ex, the most feasible explanation is that your ex was hoping his ex would come back to him. If he was dumped, he dated you to fill the void in his heart and make his suffering a bit easier to bear.
If he dumped his ex, however, he thought that you weren’t compatible or that he could be safer, more connected, or happier with his ex.
Many unhealthy (or as some would say toxic) ex-couples reconcile. They don’t think they’ll be happier or physically safer together, but they still leave their new partners for each other. The reason for that is trauma bonding. They can’t find anyone who makes them experience high highs and low lows and makes them work that hard to stay in the relationship.
Such couples lack an understanding of what a strong, healthy, and stable relationship is. Because of that, they keep breaking up and getting back together until they become emotionally exhausted and resentful.
If your relationship seemed normal and didn’t evoke many negative emotions, it’s possible that your ex craved the feeling of fighting for a relationship and fixing problems. He probably mistook pain and other difficult emotions for feelings and went back to his ex to reconnect and feel complete.
People always gravitate toward those who make them feel the strongest emotions. If they feel the strongest emotions with their partner, they continue to communicate with their partner, plan things with their partner, and invest in him or her. However, if they feel unhappy with their partner or rejected by their ex, they consider their ex their savior and get back together with him or her when an opportunity presents itself.
No matter why your ex went back to his ex, he thought he’d be happier with his ex than with you and that he needed to go back before his ex changed her mind.
Men and women return to former partners for the same reasons. They’re not happy or as happy as they want to be and hope their ex will help them find what they’re looking for. If they find it, they stay. And if they don’t, they look for someone new or go back to the person they left.
People always do what’s best for them. They get into relationships when it benefits them and get out of them when they consider them emotionally draining and a waste of time.
You have to understand that reconciliations are backup plans for dumpers and second chances for dumpees. They occur when both parties realize each other’s importance/romantic worth and want to get back together.
Having said that, here’s why your ex went back to his ex.
Will my ex’s relationship last?
There are certain problems your ex could encounter when he goes back to his ex. One of the most common problems is old perceptions and behaviors. Your ex and his partner could think the same way as before and fail to communicate opinions, feelings, problems, and desires in a healthy manner.
They could resort to their old problem-solving techniques, display the same patterns, and break up when they get tired of encountering the same problems.
Many exes continue the same relationship rather than starting a new one. Things are great for a week or two until they get through the infatuation phase and revert to their old selves. That’s when they stop being on their best behavior and bring out the worst in each other.
Typically, exes should keep their distance from one another for at least a few months. A few months is the minimum amount of time they need to identify and improve their flaws and act more maturely with their partner. If they rush back into a relationship let’s say a week after breaking up, there’s a huge chance that they’ll lose their patience and stop feeling committed again.
They will likely stop maintaining their relationship and put it on autopilot.
That’s because short breaks don’t teach ex-couples to be more grateful and committed. On the contrary, they make them less interested in working things out when issues arise. The breakup and the short break lower their commitment and make them more likely to run away when things go awry.
So will your ex’s relationship last? That depends on what your ex and his ex (or partner) have learned while they were apart. If they learned to value each other and improved their patience, communication, and relationship expectations, they could have a better relationship and stay together at least for a while.
But if neither of them made any significant changes and expect the relationship to work simply because they still have feelings for each other, then it probably won’t last longer than a few weeks to a few months. Most exes break up again when they put in no effort to avoid making the same mistakes.
It’s extremely hard to predict whether they’ll stay together for a few weeks, months, years, or forever because people don’t always make rational decisions. Sometimes couples stay in unhealthy relationships for decades. They don’t want to leave because relationships give them a sense of familiarity and safety.
They’d rather stay with someone they know than risk detaching, moving out, and taking a shot in the dark with a completely new person. Such people are scared of starting anew and stick with exes for as long as they depend on them or think they’re decent enough to stay with.
The best way to tell if your ex’s relationship will last is to ask yourself some important questions, such as.
- Do they have a tendency to break up?
- How many times did they break up (the higher the number, the smaller the chance that they’ll make it work)
- What were their reasons for breaking up?
- Who initiated the breakup?
- What were their reasons for getting back together?
- What was their relationship like? Was it healthy? (unhealthy ones get back together too – often for the wrong reasons)
You may not have the answers to all these questions, but that’s okay. If you can answer some of them, you can deduce how your ex thinks and feels and if he’s likely to abandon ship when the relationship becomes hard to maintain.
Do also keep in mind that your ex could move on rather than get back with you. If he didn’t feel connected with you or if you begged and pleaded for ages and destroyed his respect for you, he could move on to someone else and forget about his relationship with you.
What should I do when he goes back to his ex?
When he goes back to someone he dated in the past, you should avoid acting on instinct and guilt-tripping him. Instead of bursting into tears and bombarding him with calls and texts, understand that he’s made his (emotional) decision and that nothing you say or do will change his mind and make him want to be with you.
If you try to change his mind by force, you’ll only appear desperate for connection and push him closer to his ex-partner. This is because he’ll see that you need him more than his ex and that he doesn’t need to work for your love, commitment, validation, and other relationship benefits.
People need to work for relationship benefits. If they receive them on a silver platter, they take them for granted and seek them from people they need to work harder to impress.
That explains why many people choose to go back to abusive exes. They consider such people worthy of their time and investment even though the opposite is true. Despite their ex not being good for them, they contact their ex and bond with him or her.
If your ex went back to his ex, you shouldn’t try to stop him. You should thank him for telling you the truth about his ex (or having the courage to break up with you). This will give him the space he needs to jump from you to his ex and not feel guilty.
You probably want him to feel guilty, but guilt won’t change anything. It will just make him want to avoid you and focus on people who make him feel good.
Whether you want your ex back or get over him, your job is to avoid getting rejected and hurt. You must let your ex give his ex another try and wait for his relationship to end. When it ends, your ex could contact you, apologize for hurting you, and ask to get back together. What he does depends on whether he had at least some feelings and respect for you when he dated you.
If he had feelings and liked you but his ex reached out and triggered his repressed feelings, he could return to invest in you when that relationship ends for good.
You shouldn’t try to end it yourself. As long as your ex has feelings for the other person, any attempts to change his mind will backfire and make him value his relationship even more. All you can do is give them space and work on detachment. Don’t watch what they post on social media and stay obsessed with them.
Knowing what they’re doing and how they’re doing as a couple won’t give you an advantage in getting back with him. It will just waste your time and slow down your recovery.
It’s okay to have feelings for an ex. It’s okay to want him back despite him going back to a former partner. What’s not okay, however, is to fight for him like in some romantic movie. Reconciliations don’t work that way. When a person loses feelings, he must regain them on his own. That’s the only way he can learn to appreciate you and invest in you.
Did your ex go back to his ex and hurt you badly? Why do you think your ex went back to someone he broke up with? Share your thoughts and questions in the comments below.
And if you want to discuss your ex’s reasons for going back to an ex with us, check out our 1-on-1 coaching services.
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.
