If your ex started dating someone else and you’re wondering if exes ever come back after dating someone else, the truth is that they do. They come back because dating someone else opens their eyes.
It gives them a reality check and hurts them so much it forces them to reflect on their choices and makes them regret leaving their long-term partner.
I’m not saying this to just give you false hope.
There really is no quicker way for exes to come back than to get involved with someone new. Preferably with someone who’s incompatible and/or much worse than their previous partner.
So if you want to know, “Do exes ever come back after dating someone else,” you need to know that they do. They come back. But it really depends on the events going on in their lives, how good their previous and current relationships are, and how much respect they still have for their exes.
How often do exes come back after dating someone else?
Before you get too excited about reuniting with a person you love, you need to know that many exes don’t come back. Many exes aren’t able to grow as people and disassociate negative characteristics from their exes because they feel victimized and smothered.
This is why they tend to see their exes for the people they were at their worst (usually at the time of a breakup) and refuse to give them the credit they deserve.
It’s difficult to say exactly how often exes come back after dating someone else because no two relationships are alike.
But if your relationship was healthy and your ex left because he or she took you for granted (and not vice versa), your chances are as good as they get. Your ex just needs to get to know the new person fully, get hurt, and realize that the new person won’t ever reach your standards.
When that happens, your ex could quickly put you up on a pedestal and start to fall out of love with the new person.
If you want your ex to come back after dating someone else, you need to understand that your ex must first go through certain relationship phases. Your ex must invest time and energy into the new person and become excited and then get hurt from raising his or her expectations too high.
It’s an increase in happiness followed by a big dip in happiness that hurts dumpers the most and makes them come back. And that’s exactly what your ex needs to experience in order to appreciate you again.
With that said, exes usually come back after dating someone else when they:
- go all-in on their new relationship solely because it feels good (impulsive behavior)
- rebound (still have feelings for their ex)
- view their ex in a positive light
- realize they took their ex’s good traits for granted because they focused on the bad ones
How long does it take for exes to come back after dating someone else?
Most exes who come back after dating someone new return within a few months. They need a few months of time to see that their new boyfriend or girlfriend isn’t their ideal partner and that their ex was much better in terms of compatibility.
Such dumpers oftentimes still have some feelings left for their ex and/or never stopped doubting their decision to break up. Because they’re unsure, they keep thinking about their ex even when they’re with someone new and let the new person’s shortcomings and mistakes push them toward their ex.
There are also dumpers who don’t come back right away. They come back many months or years later (possibly after dating multiple people) because they get hurt by external factors.
Factors such as:
- depression
- rejection
- unhappiness
- illness
- breakup
- death of a family member
- and other kinds of personal losses
Some exes come back after dating someone else and others don’t. Their return strongly depends on what they learn from their romantic failures.
If they don’t learn much because they play the blame game, they obviously can’t improve their thoughts and behavior and have no reason to return. They instead just move onto the next person and more often than not, manifest similar results.
But if they’re open to self-criticism and they want to become better people and romantic partners, they’re able to recognize their mistakes and acknowledge their exes as equals.
This is how they develop respect for their exes again and set the foundation for love to redevelop.
Here are 5 common reasons why exes come back after dating someone else.
What are the dangers of getting back with exes who have been with other people?
Dumpers who come back after dating someone else don’t always come back for their exes. Sometimes they come back exclusively for themselves because of pain, anxiety, boredom, and even guilt.
Such dumpers sometimes have a difficult time falling in love or staying in love because they come back for selfish reasons. Reasons that quickly disappear once they reconnect with their exes.
This is the most common reason why exes come back and leave again. Some dumpers have a self-centered motive for coming back. And that’s just not good enough to maintain a romantic relationship.
It may be able to put a bandaid on the relationship for a week or two as long as love hormones are present, but when emotions wane and old problems return, that bandaid gets ripped off fast.
Another reason exes leave after coming back is that they or their partners don’t make any significant personal changes. Fundamentally, they remain on the same or very similar maturity level and as a result, slowly lose the will to fight again.
Most people have a relatively small probability of their ex leaving them again for the same person or even for someone else. But this does happen every now and then because some exes feel confused.
They don’t know who they love and what they want, so they get confused and try to date two people at the same time.
To avoid being used and left again, you need to observe your ex-partner’s will to work on the relationship and discern if your ex is in it for the long run. You can ask your ex about his/her plans to rebuild the relationship and see how your ex responds.
