Act Like You Don’t Care And Watch Him Come Running Mentality

If you act like you don’t care with the expectation that the guy you like will come running, you need to understand that he won’t come running unless he still loves you and needs you. He won’t do it because he’ll fancy his post-breakup freedom and won’t care too much about your uncaring behavior.

If anything, he’ll find your behavior rude, attach that belief to your crippled post-breakup persona, and be even more sure that you’re not the person he wants to be with.

A guy will come running back after the breakup ONLY if he broke up with you to gain power and control over you.

Such a guy will get hurt by your malicious/emotionally distant behavior and feel inferior, abandoned, neglected, forgotten, and extremely scared that you’ll find someone else. Because of extreme fear and a lack of self-worth, he’ll quickly drop his power act, come running back to you, and apologize for breaking up with you.

He’ll do whatever it takes to get you to care about him and treat him the way he wants to be treated.

If you don’t know whether your ex is waiting for you to message him first or if he’s done with the relationship for good, my advice is not to act like you don’t care about him. When you act like you don’t care, you won’t make your withdrawn ex come back to you. You’ll just send him a message that you’re trying to hurt him and that you don’t care how your actions make him feel.

The thought that you’re being rude on purpose will most likely cause him to retaliate angrily and make it even harder for him to see the good in you.

So instead of showing him that you don’t care about him by hurting him (acting mean, cold, or vengeful), try a different approach. Show him that you care enough to respond, but that you’re not so desperate that you’ll talk about meaningless, non-urgent matters.

Once you’ve responded to his reach out, simply say that you need time to process the breakup and ask him politely not to contact you anymore. By doing so, you’ll prove that you have nothing against him (even if you do) and that you care about yourself a lot more than you care about him.

With such behavior, you’ll minimize the chance of hurting your ex’s ego, bringing a bad reaction out of him, and increasing his frustrations with you.

Always remember that hurting someone to make him care is not the right approach. It can’t be because if the breakup is real (not just a power battle), your ex will react badly to your bitter behavior or if he’s emotionally intelligent, perceive you in a bad light and have yet another reason not to get back with you.

That’s why whether you want your ex back or not, it’s much better to behave in a way that helps you grow as a person and stops your ex from thinking you’re cold, hurt, or angry.

In this post, we’ll talk about whether you should act like you don’t care when you still want your ex back.

Act like you don’t care and watch him come running

Acting like a mean person doesn’t work on guys (or women) who are fed up with you and want nothing to do with you. It tends to work on the kinds of guys who are underdeveloped (jealous, impulsive, and lack self-esteem) because such guys sometimes play mind games and don’t mean to break up with their girlfriends.

Sometimes they just pretend to break up with them so that their girlfriends (or rather, ex-girlfriends) react to them and show them they need them to be happy.

If your ex-boyfriend or ex-husband is one of those people who hurts you to feel good about himself and you’re thinking of doing the same to him, you need to understand that you’ll both play the same malicious game. You’ll both ignore each other or act mean with the intention to make each other cave into separation anxiety and personal fears.

If that’s what you plan on doing just because your ex is doing it, you need to know that your respect for each other is mostly built on intimidation and pain rather than love—and that it likely won’t change even if you get back together. If one of you reaches out and you get back together, your relationship dynamics will merely resume from the point where they were when you separated.

For the dynamics to change, they need to have a reason to change. Both of you have to realize that the way the relationship worked wasn’t healthy and that the two of you need to make some internal changes. You both have to outgrow your old selves and strive for mutual respect and understanding.

The problem though is that simultaneous growth likely won’t happen to you guys. Right now, you’re the only one with the incentive to fix the relationship and self-improve because you’re in pain and misery. And for your ex to want to improve, he has to be in pain and misery too. He has to feel the need to grow and put an end to his current behavioral patterns.

So don’t expect your relationship to magically return to normal and be even better than it was the moment your ex loses power and wants you back.

An ex who deliberately hurts you to feel better about himself most likely won’t suddenly realize that he’s been mistreating you. He won’t have an epiphany because he won’t be able to see his shortcomings. He’ll have too much power over you and too much control in the relationship to look at himself in the mirror and reevaluate his behavior.

With that said, even if you act like you don’t care and watch him come running, things likely won’t change much inside the relationship. Your ex might be anxious and eager to get back with you at first, but when you reconcile, he’ll most likely go back to being his usual self.

He just won’t have the incentive (pain) that would encourage him to grow and keep growing.

Do people only grow when they’re in pain?

No. But dumpers who are hungry for power can’t grow without it. They’re incapable of questioning their mental and emotional processes because they use their perceptions and gut feelings to judge others.

With that said, here are 7 reasons why you shouldn’t act like you don’t care when you want your ex to come running back.

To sum up everything that has been stated so far, acting like you don’t care isn’t going to work on an ex who’s mean, cold, angry, and unreceptive to you.

