6 Biggest Signs Your Ex Is Confused About The Breakup

If your ex is confused about you, your ex is constantly giving you hope and taking it away from you. Your ex is making you feel like you’re on a never-ending, gut-wrenching rollercoaster ride.

The only special thing about this rollercoaster is that it’s unpredictable and that it’s making you feel emotions you’d rather not feel.

One day it feels like your ex is receptive and perhaps even coming back to you, but the next day, your ex barely talks to you, ignores you, cancels plans with you, acts distant, and makes you question your worth and place in his or her heart.

This is not uncommon. A lot of dumpers go back and forth with their promises as they’re as confused as you are. They don’t know what the right thing to do is because they don’t know how to handle breakups. They just know they must do the thing that feels right to them. And the thing that feels right to them usually isn’t right at all.

It’s wrong because post-breakup intuition normally is.

One reason your ex is confused after the breakup is that your ex wants to be your friend but is having a hard time being one because your ex is still so close to you.

He or she is used to communicating with you about boyfriend-girlfriend things and relying on you for all sorts of things. It’s just that your ex doesn’t know where to draw the line. Your ex wants to keep you around for friendship and convenience but doesn’t like that relationship dynamics are almost the same as they were when you were dating.

That’s why your ex gets confused about lots of things and doesn’t know how to act in a way that keeps you at a distance, but not so far that your ex can’t reach you and talk to you if he or she wants to.

This is the most common reason dumpers are confused about the people they’ve left. But they can also be confused because they have some romantic feelings left and wonder if they’ve made the right decision to leave the dumpee. Such doubts normally occur when dumpers are deciding between their dumpee and someone else.

So without further ado, let’s talk about the signs your ex is confused about you and may be wondering what to do.

1)Your ex is sending you mixed signals

If your ex is confused about you, your ex is probably sending you mixed signals, which, of course, doesn’t help. It just raises your expectations of your ex coming back, makes you anxious, and delays your recovery time.

Mixed signals can be anything from your ex sending you “I still love you” texts and hanging out with you to crying during or after the breakup and expressing a lot of guilt and regret.

These signals make it seem like your ex is doubting the breakup and thinking about getting back with you, but the truth is that mixed signals can be quite hard to read. Most of the time, they indicate that your ex is confused only because your ex can’t distinguish guilt, shame, and care from romantic feelings and wants you to be happy.

Therefore, mixed signals give you the impression that your ex still loves you and wants to be with you when in reality, your ex just wants your forgiveness and/or friendship so that your ex can move on with a clear conscience and perhaps even date someone new.

Many times, dumpers don’t know how they can get what they want. They know they want to stay broken up, but they don’t know how to stay broken up while remaining in touch with their ex without things being awkward. Emotions are still raw for them as well as their dumpee, so they oftentimes talk about things exes shouldn’t talk about and feel weird about them.

That’s when they appear hot and cold, confuse their dumpee as well as themselves, and make things more difficult than they need to be.

You have to understand that most dumpers don’t know what they’re doing after the breakup. Some want the best of both worlds (friendship and no commitment) whereas others feel guilty, worried, and depressed and feel they need to make things right with their ex.

Because they’re emotional, they say highly emotional (relationship) things, send mixed signals to their dumpee, and end up confusing themselves.

Many dumpers believe they still love their ex but that they can’t be with their ex for some unexplainable reason.

Such dumpers have no idea what love even is. They think love is when you feel the butterflies in your stomach and can’t separate yourself from your partner even for a day. So what happens is that they get super emotional after the breakup and start thinking about their ex all of a sudden.

They interpret that as love when it’s actually a combination of worry, guilt, nostalgia, and perhaps even self-blame and an understanding that the life they know and got comfortable with is over.

2)Your ex is talking about the good times

Nostalgia often plays with dumpers’ feelings. It makes them think that perhaps their ex wasn’t that bad and that he or she had some admirable traits. The more dumpers entertain such thoughts, the better they feel about their ex and the more confused they get.

If your ex is nostalgic about you, you’ll likely hear your ex talk about the funny, scary, silly, and maybe even romantic moments. Your ex will indulge in the strongest memories because those memories help keep the bond going, calm your anxiety, and ease your ex’s guilt for hurting you.

If your ex sees that you’re in control of your post-breakup life, your ex may also respect your strength and confidence and feel a bit drawn toward you. That could cause your ex a ton of confusion and make your ex feel stuck after the breakup.

After some thinking and evaluating, however, your ex will most likely remember that he or she broke up with you for good reasons and focus on those reasons to push on with the breakup. Your ex may even distance himself or herself from you and try to do the things he or she had been meaning to do before the breakup.

Nostalgia tends to occur when the dumper feels guilty or anxious. Some (usually mature and forgiving dumpers) feel guilty soon after the breakup whereas angry and victimized dumpers feel guilty and nostalgic later (after they’ve processed the breakup).