If your ex immediately tells you what’s going to change and how it’s going to change, you can probably trust your ex. You can relax because your ex’s focus is on you.
But if your partner merely promises that things will be different but doesn’t actually do anything about it, you could be in a lot of trouble.
Your partner could leave again when someone else comes along or when stress puts pressure on the relationship.
How to get back with an ex who’s with someone else?
If you want your ex back even though your ex is with someone else, you have to understand that you can’t woo your ex back. You can’t just text your ex back or use some sly technique a random person on the internet tells you to use.
Breakups don’t work that way.
Your ex can’t be manipulated with push-pull techniques and various devious tactics. Not unless your ex is emotionally ready and wants to be persuaded. But in that case, you wouldn’t even need to play dirty because your ex would show a lot of interest, romantic affection, and most of all, initiation.
Your ex would talk to you and try to get to meet up with you so that he or she could ask to get back together with you.
And yes, your ex would probably find it difficult to ask you out because he or she would be afraid of rejection, but that’s exactly how your ex needs to feel. Your ex needs to be afraid of your rejection because fear indicates that your ex cares about you a lot and that he or she is serious about getting back with you.
So if you want to get back with an ex who’s with someone else, the first thing you need to do is stop looking for ways to get your ex back. You need to get out of that mindset and remember that your ex doesn’t want you to fight for love.
As difficult as this is to hear, your ex wants you to respect his or her new relationship and leave him or her alone. At the moment, your ex is still with the other person and will stay with him or her for the unforeseeable future.
Make sure you don’t portray yourself as a desperate dumpee who refuses to accept the breakup. Instead, learn more about the rules of no contact and start rebuilding yourself.
Will my ex forget about me if I leave my ex alone?
Dumpees’ biggest fear is that their ex will forget about them and move on during no contact.
While there’s always a possibility that your ex will move on (many dumpers do), you ought to understand that your ex won’t just erase you from memory like you’re some corrupted data on a USB flash drive.
Your ex isn’t capable of doing that. He or she created many unerasable memories, formed behavioral patterns, and even anchored certain emotions to locations and experiences. Those things will stay with your ex for a very long time whether your ex likes it or not.
So don’t worry about being forgotten. A part of you will always live in your ex.
What you should worry about instead is your own perception of yourself. The perception that you could ruin by texting and calling your ex—and annoying your ex while he or she is dating someone else.
You have to know that bringing a bad reaction out of your ex will cause you way more anxiety than your ex moving on and forgetting about you. It will make you emotionally dependent on your ex for recognition and prolong your healing by weeks or months.
Letting your ex go, on the other hand, will heal your wounds, teach you valuable lessons, and make you stronger and better prepared for your next relationship.
So what do I do if my ex is with someone else?
Even though there are exes who come back after dating someone else, it’s of utmost importance that you don’t wait for your ex to have an epiphany. You don’t want to put your life on hold and do absolutely nothing while your ex is moving forward with his or her life and dating people.
That would be a huge waste of time.
If you want the best for yourself, you need to transform yourself from a person who needs your ex to feel good into a person who’s independent and grateful to be alive.
This could take months of hard work and self-love to accomplish, but if you commit to getting over your ex and improving yourself, you could come out of this experience a completely different person.
The pain could change you so much you wouldn’t even recognize yourself in your next relationship with your ex or with someone else.
So instead of wondering, “Do exes ever come back after dating someone else,” start asking yourself, “What do I need to do to get myself back? How can I become happy and live with purpose?”
When you realize the importance of healing and personal development and get through the storm, you may not even want your ex back from another person. You may realize that your ex jumped into a new relationship without improving himself or herself and that your ex is holding you back from reaching your full potential.
I hope you’ve learned a thing or two about exes coming back after dating someone new. If you did, make sure you also read the article about why some exes never come back. It will prepare you for the worst-case scenario in case your ex doesn’t come back after leaving his or her partner.
However, if you’re looking for personalized 1-on-1 guidance, click here to see our coaching plans.
My relationship with my ex girlfriend was for 3 years the last one was LDR (we are in different continents), we broke up because we couldn’t be together because of travel restrictions.
