What Does It Mean When Your Ex Insults You?

When your ex insults you, your ex wants you to know that he or she isn’t happy with the breakup. Your ex expected the breakup not to happen or to unfold on his/her terms and to have control over it. Because that didn’t happen, your ex now feels powerless and is trying to regain power forcefully.

He or she is doing that by insulting you and bringing a negative reaction out of you. This negative reaction aims to empower your ex and show that you’re not completely indifferent toward your ex. You may be detached, but you still get affected by your ex’s insults and negative behavior.

Secretly, your ex wants you to admit that you were wrong, that you care, or that you’re sorry for saying or doing offensive things.

Insulting people feel victimized and vulnerable. They don’t know how to get the recognition they crave (especially if they already tried being nice), so they resort to drastic measures. Drastic measures include insults, jealousy games, rumor-spreading, revenge, and anything negative and unhealthy that could potentially hurt their ex and boost their ego.

Both dumpees and dumpers occasionally insult each other after the breakup. From what I see, dumpees get angry the most in the angry stage of a breakup and insult their ex to feel less rejected, ignored, and belittled. They want their ex to make them feel important and powerful.

Dumpers, on the other hand, insult their ex because they feel victimized and think their ex should suffer for making their life difficult during or after the relationship. They don’t want their ex to get away with certain behaviors, so they attack their dumpees and try to get even.

Such dumpers tend not to understand nor care how hurt dumpees are and that they need help rather than insults. The relationship has ended, so there’s no point in engaging in conflict. There’s nothing to argue about because there’s no relationship to work on anymore.

Ex-couples should go their separate ways peacefully and avoid offending each other if they need to converse for some reason. If they had an ugly breakup and they must converse, they can do it through their family members and friends as their loved ones typically aren’t resentful and can communicate with a clear head.

The point is that you can’t benefit from being insulted by a person you love or loved. You can only feel attacked and tempted to fight back.

So what does it mean when an ex insults you? It means that your ex feels victimized and ready to fight you head-on. Your ex wants to make your life miserable just to feel justified and better about the things he or she is going through.

If your ex feels jealous, your ex wants to stop feeling jealous.

If your ex feels replaced and that you’re having a great time without him or her, your ex wants to ruin your fun and get his/her revenge.

And if your ex thinks you want too much of his or her time, your ex wants you to stop pressuring him or her and asking for time and validation.

No matter how your ex feels, your ex has a lot of anger in his heart and thinks it’s okay to insult you. Insults are his only means of protecting himself from painful emotions. Eventually, he’ll stop insulting you, but his perception of you likely won’t change for a long time, if ever.

In this post, we shed some light on your ex’s reasons for insulting you and bringing you down.

Why is my ex insulting me?

Assuming your ex left you, the reason your ex is insulting could have something to do with the way you’re handling the breakup.

If you’re reaching out to your ex, talking badly about your ex to your mutual friends, bragging on social media, or doing anything your ex sees as a lack of respect, your ex is probably retaliating in ways that make the most sense to your ex.

Your ex is fighting fire with fire and thinks you’ll stop what you’re doing when you get a taste of your own medicine.

Your ex feels unhappy with the things you did or currently do because your ex expected you to act differently. He or she thought you would own up to your mistakes and leave him or her alone.

But instead, you did something that angered your ex and made your ex fight you back.

I don’t know what you could have done to annoy your ex, but some of the things dumpees do to pester their ex are:

• reach out, ask for explanations, blame their ex for the breakup, accuse their ex of cheating, guilt-trip, and bicker with their ex
• show up unannounced
• send gifts and letters
• try to evoke jealousy on social media or in person
• spread rumors and secrets
• contact their ex’s friends and family and overshare things
• and make their ex feel responsible for their healing

Whatever you did, your ex felt that the easiest way to stop you from acting out of control was to insult you and hurt you. Your pain was meant to tell you that your ex can overpower you anytime and that you deserve to suffer for making him or her suffer.

Your ex wanted the conversation or quarrel to end and you to realize that he or she is in control and that there will be no more compromising and caring about your feelings. Not while your ex is hurting and needs to distract himself or herself from the past and focus on things that feel good.

If you didn’t do any of the above-mentioned things to anger your ex, it’s possible that your presence alone bothers your ex. Dumpees who live or work with their ex tend to annoy their ex just for breathing next to their ex.

They make their ex angry because they constantly remind their ex of the things their ex doesn’t like about them. In other words, they trigger their ex’s negative associations and make their ex react to them in ways their ex usually reacts in.

