Do Cheaters Miss Their Ex?

Typically, cheaters don’t miss their ex after the breakup. They enjoy their freedom and are too busy getting close to the person they left their ex for.

The only time they miss their ex is when they encounter something unpredictable and painful they need their ex’s help with. Something like relationship problems, depression, financial issues, and guilt.

They basically miss their ex when they realize they overvalued themselves and undervalued their ex and his or her capabilities to keep them from feeling miserable. That’s when they reach out to their ex and try to obtain what they need from their ex.

Before that happens though, cheaters are perfectly happy with their new partner or on their own. They enjoy the space they get from their ex as they’re able to focus on themselves and others. They don’t need to invest in someone who smothers them and makes them uncomfortable.

Not anymore they don’t.

Now they can do what makes them happy. And what makes them happy is dating other people and focusing on themselves. The validation from new people makes them feel better than ever, so they keep getting to know new people and being glad they left their ex.

They wouldn’t be so happy if they stayed with their ex. They’d be stuck in a situation that makes them unhappy.

You need to understand that cheaters don’t (immediately) miss their exes unless their exes were the ones who dumped them. Nostalgia appears when people lose something or someone important. It happens when they get rejected and convince themselves they won’t be as happy as they were in the past.

That’s when they ponder about the what-ifs and question their decisions and happiness. 

So if you want to know the answer to “Do cheaters miss their ex,” know that it depends on how happy they are and whether they got dumped. They don’t automatically miss their ex just because they were with their ex for x number of months or years.

The time they spent with their ex is irrelevant.

What matters is how they think about their ex after the breakup and whether they’re capable of engaging in introspection and changing their perceptions and beliefs. 

Many exes feel victimized after the breakup. They don’t want to think differently of their ex as blaming and thinking poorly of their ex empowers them, eliminates guilt, and makes them stay away from their ex. The worse they perceive their ex and the more space they get, the better and more in control they feel.

That’s why those dumpers who blame their exes for the breakup typically don’t reach out anytime soon. They don’t need to because they have nothing to talk to their ex about. They don’t feel bad for hurting their ex because, in their mind, they justify their behavior by telling themselves they had to do what they had to do, even if it meant hurting their ex.

Always remember that people miss something or someone when they don’t have it in their life anymore and aren’t happy or as happy as they’d like to be. Nostalgia hits them when they yearn for a better past and wish to feel the way they did when things were different or better.

They can’t miss their ex if they’re still enjoying their life (with someone else) and prefer the present to the past. To miss their ex as a friend or romantically, they must first process the breakup, fail to find happiness with the person or things they replaced their ex with, and experience pain or inconvenience.

Until that happens, you can say and do all the right things and your ex still won’t miss you. You’ll probably make your ex resent you and blame you for the way he or she feels. If you’re very persistent, you might even get a restraining order against you.

Therefore, whether your ex gets nostalgic depends more on your ex than it does on you. It depends on his or her coping mechanisms, mentality, things that happen to your ex, and how happy your ex is with his or her choices and the present.

The less happy your ex is, the bigger the chance that your ex will think about you, become curious and nostalgic, and reach out. You need to be patient and leave your ex alone until your ex contacts you and gives you something to work with.

In this post, we discuss whether cheaters miss their exes. We also share some tips on what to do if you got cheated on and miss your ex.

Do cheaters miss their ex?

If you got dumped, you can’t make your ex miss you by force. You can’t trigger your ex’s nostalgia by reminding him or her of the good times. By trying to make your ex think about you and appreciate the past, you’ll only pressure your ex and make yourself look pushy, deceptive, and unattractive.

You’ll show you’re unhappy and nostalgic and that you need something from your ex that he or she can’t and doesn’t want to give.

So no matter how badly you want your cheating ex to miss you, give up on taking control of the breakup and accept that your ex is going through the early stages of a breakup. There will be no missing you as long as your ex is perfectly happy, focusing on the person he or she cheated on you with.

