If your exes keep coming back every time they leave, you must be doing something right. You’re probably leaving them to their devices while focusing on yourself and those who deserve your time and attention. By withdrawing your attention away from them, you’re showing them that you accept their decision to leave and that you value yourself more than them.
This allows them to respect you and return to you when they fail to secure happiness for themselves and learn your importance. Your exes come back either because they discover they overestimated themselves and underestimated you or because they still loved you and expected you to chase. Either way, your actions showed them that you were okay on your own and that you wouldn’t beg and plead with them to take mercy on you.
Because you kept your thoughts and emotions to yourself, you indirectly told them that you were okay without them and that they weren’t as important as they thought. Your opinion of them alone didn’t bring them back (unless their goal was to hurt your self-esteem and gain power over you), but it did send the message that you understood your worth and stood by your beliefs.
This made you look secure, strong, and confident and allowed your exes to respect you and see you as an equal.
Keep in mind that you make the best impression on exes not when you agree with them and show them you need them to be happy but when you look happy and aren’t afraid to stand up for yourself and your beliefs. That’s when they change their opinion of you and become curious about you.
Exes (dumpers) respect dumpees who can express their views even if those views don’t align with theirs. They may not like them, but at least they respect them.
Dumpees typically fail to reattract their exes when they choose communication and reasoning as their main attraction techniques. Instead of showcasing strength and confidence, they demonstrate they’re not happy and that they need their exes more than their exes need them.
Their display of codependence basically repulses detached dumpers and kills their remaining respect, curiosity, and attraction. The needier dumpees appear, the more they annoy their exes and push their exes away.
So if you’re wondering why your exes keep coming back, keep in mind that they don’t become resentful, deal with their negative emotions, or use the breakup to manipulate you. They eventually realize that they won’t have an easy life and that things were better when they were with you. Unhappiness, nostalgia, and comparisons between the past and present push them to reconsider their decisions and redevelop feelings.
Your connection was strong enough for them to miss it and want to re-experience it. As a couple, you had something that made the bond special. I don’t know what it is, but if you didn’t connect emotionally, your exes likely wouldn’t have returned. They would have kept their distance and focused on themselves and others.
Sometimes exes return for non-romantic purposes as well. They miss relationship benefits such as emotional support, shared responsibilities, companionship, or money—and return for themselves rather than their ex. Such relationships don’t last very long. They end relatively shortly because the relationship exhausts itself and loses its purpose to continue.
If all or most of your exes keep coming back, it means the relationships were passionate and the breakups respectful. You likely refrained from arguing with your exes, begging for affection, and putting your exes on a pedestal. You made your exes know that they were on the same level as you and that you found them at least partially responsible for breaking up.
The main reason you got back with them is because you let go of control, put them in charge of their life, and let them think, feel, and do what they wanted. You didn’t over-apologize for the breakup and insist on getting what you needed from them. Instead of making them think they were the prize and that you’d do anything to be with them, you simply walked away and let your actions speak for themselves.
Your actions revealed that you enjoyed your life and weren’t going to put your life on hold for them. You had better things to focus on and worry about.
So if your exes keep coming back one after another, remember that they can’t find happiness without you and hope that you can help them become happy. They want you to eliminate their problems and love them for who they are. They likely struggle with low self-esteem due to their issues and hope that you can fix it for them.
When/if you do, they get what they’re after and soon go back to their old ways. This causes disagreements and another breakup.
Dumpers tend not to grow much or at all after the breakup. They tend to search for happiness in the wrong places (usually in relationships or flings with other people) and expect their lives to magically improve. Because they don’t, they get their expectations crushed, experience pain, and run back to their exes for healing.
They see their exes as backup plans – people who can empower them, take their pain away, and help them find their direction and purpose.
In today’s post, we discuss why your exes keep coming back after they break up with you. We also talk about what you should do when they leave multiple times.
Why do my exes keep coming back?
Simply put, your exes keep coming back because they overestimate their abilities to be happy without you. Initially, they think you’re entirely to blame for their problems and negative emotions and that they deserve more than you can give them. It’s not until later that they encounter problems unrelated to you and realize things don’t add up.
They expected to stay relieved, elated, and problem-free, which is why they suffer a shock and reflect. They learn that they made mistakes too and that they were too harsh on you.
Most dumpers return not because their exes were good partners but because they get hurt and can’t get what they hoped to get. If they get involved with another person and pin their hopes on that person, they’re forced to open their eyes and go back to their exes. By reconciling with people from the past, they mask their failures and emotionally recover from them.
