It can be difficult to tell if you want to get back with your ex because you love your ex or because you’re just lonely. Loneliness can cause (mild) depression and overthinking and make you remember the good times from the past.
It can make you doubt your happiness in the present and overvalue the past social life with your ex.
Nostalgia and loneliness can play with your mind. They can force you to listen to unwanted emotions and think irrationally.
Irrational thoughts then make your brain search for a coping mechanism that would prepare you for a better outcome. An outcome that is less scary, painful, and undesirable than your current situation.
If you’re thinking about getting back with your ex because you miss the companionship – the social aspect of the relationship, you probably don’t love your ex and regret breaking up. You don’t want your ex back as a partner but as a friend – a person to talk to and rely on for company.
If you were to get back with someone solely because you’re lonely, your relationship wouldn’t last very long. This is because you’d soon stop feeling lonely and feel unhappy with your ex. You’d notice your ex’s vices and flaws and start doubting your commitment again.
A relationship like that lacks the components necessary for long-lasting romance. It lacks love, bonding, gratitude, commitment, and goals that give it meaning. Without such important things, a relationship can’t last long, let alone forever.
Sooner than later, it encounters problems for which it lacks the tools to resolve.
So bear in mind that ex-couples should never reconcile just because they feel lonely, bored, or scared of being alone. They should get back together only if they understand each other’s worth, regret taking each other for granted, and miss each other romantically.
Pain is usually a good measure of regret for dumpers, but not so much for dumpees. Dumpees feel rejected and want their ex back regardless of whether their ex is good for them or not. They just want their pain to stop.
Therefore, relying on pain is feasible only for dumpers as dumpers tend to feel extremely relieved after the breakup. They enjoy their post-breakup freedom and think they had no choice but to leave their ex.
If their thinking changes and they experience enough pain, they may change their opinion of their ex and redevelop romantic feelings. This depends on their mentality, coping mechanisms, and overall happiness in life.
Right after the breakup, dumpers tend not to feel any regret. They may miss talking to their ex and doing things together, but they don’t usually want to be with their ex. They feel too good to regret breaking up and wanting their ex’s affection.
For them, regret kicks in when they fail to find long-lasting happiness and become miserable. That’s when they feel several negative emotions, not just loneliness. They feel nostalgic, afraid, anxious, worried, depressed, insecure, worthless, curious, and tempted to communicate and reconcile with their ex.
They don’t want to stay away from their ex any longer because they miss their happy selves from the past and realize their happiness depends on their ex.
If you don’t think you need your ex to be happy but merely want your ex to make your loneliness go away, you want to be around your ex for the wrong reason. You want to use your ex for selfish gain and ignore your ex’s need for space and healing.
If you’re a dumpee and just recently got broken up with, you probably miss your ex both romantically and as a friend and wish your ex would give your life significance and purpose. You’re so hurt and used to being with your ex that you don’t know how to occupy yourself anymore.
As a result, you get lonely and fantasize about giving the relationship another chance.
The relationship used to give you something positive to focus on and look forward to. So now that your ex is gone, a big chunk of your daily entertainment, planning, and happiness is missing. You’re forced to reflect on your life and look for alternative ways to keep yourself busy.
Not only that, but you also need to love yourself twice as much as before; once for yourself and once for your ex. Your ex no longer validates you and supports you unconditionally, so you need to rely on yourself.
This can be hard to do because you need to accept that no one’s coming to your aid and that developing self-reliance is necessary. It’s needed if you want to regain control of your emotions and stop feeling lonely.
In today’s article, we shed some light on whether you want to get back with your ex or if you’re just lonely and want your ex to improve your social life.
Differences between loneliness and regret
You need to understand that loneliness is not a good reason for getting back with an ex. It’s not a good reason regardless of whether you dumped your ex or got dumped by him or her.
Those who reconcile due to loneliness more often than not soon lose interest and feel the way they did before they abandoned the relationship.
In other words, they feel smothered, annoyed, stressed, and unhappy with their relationship, so they start to distance themselves from their partner and leave when they get an opportunity to do so. And they get an opportunity when negative emotions engulf them.
So how can one differentiate between the feelings of loneliness and being in love?
The easiest way to understand your feelings is to ask yourself if you like your ex as a person and miss him or her as a partner. Do you feel a strong urge to invest in your ex, feel secure, and be validated or do you just want to talk to your ex and catch up?
If you just want a quick chat (especially because you don’t know what your ex is up to and feel bad for hurting your ex), you want to communicate with your ex for yourself. You want to get some things off your chest and don’t care what your ex will think of your reach out and comments.
That’s a strong indication that you’re lonely, bored, curious, or something else and that you shouldn’t contact your ex and get back together.
Loneliness and romantic feelings are two entirely different things. The former feels like you need someone/anyone to address your unwanted feelings whereas romantic feelings are directly tied to your ex.
