Should I Contact My Ex Who Dumped Me?

If your ex dumped you and you’re wondering whether you should contact your ex, the quick answer is no. You should not contact your ex because your texts and calls won’t impress your ex and spark your ex’s feelings for you.

All they’ll do is prove that you’re hurt and that you’re desperately trying to take control of the breakup.

You have to keep in mind that your ex would have contacted you by now if he or she wanted to speak with you. Pride and ego wouldn’t stop your ex because your ex’s desire to talk and reconnect would be much greater. They’d be so great your ex would feel compelled to do something about it.

Not talking to you would also hurt your ex because your ex would fear that you’ll meet someone else and forget about him or her.

So whatever you do, don’t contact an ex who dumped you. Don’t do it because reaching out will have the opposite of the desired effect. Instead of proving that you’re strong, independent, and worthy of commitment, it’ll prove that you’re emotionally dependent on your ex and that you aren’t ready to live on your own.

Your desperation will essentially repulse your ex and significantly lower the chances of your ex becoming nostalgic and missing you. To be fair, it will most likely push your ex further away and make your ex even less receptive to what you say and do.

Whether you’re trying to get your ex back or just move on, you should know that there’s only one way to go about the breakup. That way is called the no contact way. It’s the only method that will leave your ex alone and let you focus on healing and growing.

Of course, no contact won’t necessarily make your ex fall over heels in love with you (at least not right away), but it will preserve your dignity, pride, and worth and protect your self-esteem from plummeting to the ground.

As a person who got dumped, you need to steer away from limited 15 or 30-day no contact rules as such rules aren’t rules. They’re a hoax someone came up with to deceive and take advantage of broken-hearted people. The truth is that reaching out after a certain number of days just won’t have a strong impact on your ex.

Your ex may be glad and relieved to hear that you don’t have any grudges against him or her, but as long as you’re reaching out, your ex will see and feel that you’re much more eager to communicate than he or she is.

This difference in interest (which is power) will then allow your ex to spot your weaknesses and treat you the way you’re allowing yourself to be treated.

The topic of this post is “Should I contact my ex who dumped me?” We’ll talk about what contacting does to you and your ex and when it’s okay to contact your ex.

Should I contact my ex who dumped me?

As a dumpee, you simply don’t contact your ex ever, period. You stay in no contact because that’s the only way you can get out of your ex’s way and stop your ex from associating more negativity with you. If you don’t give your ex passage to independence and try to stay in your ex’s life as a friend, you shouldn’t expect your ex to respect you and want to speak with you.

You should expect your ex to feel pressured and be resistant to the idea of staying in touch with you.

This is because your ex doesn’t want what you want. While you feel this compulsive need to reach out and establish a healthy conversation, your ex wants space and time. Your ex wants to focus only on his or her life because doing so allows your ex not to think about the relationship and feel guilty or frustrated about it.

So really, you have nothing to lose by not contacting your ex during no contact. You have everything to gain, including self-respect, self-esteem, emotional independence, and strength. The strength that your ex had taken away from you by leaving you to fend for yourself.

The unfortunate truth is that your ex can’t help you with the breakup. Your ex would have already done that if your ex wanted to. But since he or she hasn’t contacted you and through inaction, expressed the wish to ease your anxiety, you mustn’t contact your ex either.

You can’t be the one to say “I need help coping with the breakup” because the risk is too high. Not only do you not know how your ex will react to your pleas, but the moment you place your expectations on your ex, you also put yourself at your ex’s mercy.

You tell your ex that you need him or her to help you even though help is something your ex doesn’t want to give. Your ex would much rather focus on enjoying the relief that the breakup has empowered him or her with.

So if you’re contemplating contacting your ex with the intention to make your ex fall in love with you, get back together with you, or help you deal with grief and separation anxiety, know that reaching out as a dumpee is extremely dangerous. Unless your ex is mature and has found a way to disassociate negativity from who you are as a person, you could discover that your ex isn’t interested in communicating with you.

Your actions could even incite unwanted emotions in your ex and make your ex block you, ignore you, or do something impulsive that would hurt you and make you regret reaching out.

Why are you thinking of contacting your ex?

Before you reach out, you must ask yourself why you’re trying to re-establish contact with an ex who dumped you. Are you hurting and don’t like that your ex is moving on? Are you in shock that your ex is happy and you’re miserable?

Learn what motivates you to contact your ex and what you’re trying to obtain from your ex.