You must remember that nostalgia is a bittersweet feeling that requires something negative. Without something negative (usually failure and regret), your ex can’t think about the past and want what he or she had with you.

Your ex can only focus on the present moment and be glad that things happened the way they did.

So no, cheaters don’t miss their ex after the breakup. They cheated on their ex because they weren’t happy or convinced themselves they weren’t happy and that they deserved more. Because they believed that being with their ex was unfulfilling, they let someone else into their heart and stopped valuing their ex.

This made them fall out of love with their ex and enabled them to start a new romantic and/or sexual relationship with someone else.

Although some cheaters regret cheating, they don’t necessarily regret leaving their ex. They just wish they hadn’t betrayed their ex and hurt their ex so badly. Deep inside, they still want to move on from their ex as doing so helps them think of themselves as victims who had no choice but to leave their ex.

If you keep waiting for them to miss you, you could underprioritize your life and wait a very long time. There’s no guarantee that someone who treated you badly will ever have an epiphany, grow as a person, miss you, and contact you to tell you how badly he or she messed up.

People (especially those who feel victimized) tend to point fingers at their ex for as long as they can. They think their ex is responsible for their unhappiness until they reach a point where they can’t lie to themselves anymore.

They reach this point when they anger, annoy, disappoint, and hurt the wrong person.

This person is someone who doesn’t tolerate them and as a result, makes them experience a powerful emotional lesson. That’s when they see they’re not as great and desirable as they thought they were and that they can’t get away with their injustice. 

If you got cheated on and you’re waiting for your ex to miss you, you’re essentially hoping for something bad to happen to your ex. Something that stops your ex from having fun and forces your ex to reflect. You’re expecting your ex to fail, admit his or her wrongdoings, and validate your feelings.

Keep in mind that there’s a better way of feeling validated. It may not be the fastest, but it will reduce your reliance on your ex and make you more resistant to future betrayals.

It’s called “detaching and working on your self-esteem.” I know it sucks to deal with cheating and abandonment on your own (without your ex), but you need to stop thinking your ex will save you from anxiety and pain.

Your ex is no longer the person to rely on. He or she wouldn’t have cheated on you and hurt you this badly if he or she was. That’s why you need to work on accepting the unfortunate turn of events and fall back in love with yourself.

Yes, your ex could instantly make you do that, but your ex doesn’t want to. And because he or she doesn’t want to, you must work on yourself and become self-reliant. You can do that by improving your self-esteem and detaching from your ex. 

Don’t waste your time waiting for your ex to miss you. If you wait and make no post-breakup improvements, you could stay emotionally dependent on your ex for months or years and experience another heartbreaking romantic failure in the future.

It’s best to become who you want to become now that you have a chance to do that and avoid unnecessary suffering later.

Besides, there are two ways in which your ex could miss you. Your ex could miss you as a friend and a partner. If your ex misses you as a friend, he or she won’t give you what you’re looking for (romantic validation). Your ex will only confuse you and give you false hope.

What you probably want is for your ex to miss you romantically. This means you want your ex to acknowledge your romantic worth and invest in you wholeheartedly. Anything less than a new romantic opportunity is unacceptable to you.

And that’s how it should be. If you entertain your ex’s non-romantic nostalgia, you could settle for friendship or friendship with benefits and suffer longer than you need to. You must avoid that by loving yourself and getting rid of the fear of losing your ex completely and forever.

So bear in mind that cheaters miss their ex only when things go awry and make them want something from their ex. When they need something from their ex, they then become okay with speaking with their ex all of a sudden and forget the fact that their ex may not be ready to talk about random things.

That being said, here’s when cheaters miss their ex after the breakup.

How do cheaters feel after a breakup?

Most cheaters feel elated after a breakup. They enjoy the freedom given to them by the breakup and don’t have any regrets. They usually don’t feel guilty or start feeling guilty later after they’ve gone through the love stage with their new partner and realized what they’ve done.

