He Told Me Not To Contact Him Anymore

If your ex-boyfriend told you not to contact him anymore, he reached the boiling point and lost control over the emotions created by the conversation. He found himself trapped in a situation he didn’t want to be in and thought the best way to deal with it was to step away and stop interacting.

That way, he quickly stopped feeling forced to communicate with someone who made him feel uncomfortable or hurt and was able to focus on himself and those who made him feel positive emotions.

How he feels when talking to you depends on who dumped who.

If you left him, he told you not to contact him because he felt hurt and assumed the best way to get over you was to cut all contact and focus on rebuilding self-love. No contact was and usually is the best and only method that retains the dumpee’s dignity, pride, value, and internal peace.

However, if he left you, then he couldn’t handle the pressure your behavior or presence created and decided to push you away to feel the positive post-breakup effects. Effects such as relief, happiness, and independence.

Your ex-boyfriend didn’t see or care you needed closure and/or empathy and asked for space in order to stop thinking about you and start putting himself first.

Your ex isn’t a bad person because of that (he’s acting like a typical dumper), but it’s evident that he doesn’t have much if any sympathy for you. He’s impatient and exhausted and just wants to be done with this chapter of his life.

This proves he’s currently not considering getting back together with you and that your only option is to do what he wants you to do.

Leave him alone.

Let him enjoy his relief stage of a breakup so he can feel that he’s on top of the world. It’s expected of him to be happy and act differently (he left to start anew).

You see, dumpers feel euphoric after the breakup and often act on positive emotions.

They go out, party, laugh, date, and appear unrecognizable to dumpees and those who know them. They do things they previously didn’t or condemned, especially if they felt unfulfilled and trapped before leaving their relationship. 

You mustn’t take that personally because it’s got nothing to do with who you are as a person. The more the dumper convinced himself the relationship wasn’t working and the longer he stayed unhappy, the more space he craved and the wilder you can expect him to behave now that the relationship is over.

So if he told you not to contact him anymore, know that he’s not happy about the way he perceives you. He’s not happy about your pre-breakup or post-breakup behavior or simply about the expectations your presence puts on him.

Either way, he wants to stop communicating with you so he can feel free and in control of his emotions. And he feels he can’t do that if you keep talking to him, reminding him of the past, and making him feel trapped and uncomfortable.

As a dumpee, you don’t have to say something wrong to make a guy not want to communicate anymore. His self-made resentment and need for space alone can make him lose patience and ask you not to contact him anymore.

If he’s bitter and blames you for the breakup or the way he feels, you’ll bring out the worst in him even if you just say hello and do your best to avoid putting pressure on him.

Some guys aren’t emotionally mature enough to talk to their exes respectfully and empathetically. They especially can’t be nice and supportive if they’re dating someone else already because in that case, they feel guilty and smothered at the same time.

They just want to be left alone and talk to people they can benefit from.

In today’s post, we discuss why he told you not to contact him anymore and what you can and should do about it if you want the best for all parties involved.

Why did he tell me not to contact him anymore?

When your ex-boyfriend tells you not to contact him anymore, he doesn’t expect you to chase him and prove your worth. He doesn’t want you to fight for the relationship and give him power.

On the contrary, he wants you to back off and let him think, feel, and do what he wants.

I know that in relationships people sometimes push their partners away and act cold on purpose because they want attention and an apology, but this isn’t the case in breakups. In breakups, dumpers typically want what they say they want.

Especially when they feel victimized, angry, and resentful.

You have to listen to dumpers’ emotions or they could say and do things you (not they) will regret.

It’s important for you to understand that as an ex-boyfriend who tells you not to contact him again doesn’t feel comfortable or safe speaking with you. He, his new partner, or both think it’s best that you cease contact and cut off the past.

By pretending you never dated, you can stop demanding opposite things from each other and give each other space to be happy and an opportunity to connect with other people.

If he left you and you’d do anything for another chance to be with him, the last thing you want is for him to meet someone else and forget about you. You don’t want to lose him to someone else because you want him to come back and be only with you.

That’s reasonable, considering the time and emotions you’ve invested in this person. What’s not reasonable though is to refuse to give him what he needs. Since he needs space, it’d be disrespectful to ignore this request and continue reaching out despite him wanting you gone.

Continuous communication would not only disrespect your ex, anger him, and make you look desperate, but also reduce your chances of reconciliation/friendship and make you more obsessed with your ex.

That’s why you need to understand that your ex is serious and that he told you not to contact him anymore because he’s emotionally incapable of engaging in productive conversation. As difficult as this is to read, the guy lost romantic feelings for you and replaced those feelings with negative perceptions and self-defense mechanisms.

If you try to get close to him after he’s told you to stay away, you’ll probably make him feel threatened and force him to reject you and push you away even further. And as you probably know, another rejection will damage your self-esteem and make it harder for you to let go of your ex.

The exact reason why he told you not to contact him varies for each ex-couple.

1. If he broke up with you and asked you to leave him alone right after, he probably felt emotionally tired from staying in an unfulfilling relationship and thought the best way to deal with the breakup was to go your separate ways. He hoped that space would let him do what he wanted and make him happy.
2. If you got into an argument because you criticized him, demanded explanations, or wanted him to change his mind, he most likely got annoyed and angry and told you to leave him alone to avoid arguing and wasting his time and energy.
3. And if you reached out or kept reaching out despite him wanting to focus on his own emotions, thoughts, and goals, he must have felt smothered or guilty and pushed you away to avoid feeling and dealing with difficult emotions.