It’s going to work only when the breakup is a fakeup – a power battle and when your ex mistakes your uncaringness for detachment.

But just because hurting your ex on purpose may work on him when he still cares about you, it doesn’t mean that you should abandon your morals and do that. You should never stoop so low in order to hurt an ex and make him run back because of pain alone.

That’s not love. It’s manipulation.

Besides, there’s a smarter, maturer way to go about it.

Show him you don’t need him, not that you don’t care about him!

There’s a big difference between not caring about your ex’s existence and not needing him to live your life. The former means that you find him unworthy of your reply whereas the latter means that you’re perfectly capable of surviving and enjoying your life without him. The former shows that you’re upset with him and the latter that you’re enjoying your life without him.

Which one do you think looks more appealing to your ex?

If you ask me, it’s not the one where you hold grudges and throw tantrums like a toddler. That kind of behavior wouldn’t impress a stranger, let alone an ex who already knows what you’re like at your worst.

If you want your ex to respect you for the right reasons (not for hurting him but for respecting him as well as yourself), show him that you don’t need him to be happy. Start no contact and leave him completely alone until he reaches out and expresses an interest in you.

I know you don’t want to wait weeks or months for your ex to contact you, but you don’t want to reach out ahead of time before your ex has processed his need for space and started to think about you in a better light. If you contact your ex on your terms, you’ll likely smother your ex and push your ex further away.

And when you push him away and receive an unwanted reaction, you’re probably going to get hurt and reopen the wounds that have partially healed.

Heck, just messaging your ex is probably going to hurt you as it’s going to raise your hopes for reconciliation. So don’t do it. Get the idea that you must take the initiative with your ex out of your head. You’re not responsible for getting back with your ex—and never will be.

Let your dumper ex do his job while you focus on healing and improving yourself. That’s all you should do.

Get him running back to you by running away from him

If you want to get your ex back the right way, you’ll have to do the opposite of what your gut feeling tells you to do. If it tells you to hurt your ex back, play jealousy games, or beg and plead with him, you’ll have to resist your temptations because these are the last things your ex needs to fall back in love with you.

Annoying your ex actually makes things much worse.

What your ex needs to respect you and feel something positive for you is what his actions or inactions are secretly telling you to do. If they’re telling you that he isn’t contacting you or contacting you for the right reasons, he obviously needs space and more time to find a good reason to redevelop cravings for you.

And he needs to find that reason on his own. It’s the only way he can discern that he’s made a mistake that has cost him happiness and health.

The truth is that guys just don’t come back without a reason. More often than not, they need a powerful life lesson. They need something or someone to hurt them, lower their self-esteem, change their views on life, and force them to think about their behavior.

If they aren’t forced to reflect, they tend not to question their life choices and think about their exes. Again, they don’t have a reason to, so they move on and eventually meet someone else.

Just how many smokers don’t quit smoking before they absolutely need to (when they have health issues or become afraid of the consequences), dumpers don’t think about getting back with their exes before they need to either.

They feel relieved that the relationship is over, so they focus on things that help them enjoy their new lives. Sometimes they drink and party, sometimes they hang out with new friends and try new things, and sometimes they stay home and don’t do anything in particular.

They’re happy as long as they have their own space and can do what they want – even if it’s nothing.

This is why acting like you don’t care just doesn’t work on an ex who’s done for good. It doesn’t work because your ex already feels smothered and victimized. He feels that the breakup is your fault, which is why acting rude and vindictive is only going to strengthen your ex’s resolve to stay away from you.

Treat others the way you want to be treated

There’s a saying that if you want someone to like you and treat you well, you have to treat that person with respect. You not only have to give him what he interprets as respect, but you must also show him that you see yourself as a valuable individual worthy of respect.

If one of these two things is missing, you can forget about reattracting your ex and having a successful relationship with him. It won’t happen because your ex won’t think and feel that you want the best for him. On the contrary, he’ll feel an even greater need to pull away so he can be on his own.

That’s why you must give your ex what he’s asking for (even if it’s not what you want) and portray yourself in the best light possible. There’s nothing you can do to change the mistakes you’d made in the past because the past is the best.

But you can still focus on the present and do your best to avoid making as many breakup mistakes as possible.

Handling your emotions and actions well is going to preserve your worth as a dumpee whereas acting on your urges is going to make it worse. So treat yourself with dignity and respect by following the rules of no contact and let your ex come to you.

There is no other way to regain respect from someone who’s lost feelings for you and gave up on you. The only way to change his opinion of you is the hard way – by redeveloping your self-esteem and moving forward with your life.

Always remember that others (especially exes) will treat you the way you let them or make them treat you.

Do you still think you should act like you don’t care and watch him come running? Let me know what you think about this article by commenting below.

And also, if you prefer to talk about this privately through emails or voice counseling, you can do that by clicking 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.