And lastly, if you haven’t been present in your ex’s life, but your ex found ways to reach out and insult you anyway, then your ex just feels bitter and vengeful. He or she wants to get back at you for complicating the relationship or breakup and failing to be the person he or she wanted you to be.

In that case, your ex doesn’t have any expectations of you. He or she just wants you to suffer because suffering would make him or her feel even.

Such a vengeful ex typically reaches out for no other reason than to insult you and stop you from living a peaceful life. Seeing you moving on and/or talking to or dating other people makes him or her furious because he or she expected you to cry in bed and be lost without him/her.

Many vengeful dumpers insult their ex by:

• criticizing their ex’s personality and looks
• pointing out their ex’s flaws and insecurities
• blaming their ex for the end of the relationship
• talking badly about their ex’s new relationship, job, friends, and ambitions
• questioning their ex’s ability to be happy and make others happy

Some dumpers feel they’ve been wronged and think they have the right to unleash their fury on their ex and make their ex regret crossing paths with them. Their self-control and maturity are lacking, so they believe their ex is responsible for the way they think, feel, and act.

Because of that, they show their ex how they treat those who’ve hurt them.

With that said, here’s why your ex is insulting you after the breakup.

If your ex is insulting you, you have to understand that your ex has a lot of pent-up anger inside him and that your ex chose to take it out on you instead of dealing with it himself. By getting angry with you, your ex got back at you for disrespecting, guilt-tripping, or pressuring him and sent you a warning not to do it ever again.

Anger is an emotion of power. Its purpose is to regain lost control over one’s life. That explains why exes with the highest expectations and desire for control argue so much and cause problems for each other.

What to do when your ex insults you?

The most important advice I can give you whether your ex is a dumpee or a dumper is not to act the same way as your ex. Your ex may be throwing punches below the belt, but don’t let that get to you and make you engage in battle with your ex.

You must instead try to calm down and learn where your ex’s bitterness comes from. When you understand that your ex is acting crazy because your ex is associating negative thoughts and feelings with you, you’ll feel less tempted to fight your ex and be more understanding toward your ex’s behavior.

While you’re trying to understand your ex, you don’t have to tolerate everything your ex is saying and doing. But you must refuse to take your ex’s bait.

Nothing good will come of insulting your ex back. You’ll just let your ex bring you down and end up despising your ex for getting the best of you.

So what do you do when your ex insults you?

The very first thing you do is tell your ex that you have nothing against him or her and that you’ll appreciate it if he or she stops insulting you. Say that you find it very rude and that it’s completely uncalled for.

If that doesn’t work and your ex keeps insulting you, then distance yourself from your ex. You can do this either by telling your ex you want space and that you’ll block him or her if you receive any more insults or simply by going no contact and preventing your ex from insulting you.

Every breakup is different, but if you don’t live with your ex and share responsibilities with your ex such as kids, you need to cut your ex out of your life completely. You need to show your ex that you’re not friends and that you have no interest in pretending that you are.

I hate saying it, but breakups happen for a reason. Couples disconnect emotionally and have no choice but to get space from each other. By getting space, they can avoid situations where they can throw insults at each other and get offended and hurt.

Those who communicate post-breakup oftentimes evoke unpleasant reminders and emotions and complicate the moving-on process. That’s why I encourage you not to talk to your ex unless you need to.

And if you need to talk to your ex, talk only about essential things. Make sure to voice your opinion in a calm and polite tone and look for ways to cut your ex out of your life completely or as much as possible.

You’ll be better off without your ex because your ex (especially negative behavior) will affect you emotionally and prevent you from moving on.

I want you to ignore your ex’s provocations. Your ex may not be happy, but that doesn’t mean you should let your ex drag you down with him or her and also be unhappy. You should instead acknowledge that your ex is bitter and that his or her bitterness isn’t your problem.

It’s your ex’s because your ex lacks the ability to do something about it.

As long as your ex thinks it’s okay to insult you and as long as you’re healing, you should stay far away from your ex. Focus on your friends, family, and work—and do things that give meaning to your life.

It will help you grow and be happy whereas arguing with your ex or trying to fix your ex’s problems yourself will keep you in the past and hinder your healing.

What do you think it means when your ex insults you? What is an appropriate response in your opinion? Share your views below the post. We’d love to hear what you think.

And lastly, if you’d like to discuss your ex’s insulting behavior with us, click here to get in touch with us.

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.