What To Do When Your Ex Hurts You Emotionally?

When your ex hurts you emotionally, you must understand that your ex has a reason for hurting you. His or her reason may not be justifiable, but it’s a reason nonetheless. Your ex feels that your past or current behavior is harming his well-being and that he mustn’t keep his pain inside. Your ex has done that for a while in the relationship, but now that the breakup is here, your ex needn’t do that anymore.

He doesn’t need to stay on his best behavior anymore and can just prioritize his own emotions. And since your ex feels victimized, your ex thinks that the best way to do that is to let negative emotions out of the system and project them toward you.

This is how he intends to bring you to justice and feel better as a result.

People are reactive that way and tend to hurt others when they’re hurting. They don’t consider the possibility that they may be responsible for their own emotions and that blaming their ex for the things he or she has done is a bad idea.

I suppose it’s easier to blame someone because that way, you can be angry with the person who’s hurt you emotionally and stay in control.

If you were to get sad or depressed, you wouldn’t be in control. You’d let your ex control you and suffer more because of it.

This means that you and your ex have something in common. You’re both hurting emotionally. The only difference is that your dumper ex is holding on to anger and victimized emotions for control whereas you lack control and are seeking it through knowledge, comprehension, and acceptance.

Understanding this can help you patch your wounds and stop you from getting back at your ex for his or her poor attitude and self-control.

So whether your ex intentionally or unintentionally hurt you, do your best not to react to pain by causing more pain. Revenge (as sweet as it may be) won’t make you feel better long-term. All it will do is cause your ex to react (or be the bigger person) and make you into a vengeful ex.

Today’s topic is what to do when your ex hurts you emotionally. We’ll talk about karma, justice, self-control, maturity, and what you need to do to heal quickly.

What to do when your ex hurts your emotionally?

Have you ever wondered why so many couples argue when they’re anxious, angry, unhappy, or tired? I know I have, and I think it’s because they feel so overwhelmed with negative emotions that they either make their partner responsible for their pain or use their partner as a means of absorbing their stress.

Such couples lack self-control and communication skills, so they don’t communicate their thoughts and feelings with their partner the way mature people do. Instead, they go straight to unloading their burdens onto their partner and making him or her feel responsible. This is how they try to get rid of their unhappiness and uplift themselves.

Blaming someone else (especially a romantic partner) for unpleasant feelings tends to relieve anxiety to some degree as it empowers people with anger – which is control.

But unfortunately, anger is a self-protective emotion that does more harm than good. Instead of processing the pain and bringing you closer to your partner, anger creates resentments and power imbalances. It makes you feel right when there is no right or wrong person. Only a couple who has forgotten why they’re together.

And it’s the same with your ex. Your ex was in some kind of pain and thought he needed to inflict pain on you to make himself feel better.

He had forgotten he had flaws too and that putting the blame on you was going to prevent him from finding his flaws and resolving them. It was just going to sweep them under the rug and keep them hidden until he dates someone else.

So what to do when your ex hurts your emotionally?

There are lots of things you can do. But before you do anything, convince yourself not to react to your ex. If you hurt your ex back instinctually, you won’t be any different from your ex. You’ll be very similar to him because you’ll be as reactive as he is.

So don’t hurt your ex back emotionally. Instead of stooping to your ex’s level, do your best to stay in control of your knee-jerk reactions. Controlling them when they’re the most difficult to control will unlock your ability to handle difficult emotions and make you into a more rational, in-control person.

It won’t be easy to turn the other cheek, but if you can do that and cut your ex off politely, you’ll stop your ex from hurting you and develop yourself into a mature individual who chooses not to fight with people who mistreat you.

You have to find some other way to soften your ex’s punches. Some way that doesn’t hurt your ex and make it difficult for you to improve yourself.

If you got dumped, don’t think about drowning your pain in alcohol or by getting under someone else. That won’t help you forget your ex. It will create new problems that will wound you and delay your healing.

There’s a better way to deal with post-breakup pain. And that way doesn’t involve hurting yourself and teaching your ex a lesson not to mess with you.

All you must do is cease contact with your ex and distance yourself from your ex. This won’t instantly make you feel better, but it will set you on the path that will slowly sew in the stitches and rebuild your self-esteem.

It will also allow you to develop yourself morally and force you to grow stronger emotionally.

So keep in mind that the best way to handle an ex hurting you emotionally is to refuse to play dirty with your ex. Doing so will feel reassuring as you’ll know that you were the bigger person who wanted to grow maturer (not more immature) with time.

That’s the mentality you should work hard to adapt.

As for what you should do when your ex hurts you emotionally, do the things that add meaning, pleasure, and happiness to your life. Focus on the things that validate, support, encourage, and distract you because such things will keep you busy and ease some of the emotional pain your ex has caused you.

Don’t get me wrong, even if you do everything right, it will still take you some time to heal as the breakup wounded you emotionally. But if you do the things mentioned in this post, I assure you that you’ll recover as quickly as your body lets you.