Most dumpees that (want to) reach out seek validation and explanations. They want to see firsthand they’re important to their ex and that their ex respects them as people and ex-partners. Some dumpees are also in such denial that they refuse to accept the breakup and try to make the relationship work on their terms.

Needless to say, such dumpees overwhelm their dumpers with enthusiasm, zeal, and expectations and make them run for the mountains faster than a speeding bullet.

The reason why dumpers avoid difficult situations is that they don’t know how to handle difficult emotions. They feel pressured, disrespected, and, repelled because of their ex, so they choose not to deal with their emotions at all. Not dealing with them brings them peace whereas thinking about making their dumpee happy overburdens them with guilt, anger, or annoyance and makes them lose any remaining respect they have left for their dumpee.

If you don’t want your ex to obliterate your worth in his or her eyes, avoid begging and pleading. Avoid doing anything that forces your ex to think about you and communicate with you. Always remember that forcing yourself into your ex’s life evokes strong breakup emotions that have been residing inside your ex for a long time and that you’re going to suffer if you reach out hoping your ex will act reasonably.

This may sound dark, but you should try to be realistic and expect the worst. If you expect the worst possible outcome, you’ll understand that reaching out to the dumper is a bad idea and that bad ideas hurt you.

So first things first, figure out why you’re trying to reestablish communication with your ex. Discern what drives your desire to communicate and if you really need your ex to get things done in your life.

To help you decide whether you should contact your ex who dumped you, I’ve made a simple comparison infographic that depicts when it’s okay and not okay to contact your ex. I hope it helps.

If you’re broken-hearted and want to contact your ex simply because you’re in pain and don’t think your life can get any worse, the truth is that it can. It can get much worse because your ex will see you’re hurt, feel responsible, and reject you because of it.

This is because people, especially dumpers don’t handle strong emotions and expectations well. They themselves are going through difficult emotions and feel that they’re getting pulled back into a situation they just freed themselves from.

This is why they feel that they aren’t being heard and that they must make themselves clear. And they usually make themselves clear by taking a more unsympathetic/heartless approach that forcefully pushes the dumpee away.

If this happens to you, you should do your best to gather your strength and stop making post-breakup mistakes. Reaching out to an ex is a breach of no contact that will affect you and your ex. It will annoy your ex and hurt you when you see that your ex doesn’t care about you as much as you want him or her to care.

What does contacting your ex do to you?

It goes without saying that every time you reach out to your ex, you do so because you want something from your ex—whether it’s affection, reassurance, or both. If don’t receive what you expect, you then feel rejected and have no choice but to deal with the consequences of the rejection.

For most dumpees, the consequences involve severe psychological pain that can develop into trust issues and even long-term health issues such as depression and other mental health issues.

But most dumpees don’t just suffer later in the future. They suffer upon reaching out to their ex because they get rejected and become even more dependent on their ex for a positive response.

If you contact your ex while you’re still grieving over the loss of your relationship, you need to understand that your pain will intensify. It will increase from wanting your ex to talk to you to absolutely needing your ex to be with you. You will feel as if you can’t live without your ex and that the only way to stop the pain and be happy is to talk to your ex and get back with him or her.

The quickest way you can stop feeling so dependent on your ex is to do that which stops your dependence. And what stops it is leaving your ex alone and looking after yourself. Those are the only two things that will promote your recovery and minimize the number of emotional setbacks you encounter on your journey to recovery.

Yes, you’ll still have days when you feel lost and depressed, but that’s just the way breakups are. Healing is never a straight road ahead because you first need to detox from your ex and find your own strength. It will take time to develop the strength to be independent of your ex.

But once you finally develop it, you’ll see just how important it was to invest in yourself and be fully healed. You’ll see that not contacting your ex who dumped you was a smart and courageous thing to do and that you just needed to get some space to focus on things that truly matter.

Dumpees who keep contacting their ex and doing things that remind them of their ex have a hard time moving on. More often than not, they strongly hold on to hope and by doing so, prevent themselves from detaching.

They get so hurt that they tell themselves they want or need their ex back or they’ll never be able to forgive themselves for making certain mistakes.

If you’re blaming yourself for something you did or didn’t do, I want you to know that your ex has made mistakes too. His or her self-esteem is probably just too high right now to admit them. Your ex might share them with you later when life gives your ex lemons and forces him or her to lower the pride and see things from a different perspective.

Are you thinking if you should contact your ex who dumped you? What would you tell your ex? Let us know below the post.

And if you’d like to discuss your breakup plan with us alone, look into our coaching packages 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.