Reconciliation with an ex is the quickest way for them to stop feeling unwanted and hurt and start feeling desired, needed, and loved. It can instantly get rid of their pain and replace it with feelings of validation. Relationships can be very empowering. They can boost couples’ self-esteem and give them something positive to work on and look forward to.
You probably remember how happy you were when you first started dating your exes. You liked their attention and affection because you felt attractive and prioritized. Although reconciliations don’t typically feel as good as new relationships, they still trigger a short infatuation phase and make exes feel hopeful, excited, and reassured. The more they crave each other, the better the infatuation phase feels.
For reconciled couples, this phase tends to last about a week. As for new couples, it lasts a month or so. The infatuation phase ends when they get to know each other and/or get used to being together.
The more times couples break up, the shorter and less fulfilling their infatuation phase is. That’s because they normalize breaking up, don’t miss each super much, and don’t fear breaking up for good. Multiple breakups assure them they can live without each other and lower their drive to invest in themselves and each other.
So if you and your exes keep breaking up over and over again, remember that each breakup significantly complicates the dynamics of the relationship. Each breakup proves that your relationship has unresolved problems and that you may not be ready to be with each other. When you get back together, you may feel strongly about each other, but that doesn’t guarantee long-term compatibility and success.
Feelings typically occur due to nostalgia, loneliness, regret, and pain.
To make a relationship work, you must reflect on the relationship and commit to self-improvement. This goes for both you and your exes. A relationship can’t succeed when someone values the relationship significantly less than the other and isn’t willing to put the work in.
It can only stay as it is or deteriorate. Usually, the latter happens because unresolved problems cause couples to become bitter, mean, cold, or vengeful.
Therefore, reconciliations don’t indicate that couples are right for each other. They show that they find each other attractive and that they may have romantic feelings, expectations, and ways to benefit from each other. Strong feelings prove that they miss each other rather than want to invest in themselves and each other.
Couples or ex-couples grow when they understand the importance of the relationship and that they may lose certain benefits if they don’t get their act together. That’s when they open up to the idea of signing up for therapy and making big changes in their behavior.
Needless to say, not all ex-couples should get back together. Abusive, incompatible, highly argumentative, and self-destructive exes should stay broken up and keep some space from each other. By doing so, they can figure out what brought out the worst in them and grow in ways they need to grow.
Only serious exes, determined to work on themselves and with their ex should consider getting back together. Such exes should be willing to abandon old/unhealthy beliefs and do what it takes to start a new (healthier) relationship. They should forgive each other completely and consider finding a therapist or a mentor who can guide them through the reconciliation process.
There’s a lot to be done to repair the broken trust and commitment. But with willpower and a healthy mindset, they should not only be able to get back together but also have a better relationship. A relationship that doesn’t break when there’s a problem that needs fixing.
Having said that, here are 10 different reasons why your exes keep coming back.
What should you do if your exes keep coming back?
Before we talk about what to do when your exes keep coming back, we should figure out why you keep breaking up with the same or different people. What or who is responsible for the relationships always ending in a breakup? If you had just one or two breakups, your exes might have been more responsible than you. But if we’re talking about multiple breakups, then surely it can’t be all your exes’ fault.
You must have also said or done things that contributed to the demise of the relationship. You must think back and learn where you went wrong so you can break the pattern of constant breakups. When you understand your mistakes, commit to never making them again. Promise your friends, family, or those who know the story behind your breakups that you’ve decided to mature and do better romantically.
That should count as a promise and motivate you to keep your word.
When your exes come back, you should figure out if getting back with them is the best thing to do. Is it beneficial to reconcile with exes you failed with or is it better to move on and let the past stay in the past? This is a personal decision, but it must also be an intelligent one. Don’t get back with people just because they broke your heart and made you hungry for validation.
Likewise, don’t reject them harshly just to make them feel how they made you feel. If you’ve learned anything from your breakup, their return is the time to show it. Treat them respectfully even if you have nothing to gain from them. That’s the mature thing to do.
If you still have feelings for them, you can take them back. Just remember that such relationships will require a lot of work. You’ll have to communicate your thoughts and emotions better and fix the trust broken by the breakup/s. It could take a while before you fully process pain and feel safe with each other. But if you feel determined to work together, it shouldn’t be a problem.
Love should guide you and help you overcome any issues you encounter.
All in all, you can take them back or reject them. Whatever you decide, stick to your decision. You don’t want to change your mind later and hurt their feelings.
What’s your opinion on why your exes keep coming back? Post it in the comments section below.
And if you need extra help with your returning exes, consider signing up for coaching and reaching out directly to us. We’ll analyze your exes’ reasons for coming and going together.
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.