Your ex is the only person in the world who can take your pain away and make you feel fulfilled.
Sadly, some dumpers mistake negative emotions for romantic feelings. They think their loneliness, guilt, anxiety, curiosity, and boredom mean they love their ex and that they should try harder to move on or come back.
They don’t understand that breakups expose their weaknesses and make their post-breakup life difficult if they don’t have the tools to deal with negative thoughts and feelings.
The same principles apply to dumpees. Dumpees feel intense separation anxiety and feelings of worthlessness, so they often convince themselves they love their ex like crazy. Although many dumpees probably do love their ex, they forget to ask themselves why they feel such intense feelings for someone who abandoned them.
They tend not to understand that they’re hurting so much because they:
- were attached or had a trauma bond
- had high expectations of their ex
- depended or over-depended on their ex for happiness or survival
- didn’t get treated well by their ex
- had abandonment issues or other unprocessed fears
- didn’t love themselves enough
So bear in mind that there are major differences between loneliness and romantic regret. Loneliness typically goes away when a person gets busy whereas regret and romantic feelings don’t. They continue to affect a person mentally and emotionally and tempt him or her to do something about his or her pain and unmet needs.
When pain and unhappiness grow, a regretful ex tends to reach out and try to get back together. Reconciliation allows him or her to stop feeling incomplete and unhappy and instantly makes him or her feel needed and validated.
A lonely person, on the other hand, seldom wants to get back together. Most of the time, he or she just wants to talk about random surface-level things. By talking about unimportant matters, he or she feels listened to and cared for, which is enough for him or her to feel complete.
A company is all a lonely person needs from an ex. Especially an ex who left the relationship because he or she is convinced that leaving the relationship is the right thing to do.
Loneliness is a feeling of emptiness that occurs when a person lacks connections or meaningful connections with other people. A person can experience it after the breakup because of free time.
Feelings, however, are based on attraction, attachment, and expectations and are directly caused by unmet romantic needs. You have feelings when you value a person and want that person to value you too.
With that said, here are 5 differences between loneliness and feelings.
All in all, loneliness and feelings can influence each other and force you to believe that something is true when it isn’t.
Loneliness can make you think that you love your ex whereas feelings can make you think that your ex could help you deal with loneliness and other problems.
You need to understand that loneliness is a negative feeling and that negative feelings in general can change the way you think and perceive your ex. If you’re unhappy for long, you could miss your ex, develop an obsession, and want your ex back.
Do I want to get back with my ex or am I just lonely?
You should never be with people just because you no longer want to feel lonely, anxious, depressed, or insecure. If you get into a relationship because of insecurities, anxiety, or some other unresolved issue, you’ll project your problems onto your partner and make your problems his or her problems as well.
People who enter into new relationships just to recover from loneliness, anxiety, or breakups seldom make their relationships work. Most of the time, they run into the same problems and break up when their relationships face difficulties and require effort.
They don’t see the need to stay together because they get what they were after and realize they don’t need their partner anymore.
So figure out if you want your ex back only because you’re lonely. Do you genuinely enjoy being in a romantic relationship with your ex and want to invest in the relationship or do you just want to take from it?
If you don’t have the energy to grow with your ex and just want your ex to entertain you, you obviously don’t want your ex back romantically. You want your ex to be there as a friend and make the transition from the relationship to a single life easier.
That means you don’t consider your ex worthy of being your romantic partner and that you shouldn’t try to get back with your ex. You should instead improve your social life and stop seeing your ex as someone you can rely on for loneliness and boredom.
Your ex isn’t someone you should contact when you feel a bit guilty, lonely, scared, or uncertain about whether you want to be with him or her.
Deep inside, you already know who your ex is as a person and a partner and should leave your ex alone unless you’re certain your ex is the right person for you and that you won’t give up as soon as things get difficult.
If you truly love your ex and want to be with your ex after leaving your ex, contact your ex with an apology and a plan to reconcile. Tell your ex what you’ve realized since the breakup and what you’re going to do better next time.
Your ex will likely need some time to trust you fully, so be patient. Let your ex control the pace of the new relationship and slowly earn your ex’s trust back. If you want to be with your ex long-term, a few weeks of proving your worth is nothing compared to the pain your ex went through.
However, if your ex left you, then you don’t want to tell your ex how you feel and what you’ve learned because of the breakup. You want to keep your one-sided feelings to yourself and let your ex come to you if he or she wants to.
Remember, it’s the responsibility of the person who ended the relationship to show remorse and acknowledge that life has been difficult since the breakup.
Do you want to get back with your ex or are you just lonely? Let us know how you feel in the comments section below the article.
And should you seek deeper insights into your emotions or personalized guidance regarding your breakup, we encourage you to explore our breakup coaching services. Our dedicated team is ready to provide tailored advice and support to help you navigate this challenging time. Visit our breakup coaching page to connect with us today.
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.
