5 Signs Your Ex Is Taking Advantage Of You

If your ex is taking advantage of you, your ex won’t tell you that directly. He or she will instead pretend like everything’s fine and give you hidden clues that things may not be as optimistic as your anxious brain wants them to be.

One of the things you should particularly pay attention to is if your ex contacts you just to get something from you.

If your ex asks for favors and doesn’t invest as much time, energy, and money in you as you invest in your ex, your ex clearly doesn’t want you back and doesn’t care about your feelings and desires. He or she just wants certain relationship rewards that happen to benefit him or her at your expense. 

Such an ex is emotionally detached and doesn’t see the need to rely on himself or herself. Conversely, he or she thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to bother you with his or her problems, needs, and wants despite not being in a relationship anymore.

That means your ex is taking advantage of you and won’t stop taking advantage of you until one of two things happens.

1. Your ex no longer needs the things he or she currently needs.
2. You pull away and stop your ex from taking advantage of you.

The decision is yours to make. But if you want to stop feeling used and unworthy, take back control and refuse to be taken advantage of. Do that by going no contact (not communicating about unimportant things that don’t concern you) and letting your ex deal with life matters on his or her own.

If your ex left you, your ex needs to figure out how to move forward without you. Your ex needs to leave you alone and understand that meaningless conversations and favors prolong and complicate your healing.

If your ex doesn’t know how the breakup makes you feel, you need to tell your ex. Say you’re not ready for friendship and that you don’t want to communicate until you’re ready.

A respectful ex will understand where you’re coming from and stop taking advantage of you. A disrespectful one who can’t empathize with you, on the other hand, will accuse you of being unfair and mean—and might even try to manipulate you (guilt-trip) into doing the things he or she wants you to do.

Whatever you do, don’t let your ex manipulate you. Stay resolute and insist on starting no contact and staying in it. The relationship has ended and won’t fix itself with communication. It especially won’t fix itself by doing your ex favors and showing you’re capable of growing and being the person your ex wants you to be.

This is no longer about you. It’s about your ex holding to the old (unhealthy) image of you for self-empowerment purposes and getting what he or she can out of you.

You need to give up on the idea of impressing your ex and giving the relationship a second wind as your ex won’t be impressed nor feel the desire to be with you. Not when you do everything your ex asks of you and treat your ex like a king (or a queen).

Exes don’t value dumpees who throw themselves at their feet. They value those whose attention, time, and affection they need to work hard for.

That explains why dumpees who sleep with their ex tend not to get their ex back. The moment they give themselves to their ex sexually, they give their ex the only thing he or she wants. This destroys their ex’s need to commit and resolve problems that caused the breakup.

So be careful about doing your ex favors for free. Your dumper ex should be doing you favors because that would indicate he or she is regretful, anxious, and willing to invest in himself/herself, you, and the relationship itself.

In today’s post, we look at 5 signs your ex is taking advantage of you.

1)Your ex is sleeping with you but not committing

If your ex is sleeping with you, your ex isn’t doing it to slowly learn to trust you and get back with you. Your ex is doing it to feel validated and sexually fulfilled. It’s the only thing your ex wants from you now that the relationship has ended.

Sex lets your ex take advantage of you as it gives you false hope and makes you think your ex still likes you romantically and wants you back. In reality, your ex just likes the way your body makes him or her feel and has zero desire to fix relationship matters.

You must be aware of that or your ex could take advantage of you sexually under the guise of wanting you romantically. Your ex could make you feel used and discarded.

So if your ex is sleeping with you or trying to sleep with you before committing and working on making sure another breakup doesn’t happen, know that you have one of the best signs your ex is taking advantage of you.

You don’t just have a sign. You have proof your ex is acting on selfish urges and that your ex intends to satisfy them at your cost.

If you don’t want to feel used and unworthy, I suggest that you avoid flirting and sleeping with your ex until you’re certain your ex regrets leaving you and is committed to evolving as a person and a partner. Make sure that your ex understands your worth and that he or she is okay with you taking back power and control.

Under no circumstances should you go to bed with your ex before your ex expresses love for you. By love, I mean anxiety, regret, gratitude, respect, patience, loyalty, and willingness to fix what he or she broke.

2)Your ex wants to be your friend

Friendships seldom lead back to relationships. Most of the time, dumpees only get friend-zoned and forced to accept that the relationship has ended. When they accept it, they either stay friends with their ex or decide to go their separate ways.

What they decide depends on their willingness to be friends, but regardless of what they decide, it’s unfortunate they have to suffer longer than necessary and get taken advantage of.

Not all dumpers do that, thankfully, but many dumpers befriend their ex and use their ex to get relationship benefits for free. Benefits such as emotional/financial support, advice, help with responsibilities and problems, and a familiar person to converse with.

They don’t want to leave their ex alone because their ex makes their lives better.

Some dumpers also feel guilty for breaking their ex’s heart and use their ex to forgive themselves for the things they said or did. Such dumpers aren’t honest about their intentions to assuage their guilt.

That’s why they often disappear after a couple of interactions with the dumpee.

So if your ex wants to be your friend and you’re not ready for it, don’t think you’ll get your ex back by being a good friend. It’s much more likely that you’ll just settle for something you’re not ready for and that your ex will use you to stop feeling guilty, ashamed, bored, lonely, or confused.