No matter when your ex starts talking about the good times and showing you that he or he values your time, effort, and personality, remember that something triggers nostalgia in your ex. It’s usually some kind of unpleasant emotion your ex intends to use to get a positive reaction out of you.

If your ex gets the reaction he or she is looking for, your ex will feel empowered. And if your ex doesn’t get it, he or she might get a bit upset and focus on someone else. Nostalgia is bittersweet, meaning that it’s created by an unpleasant emotion in the present and a craving for a better emotion from the past.

3)Your ex is dating you and someone else at the same time

This doesn’t happen often because people prefer to go all-in on one person at a time, but when it does, dumpers tend to feel extremely confused. They’re seeing two people at once and feel completely different emotions towards them.

Around their dumpee, they feel sad and perhaps nostalgic because they’re on the verge of throwing away a relationship. Around the new person, however, they feel thrilled and excited to be desired. They love how great the new relationship feels because they’re still getting to know each other and have no bad memories and perceptions yet.

As you can probably tell, excitement is a much better and strong emotion than guilt and self-doubt. That’s why most dumpers choose the new person and go through the dating phases with him or her. Only dumpers who keep their ex close to them while they’re dating another person sometimes return to their ex.

But to do that, they must get close enough to the new person to learn that he or she is not the right person for them. In other words, their new partner must be very incompatible with them otherwise they keep dating him or her and push their ex away to focus solely on the new person.

So if you’re looking for signs that your ex is confused, your ex dating you and someone else at the same time is one of them. It’s probably one of the best ones because it shows that your ex is indecisive and willing to play with two people’s feelings.

Your ex doesn’t understand or care that his or her selfish behavior is hurting you and disrespecting the new partner.

4)Your ex keeps changing plans

If you’re still talking to your ex (which you shouldn’t be) and your ex keeps changing plans and putting you on the backburner, your ex is more than just confused. Your ex is deciding between keeping in touch with you and letting you go because your ex doesn’t know what the right thing to do is.

Because you were close for x number of months or years, your ex doesn’t want to abandon everything and get rid of you completely. Your ex wants to keep you in his or her life to some degree so that your ex doesn’t feel bad and can still benefit from friendship.

The problem is that your ex doesn’t want you to get the wrong idea and think you can get back together. If your ex gets the feeling that you’re trying to restore the relationship, your ex immediately starts feeling smothered and disrespected. Your ex can’t handle certain conversations because your ex expects a clean transition from the relationship to single life.

Your es doesn’t know that only ex-couples with mutual breakups can do that. Ex-couples where one person is the dumper and the other the dumpee tend to experience complications as the dumpee still has feelings and doesn’t know what to do with them.

So if your ex keeps changing plans and pulling you back and forth, know that your ex is confused about what to do. Your ex wants to stay friends and avoid feeling pressured, which is why your ex keeps changing the terms of the breakup and expects you to comply.

5)Your ex cheated on you

Oftentimes, it’s not the bad things in the relationship that confuse dumpers. It’s other people’s opinions and the way those people make them feel.

For example, if your ex met a person he or she found attractive, it’s possible that your ex started feeling attracted to this person and took you for granted. That would mean that your ex got confused and has been confused ever since because your ex wasn’t experienced and devoted enough to overcome temptations and relationship problems.

Instead of fixing problems, your ex went for the most attractive person (the new person) and got rid of the problems he or she had with you. Of course, your ex didn’t really get rid of problems. Your ex just avoided dealing with them and jumped into a new relationship and the love phase with someone else.

Anyway, people usually get confused when there’s another person involved. It starts as a mere confusion and can gradually develop into guilt, shame, anxiety, and even depression. This depends on each individual, but normally, it stops with confusion or guilt.

6)Your ex is saying good things about you to your friends

This can mean two things. Either that your ex wants to save face in front of people or that something isn’t going according to plan for your ex and that your ex has been having second thoughts.

Normally, dumpers become confused and regretful when they suffer some kind of shock and experience and epiphany. That’s when they start reflecting on the past and realize their mistakes. They may even grow a bit as people.

So if your ex realized his or her mistakes and flaws, know that your ex could be thinking about his or her feelings for you as well. Your ex could be wondering if breaking up with you was the right thing to do and if he or she could have done things differently.

Typically, dumpers become confused months into the breakup (not right after). That’s because they need time to process the breakup to a point where they stop blaming their ex for their mistakes and take responsibility for their behavior and decisions.

If you’re looking for signs that your ex is confused about the breakup and will come back, you need to understand that dumpers may have some doubts but that those doubts can’t rival their desire or need to break up. That’s because dumpers lose feelings and patience and feel they have no choice but to leave their ex.

What do you think about the 6 signs that your ex is confused? Do you think your ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend is confused and just needs some time to come back? Share your thoughts with us below the post.

And if you’d like to discuss your ex’s hard-to-understand behavior with us, check out our coaching services 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. Buy me a coffee, learn more about me, or get in touch today.