Without further ado, I strongly encourage you to talk to your friends and family about your hurt feelings. They are there for you to vent, so use their services whenever you need to.

They could eventually get tired of listening to you talk about the same problem over and over again, but if that happens, remind them that you’re grateful to them. This will make them feel special and give them some strength to keep supporting you.

If that doesn’t work, though, then consider signing up for therapy. Most people find talking to a therapist very helpful as they feel listened to and understood. I think that anyone who can afford a therapist should look into this option.

People in general, whether it’s a therapist, a friend, or a complete stranger will force you to communicate and get things off your chest. And that’s good. It’s what you need to process the pain your ex has caused you.

Talking about stressors works wonders as it’s the most therapeutic thing you can do. Not only does it help you express yourself, but it also gives you instant feedback and reassurance.

Provided that the people you speak with don’t give you too much hope or take too much hope away, of course. Ideally, you’d want your listeners to be empathetic, patient, and encouraging.

The second most therapeutic thing on the list is journaling. Writing down your thoughts and feelings lets you express yourself when your friends are busy. It gives you a way to reduce the burden and allows you to calm yourself down.

That’s why I encourage anyone going through a difficult breakup to get a notebook and write down how they feel. I especially recommend it to those who have been cheated on and left, ghosted, or broken up with in a hurtful way that left them with no choice but to get closure on their own.

Journaling is one of the best forms of self-healing, so give it a try if your ex has hurt you emotionally.

I know that every fiber in your body is telling you to rely on your ex for healing, but if your ex hurt you, don’t think that your ex will volunteer to help you heal. It’d be nice if your ex helped, but if he or she is nowhere to be seen after the breakup and/or is dating someone else already, don’t think that your ex can help you.

He or she can only make your pain worse as the questions you ask and the answers you receive will shatter your hopes and set you back emotionally.

So if you’re wondering what to do when your ex hurts your emotionally, the most important piece of advice to remember is not to cling to your ex for hope and healing. Of all the people in the world, your ex is the least willing to help and is much more likely to get frustrated with you when you show that you’re in pain, struggling to focus on yourself.

Dumpers who deliberately or indeliberately hurt you emotionally do so because they lack patience and understanding. They don’t know how you feel and what you need to feel better, so they tend to make the breakup about themselves and hurt their exes.

You don’t want your ex to hurt you again. Once was more than enough, so don’t try to be friends with your ex. Don’t do it because it’s not what you want, deserve, or need. You just need to get some space from your ex so you can regain your composure and become emotionally independent again.

When you’re back to your usual self, you’ll see that friendship with an ex who wasn’t willing to help you after the breakup would be unfair to you and that you’re better off being friends with people who care about you when you’re going through a difficult time.

Here are some things to do and not to do when your ex hurts your emotionally.

It takes longer to get over someone who hurt you badly

I mentioned earlier that you should journal if your ex hurt you badly. But what I didn’t mention is that your ex’s words and actions during and after the breakup also determine how fast you heal.

This is because your ex’s uncaring behavior triggers your fears and destroys your self-esteem, which leaves you vulnerable to anything that threatens you as a person. In other words, how your ex behaves matters because you’re emotionally dependent on your ex and still think highly of your ex.

And when the dumper you think highly of shows that he or she couldn’t care less about you, your ex forces you to go through withdrawal and makes you hungry for his or her love and validation.

So if your ex betrayed you in the worst way imaginable and/or if your ex hurt you unimaginably after the breakup, keep in mind that your ex disregarded your feelings and butchered your opinion of the relationship.

He or she also destroyed the plans you had for the relationship and by doing so, killed more hope for the reconciliation than you were capable of killing.

That’s why you now have to learn how to cope with the pain your ex has forced on you by going through the five dumpee stages. The stages start with denial, depression, and anger and end with acceptance and recovery.

How long you find yourself in each of these stages depends on your mentality and the things you do (the things we’ve discussed earlier). But it also depends on how good your self-esteem and ability to handle rejections are. The better they are, there sooner you’ll let go of hope and make a full recovery.

So make sure to work on your emotional health and do whatever it takes to remain in control of your intrusive thoughts and unwanted breakup emotions. It won’t be easy at first, but practice self-awareness and self-control and you’ll emerge victorious in the end.

As for your ex, your ex will get hit by karma. If your ex always treats people this way, sooner than later, he’ll cross paths with the wrong person and bring out the worst in him or her. That’s when your ex will be acquainted with pain and get an opportunity to reflect and improve.

It sucks that you can’t get justice today, but justice is something you don’t have any control over. Not unless you decide to teach your ex a lesson yourself. But that would make everything we’ve discussed today seem pointless.

Let us know what you did when your ex hurt you emotionally in the comments below the post. Any advice you can share with us will be extremely helpful. 🙏

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.