Clearly, your ex-boyfriend isn’t happy and willing to stay in contact. He’s not even interested in friendship (which is a good thing) and wants you to respect his wishes and leave him alone.

His request for space is a sign you’re not on the same page and that he can’t give you what you’re looking for. As a dumpee, you’re too emotionally draining for him to keep talking to you and giving you what you need.

Dumpers need space after they’ve broken up with their partner. They must get it to process the negative emotions they developed by thinking negatively of their ex and staying in the relationship longer than they wanted.

If they don’t get space, they may:

• ignore their ex
• block their ex
• call their ex names
• blame their ex for the breakup
• get a restraining order against their ex
• and tell their ex to leave them alone

Most dumpers don’t stick around if they feel pressured and uncomfortable. They normally stop replying or communicating altogether as they feel they don’t owe their ex anything and that they deserve to be happy.

This is often their interpretation of self-love, so they push their ex away by saying or showing they need space.

If your ex-boyfriend told you not to contact him anymore, remember that he doesn’t care about your perception of him. Now that you’re exes, his top priority is his well-being. His happiness comes first, and he’s prepared to go to great lengths to achieve it.

He’s even willing to directly tell you to stop contacting him.

So bear in mind that he doesn’t want to help you feel better and that he just wants to do what feels good to him. If he meets a person he likes, he probably won’t hesitate to date that person. He’ll think it’s his turn to be happy and that he shouldn’t feel bad about the pain and suffering he’s put you through.

Always remember that someone who cares about you won’t push you away and chase the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The man will try to help, communicate empathetically, and encourage you to see that space is what’s best for both of you, not just him.

He will ease your worries and fears and help you get through the breakup despite wanting to focus on himself.

That’s why you shouldn’t think that an ex-boyfriend who told you not to contact him anymore actually wants you to contact him or that he can’t stay in touch with you because he still loves you but that it’s too painful for him.

The emotions he feels have nothing to do with love. They’ve got everything to do with his detachment, resentment, lack of empathy, impatience, and desire to put himself first.

Because he can’t focus on himself and feels forced to deal with a person he wants to distance himself from (you), he feels trapped and responds in ways his personality, morality, and maturity allow him to respond.

Of course, dumpers aren’t always to blame for wanting space. When dumpees beg and plead with them, threaten them, humiliate them, ask for affection, and make their lives difficult, they practically force dumpers to want space.

They push them to their limits and prevent them from wanting to stay in touch even as friends.

That being said, here are 7 possible reasons why he told you not to contact him anymore.

What if a dumpee ex told you not to contact him?

In that case, the guy is tired of your breadcrumbs, understands breakups, and/or doesn’t want to get strung along and stay hopeful. He wants you to stop confusing him and let him move on.

What to do if he told me not to contact him anymore?

First of all, you need to understand why he told you not to contact him anymore. Understanding his reasons for wanting space is absolutely necessary so that you can get closure and start letting go of your ex.

Once you understand his reasons for space, it’s time for you to do what he asks of you. It’s time to pull away and not contact him anymore.

If it’s been a few hours since he told you to quit bothering him, tell him you understand, apologize if you said or did horrible things, and wish him the best of luck.

But if it’s been longer than that, then it’s probably best to just keep quiet.

Start no contact and show him you respect his wish not to communicate as ex-parters. It may not be what you want, but the guy is right. You need to stop communicating so you can disconnect from each other and live your life independently.

Your ex doesn’t need to get over you because he already did. Your ex just needs to self-prioritize and not worry about helping you or pleasing you. As for you, you need to wean off your ex and discover your importance.

You can do that only by staying out of contact with your ex.

If you keep reaching out, you’ll achieve the opposite (stay attached) as you’ll constantly place your expectations on your ex and get hurt when those expectations fail.

So as difficult as it is to hear that your ex doesn’t want you to contact him anymore, know that no contact is the best thing you can do right now. It’s the only course of action that will give you and your ex what you need.

Of course, it would have helped if you refrained from contacting your ex without being asked to do so. But since you didn’t know what to do or didn’t have the strength to do it, you have to learn this important lesson the hard way.

You have to learn that exes need to stop communicating and let time and space restore their identity.

Also, don’t think your ex needs just a few weeks to cool off and miss you again. This isn’t a relationship in which distance makes the heart grow fonder. It’s a breakup that indicates your ex has completely lost feelings and given up on the idea of talking and being with you.

I wish you had the power to influence your ex and slowly prove your worth and dedication to the relationship. But sadly, you don’t have that ability as there is no more relationship to work on. Romantic feelings, respect, safety, regret, and desire for bonding are lacking.

You can’t forcefully make your ex fall in love with you. If you try to prove your worth by force, you’ll just look unattractive, pressure your ex, and scare your ex off.

So instead of looking for ways to make your ex take pity on you and come back, go no contact, fall in love with yourself, and learn to let go of control. If you handle the breakup well, you could hear from your ex if your ex becomes nostalgic/guilty and misses the friendship or the relationship.

Until then, be glad your ex doesn’t want to communicate and that he forced you to become emotionally independent. You probably didn’t want to be shooed away in such a discouraging manner, but it is what it is.

You should accept your ex’s behavior and move forward by forgiving yourself and your ex.

Did your ex-boyfriend tell you not to contact him anymore? How did your ex express it? Share your breakup experience in the comments below.

And lastly, if you’d like to discuss your breakup with us, go to our coaching page to sign up for 1-on-1 coaching.

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.