Cheaters don’t worry about the past and how things ended. They focus on the present and the way they feel with their new partner. This enables them to stay busy with things that make them feel good.

You shouldn’t worry too much about how cheaters feel after the breakup because most cheaters are on cloud nine. They’re in love with the person they cheated on or love the idea of meeting someone else.

What you should be wondering instead is how cheaters feel months or years after the breakup when reality catches up to them. How do they feel and what do they do when they encounter problems bigger than they can handle?

Some cheaters apologize to their ex and try to set themselves on the right path and keep moving on whereas others beg for forgiveness and another chance. Those who can’t resolve their problems on their own tend to project their problems onto their ex and expect their ex to love them and make them feel better.

Such dumpers come back at lightning speed just to feel secure and needed. They want their ex to give them what they couldn’t get without their ex and as a result, use their ex for validation and support.

That means they come back for themselves and may leave when they no longer need their ex’s help.

How to stop missing your ex when you get cheated on?

If you’re missing your ex after he or she cheated on you, your brain is trying to convince you that your ex is important to you. It’s telling you that you need your ex to be happy and that you’ll never be happy unless you reconcile with the person who hurt you.

What your brain isn’t telling you though, is that you wouldn’t be craving your ex so badly if your ex didn’t betray you. You’d still be together or wouldn’t feel unworthy of your ex’s love and attention.

The only reason you miss your ex is because your ex destroyed your self-esteem and showed no interest in getting back together.

When you get over the betrayal and realize what your ex has done, you’ll see that your ex isn’t the person you made him or her out to be and that your ex should be regretting things and missing you (not the other way around).

If your ex isn’t missing you, regretting cheating, and making it up to you, you shouldn’t be either.

You should be moving on and minding your own business. It won’t be easy to stop missing someone who hurt you and made you rely on him or her for healing. But by learning more about breakups and following the rules of no contact, you’ll slowly recover from infidelity and feel stronger because of it.

You’ll overcome your inner demons and learn that you no longer need your ex to enjoy life. You just need to stay away from your ex and talk to people who appreciate you. Those people support you and distract you whereas your ex keeps you dependent on him or her for validation and love.

So try not to worry about whether your ex misses you or not. Think about your ex’s thoughts and feelings only when your ex contacts you and wants something from you. That’s when you can analyze your ex’s intentions, and depending on your ex’s realizations and growth, talk to your ex or ask your ex to leave you alone.

If you’re not ready to communicate or if your ex is the same person he or she was when the cheating happened, you should ask for space and continue to get over the breakup.

You should:

• sign up for therapy
• journal and meditate
• exercise
• practice self-love affirmations
• surround yourself with friends and family
• get busy

You won’t miss your cheating ex forever. As soon as you discover your worth, you’ll see that your ex crossed your boundaries and that you’ll be much happier without someone who refuses to love you and make you feel secure.

Try to be patient by reminding yourself that healing takes time. You were cheated on and possibly abandoned as well, so give yourself as long as it takes. If it takes months, it takes months. You can’t rush the process because you must detach and relearn to love yourself.

Tell yourself that your ex cheated because he or she lacked morals and caved into temptations. It had nothing to do with your personality and ability to make your ex happy. If you think that it does, it’s because your ex destroyed your confidence in yourself and triggered your fears.

Perhaps this is something you can work on now that you have the time to self-invest. Discover your lackings and strive to become the best version of yourself. You’ll become who you want to be if you take the breakup seriously and commit to growing as a person.

When you put in the necessary work, you’ll outgrow your ex and feel comfortable with who you are and the people you have.

What do you think? Do cheaters miss their ex after the breakup? When do they miss their ex the most? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

And lastly, if you’re looking for breakup guidance regarding your cheating ex, click here to learn about our breakup coaching services.

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.