The best thing you can do is end your friendship before you develop expectations and get even more attached. You can do this by asking for space and time to focus on yourself.

3)Your ex only contacts you when he/she needs something from you

An ex who reaches out only for help is clearly taking advantage of you. The man or woman may not think of it that way, but his or her intentions and expectations speak for themselves.

They indicate that he or she is only interested in getting what he or she wants.

And what he or she wants has nothing to do with you. Sure, you can help as you used to be intimately close to your ex and had the power and ability to uplift your ex, but that doesn’t mean you should keep being your ex’s rock after the breakup.

Your ex gave up this privilege the moment he or she broke up with you.

It’s not selfish not to worry about your ex’s problems. You have plenty of your own problems you need to deal with. Problems such as separation anxiety, post-breakup fears, uncertainty, destroyed self-esteem and purpose in life, and accepting that your ex may not come back.

As a dumpee, you need to take care of yourself before you can help your ex and others. You need to find love within yourself and relearn to enjoy life.

Your ex shouldn’t expect you to be his or her errand boy and a person to rely on when life gives him or her lemons. If there’s no commitment, your ex should expect you to prioritize your well-being over his or her problems.

This includes problems such as:

• loneliness and boredom
• grief
• failures
• rejections
• lack of funds
• lack of romantic options

Your ex may also be taking advantage of you by expecting you to:

• pay for his bills or take care of the house
• be his guarantor
• refer him to a job
• drive him or lend him your car
• help him with things he’s not good at
• take care of him when he’s sick
• look after his children while he’s out

It doesn’t matter what issues your ex is dealing with and what your ex wants from you. If your ex reaches out only when he or she has problems, you have one of the best signs your ex is taking advantage of you.

Unrealistic demands prove your ex doesn’t have feelings for you and only wants to feel better with your help.

If you help your ex whenever he or she has problems, your ex won’t think you’re a nice person and that leaving you was a bad idea. Contrarily, your ex will think of you as a person who can be relied on in times of need.

Essentially, you’ll become a reliable friend who’s only good for helping with problems.

If you don’t want to be used that way, you need to understand your ex would have come back already if he or she wanted to and valued you as a romantic partner. Your ex would have asked for forgiveness and done everything in his or her power to try to reel you back in.

Since your ex hasn’t done that, you need to avoid thinking your ex is contacting you because your ex is testing the waters and entertaining the idea of being with you.

Instead of convincing yourself your ex is coming back, acknowledge the fact that your ex is after your emotional support and that you need to stay away from your ex and let your ex deal with his or her problems alone.

4)Your ex doesn’t care about your problems

If your ex wants your help but shows no interest in helping you when you need something (closure, advice, support…), it’s evident your ex is taking advantage of you. Things are imbalanced (one-sided) as your ex talks to you only when he or she wants or needs to talk to you.

That means your problems overwhelm, stress, bore, and inconvenience your ex and make your ex not want to hang around.

An ex who doesn’t care about your problems but wants you to listen and help with his or her issues is obviously taking advantage of you. He or she is exploiting you for personal benefit and making you hungrier for validation and love.

Since you’re not getting the support you expect, you feel even worse than if you hadn’t confided in your ex. You feel unheard and unimportant on top of that. It’s time to do something about it.

You could tell your ex you’re not getting what you need from him or her or you could just leave and be done with your ex. The second option may be better as an ex who doesn’t care about your problems won’t magically start caring about them after you’ve expressed your unhappiness.

Your ex will probably consider your complaint a personal attack and blame you, ignore you, or stop talking to you.

5)Your ex keeps telling you the breakup is only temporary

When your ex keeps reassuring you you’ll get back together one day, it’s clear that your ex is taking advantage of your kindness and playing with your feelings. Your ex is making you think you’ll get back together if you just stay patient and not say nostalgic, depressing, pressuring, and desperate things.

The reason your ex is doing that is because your ex wants you to be calm and collected. He or she wants you to focus on yourself so that your ex can also focus on himself or herself and avoid thinking about making you happy and getting back with you.

Your ex just wants to continue getting relationship benefits as if you’re together without actually talking about plans that would bring you back together

Always remember that exes who want you back won’t take breaks and tell you the relationship isn’t over yet. They’ll either get back together with you right away or stay in touch with you and get back with you in a few days when they can give you 100% of their attention.

They won’t wait weeks or longer and string you along for their selfish gain.

So if your ex keeps telling you that you’ll get back together at some unspecified point in the future, know that your ex is deceiving you. He or she is either taking advantage of you by getting something from you or by preventing you from leaving, taking away relationship benefits, and making him or her feel unwanted emotions.

Do you agree with the 5 signs your ex is taking advantage of you? Did you notice any other signs you’d like to share with the readers? Let us know in the comments area below the article.

However, if you enjoyed the article and would like to talk to us about whether your ex is taking advantage of you, subscribe to coaching with us here.

Zan

My name is Zan and I’m the founder of Magnet of Success. I enjoy writing realistic relationship and breakup articles and helping readers heal and grow. With more than 5 years of experience in the self-improvement, relationship, and breakup sphere, my goal is to provide advice that fosters positivity and success and avoids preventable mistakes and pain. Learn more about me or get in touch today.