In one month I realized that she is dating somebody else, the restrictions lifted after this by 2 weeks where I could travel for her
I started in contact with her randomly to see what’s going on but its seems that the communications with here is not easy as sometimes she does ignore my messages. I haven’t told her to come back directly but she doesn’t want to give me the chance.
Our LDR wasn’t so good in terms of communication but we were good and we had plans to continue with each other. Now it is 3 months since the breakup and I don’t know what to do.
By the way the breakup initiated by myself and she accepted it right away in on day.
My ex and I struggled since it’s Pandemic and he had lots of workloads and my Nursing school. We became toxic and broke it off. We just stop talking for a while. So I decided to go back home to the US and spend my online class here (I was in the Philippines for my Nursing school) after 2 months he started dating someone new, after a month he got his new girl pregnant. This girl had 3 kids. Knowing him, he doesn’t want to be with a girl who has kids (much respect here) so the girl got miscarriage and they broke up. After 7 months he started reaching out to me and telling me how selfish he was back then. That he learned so much and he wants to change so bad. But I stop reaching out to him first somehow treated him like “zero contact” rules. Recently, I saw in his social media that he’s still talking again to new girl. I mean I can’t blame him, he’s currently single but I feel like he can’t change. He can’t be alone. He needed random girls’ assurance and security that he is still likeable. He’s the type of person who can’t handle idle time and always in need of someone to talk to fill in the void. Now I feel like I’m back to square one of moving on from him. But anyhow, I’ll just focus on my personal growth and be a better partner in my next relationship and not thinking about getting back with him again.
Another fantastic article. I did no contact for three months and thought for sure my ex would reach out to me. Then, my buddy saw her profile on a dating site. I was doing really well with working on myself and trying to move forward but then out of nowhere her memory came back and hit me like a semi truck. These last few weeks have been crushing me. I think I set myself up for failure by thinking she would reach out after four or five months and since that hasn’t happened, I have to start all over with moving on again.
Hi John.
You’ve experienced an emotional setback. You’ve probably already gotten over it by now, but if you haven’t, don’t worry. You’ll feel better in no time.
My advice is to tell your friend to keep you in the dark about your ex. The less you know the better.
Best,
Zan
Hi Zan,
I definitely have not gotten over it, and it makes me sick to my stomach. I’ve been lashing out and treating people unfairly and I know it’s because I’m projecting. I love very hard and I was committed to her forever, and thought she felt the same. I know that I broke her threshold and that’s why she left. I know this is going to take a long time, I just hate feeling broken hearted.
It’s almost miraculous how the tables turn when enough time passes by. My ex’s betrayal really hurt but I think it’s mostly because it came out of nowhere (just the night prior we were booking flights to Spain). The fact that I was long distance also didn’t help because I couldn’t see what she was really doing.
It’s been a year of not giving a damn about her and my feelings and thoughts about her have turned into strong emotions pity and disgust. I honestly cannot believe I’m writing this considering how much I loved and invested in her at one point. I almost hate the fact that she won’t forget me – I wish she would. The mere thought of her telling anyone that she knows me turns my stomach now because I want absolutely nothing of me tied to that damaged and disgraceful excuse of a human life.
And you’re right Zan, exes very very rarely return because they love or miss you. They return because no one of value wants them and they go rummaging through the past hoping some loser will be dumb enough to take them. They settle with what’s easy and the older they get, the more you are guaranteed of seeing this behaviour. This is exactly what my ex did – she dug up an idiot she cheated on 30 years ago and love bombed him to the point where he not only took her back but is also at risk of losing his own family as he engages in cheating with my ex.
So if you’re wondering whether you should take back an ex after she’s been tossed and dumped by others, ask yourself if you’d ever consider eating back your vomit. If your answer is yes, then congratulations, you’ve learned nothing and deserve to be back with low value trash.
Otherwise, respect yourself, and leave that sh*t behind you where she belongs. There are plenty of high quality women out there that are younger, smarter, and way hotter. Focus on yourself and everything else will fall into place. As I’ve written in the past, a woman – no matter how amazing you think she is – should never EVER be anything more than a compliment to your amazing life. Never the main focus.
Hi DK.
Since your ex lost respect for you and treated you poorly, your feelings for her have turned into anger and disgust. This tends to happen to people who get betrayed the way you did.
It’s very important that you fight these emotions of intense hatred so that you don’t turn into a person who has difficulty trusting others. I suggest that you practice forgiveness and self-love a few times a day. Internally, wish your ex well and then and forgive her for everything she did to hurt you.
There’s nothing worse than having a mean ex affect your future. Remember that, DK.
Zan
Hi well written , and makes sense. It just takes time and work to get over a heartbreak specially with a single mom.
Hey Zan,
I recently went through a breakup from an LDR of 1 year.. I knew her for two years. At first we hated each other, then we became friends, then last year we got together (long distance). It happened randomly, but we formed a strong emotional bond.
We both have our flaws but what led to the breakup I believe was me suffocating her with my behaviour after she met 3 online friends (2 girls and a guy, the guy was with one of those girls, the other girl is a lesbian). I started getting jealous of how she would spend 12 hours a day with them playing video games, not focusing on getting work, or being more responsible & eating less garbage food (that her lesbian overweight friend encouraged).
It’s been a month since the breakup, I made some post breakup mistakes for about a week & a half before going NC for two weeks… Starting the 4th week post breakup (March 9th) I deleted her off playstation & messaged her on whatsapp saying i deleted for my own healing, not because of hate or spite & hopefully one day maybe we could reconcile things & I’ve been no contact since then.
She plays 16 hours a day with those 3 friends now… Literally. She has abandonment issues, hates being alone, doesn’t like meeting new people,is an introvert and a homebody & lives with her mum still. All she does is wake up, get online/on the phone with them, play games all day & order takeout food … since the breakup (4 weeks ago now, 3 weeks since I last heard from herwhen she said she didn’t want to talk) this is all she does everyday.
Do you think she will ever actually miss me if I stay no contact & work on myself, if she’s distracted by video games & her online friends everyday? Does it not benefit me someway if she actually struggles to break her addiction to video games, & stays stagnant and feels worse about herself post breakup?
I don’t believe in false hope, or false doom… I want to work on myself & I’ve got a therapist, starting learning some new skills, but I still obsess and want to believe that at the very least she’ll reach out & want to play games together or something (we had a lot of games that jsut me & her played together).
Thanks, sorry this was a long comment
Hi Chris.
I can’t say if she’ll miss you and regret breaking up with you.
Most dumpers don’t miss their ex because they attach more negativity to a relationship than they do positivity. The best thing you can do for now is go no contact and leave your ex alone. Her addiction is her problem now, so worry about getting over her.
You may not see it right now, but she’s been weighing you down a lot. She would have continued to do that had she not broken up with you.
So once again, focus on yourself and better yourself. Your ex has a lot of work to do before she can to contribute to your life.
Best,
Zan
Mine came back after leaving for someone else. Left again 6 months later. Don’t know if she is with someone else . Haven’t heard from her in a year, but does not matter. I realize now took her back too soon. To me a very unstable person. I have this feeling I will hear from her again. No matter, I’m done
Hi Gary.
You can’t control how a person thinks and feels about you. You can exude confidence and self-esteem and show your worth that way, but even if you do everything right, sometimes it’s not enough because some exes come back for themselves.
I hope you’ve found your peace.
Kind regards,
Zan
I’m not sure which one is better to hear: that she comes back, or that she won’t. The first keeps my sense of worth. That it wasn’t my fault, but an error in her perception. That she took me for granted and will regret sooner or later. The latter would make me feel worthless, but would heal faster. Not sure if speed equals quality though. Imagine if you could heal a severed limb by regrowing it instead of just closing the wound. I would compare regrowth to the knowledge that she would still value me after a temporary lapse in her judgment.
However I’m not saying this equals to me needing her. I would at this moment prefer the knowledge that she would want me in the future but I wouldn’t want her back when the time came. That would increase my sense of worth the best. I feel like that would heal me the most.
I would be over her for a long time without hope, but I wouldn’t feel as good as I do now that I think she would regret this.
Hi Andreas.
Self-worth comes from within, and not from an ex who abandoned you and hurt your ego. The best advice I can give you is to work on your self-esteem and keep detaching from your ex. A time will come when you’re over your ex—and that’s when you’ll be thankful that your ex left you alone for good.
Best,
Zan
Wow daily articles! Amazing
Yes the pain have change me but in a good way…I have so much love for myself and put myself first.
Such a good article, thank you Zan ❤️
Hi Linda.
Nothing helps dumpees improve more than pain. It sucks that life teaches us the most valuable lessons through pain and failure, but that’s the way it is.
Best,
Zan