Ex-girlfriend Came Back After A Year

Sometimes exes come back after days and weeks and other times, they come back after a year or longer. How long it takes them to come back depends on their reasons for breaking up, their ability to process the breakup, their ex’s behavior, and their post-breakup success and happiness.

If they overestimate their capabilities and refuse to work on themselves, they tend to come back as soon as they fail, get hurt, and reflect. Life teaches them to value love and stability and to think rationally rather than emotionally.

It’s impossible to predict when things will go south for the dumper because the dumper must first take a risk with something or someone. He or she must do something that allows him or her to fail, suffer, and desire safety. Most of the time, something really, really bad has to happen.

Something like a painful rejection, separation, or loss of confidence, self-esteem, and direction in life. When that happens, the dumper gets scared and anxious, sees the dumper in a positive light, and decides to come back.

Whether it’s been a year or years, the dumper returns to rely on the dumpee to obtain happiness and get rid of pain. The dumpee is one of the few people who know him or her on a personal level and can validate him or her.

So if your ex-girlfriend came back after a year, know that something had gone terribly wrong in her life. She’s not just bored and curious about you but actually wants to be with you romantically. This means she wants to invest in you (and be invested in) so that she can feel important, secure, and happy.

The relationship with you provides her with what she couldn’t get on her own or with someone else, so she came back for it and hopes that she can continue getting it. She’s interested in you because you avoided begging for her attention and love, remained strong, and showed her she could lean on you for support when life gets tough.

You played your cards right. So much so that she came to you to improve her health and well-being. Had you cried to her and annoyed her every day, it’s unlikely that she would have chosen you as her partner.

Dumpers don’t respect and value dumpees who don’t respect and value themselves. They find them annoying and repulsive and choose to move on from them.

Hence, one of the biggest reasons she came back is that she considered you a secure and confident individual, capable of taking care of his and others’ problems and needs. She viewed you as a positive backup option who wouldn’t let her down in times of need.

You’d probably like to think that your ex came back just because of your positive traits, but your traits are just a cherry on top. She chose you of all the people because she respected you or rebuilt respect and love for you when life took a turn for the worse.

She needed support and validation more than ever and realized that the quickest way to obtain them was to run back into the arms of an ex.

She could have gone back with any other exes (and maybe she did before ending up with you), but she chose you because you were her recent ex who cared about her until she decided to leave. You were there for her throughout the relationship, so she improved her perception of you and chose to give the relationship another chance.

As a dumpee, you must understand that reconciliations are not random occurrences. Just as breakups happen for a reason, so do reconciliations. Something or someone hurts or deeply affects dumpers to the point where the only way forward seems to be the path backward.

Dumpers want things to stay as they are and be happy. Because they find it impossible, they start thinking about the past (their backup options). Soon, they learn that the past wasn’t perfect, but that it was better than the present. At least they felt secure and didn’t have to deal with their problems (alone).

Reconciliations were, are, and always will be backup plans for dumpers. Dumpers consider them fallback plans when they run out of (better) options and need immediate support, love, and validation. This explains why they desperately want to be with their ex out of the blue.

I know you don’t want to be your ex’s backup plan, but try not to think too poorly of backup plans despite their negative connotations. If your ex chooses you (and stays with you), your ex thinks of you as her only backup plan. You’re the only person she wants to be with.

Yes, your ex came back due to failure, misery, and pain (her own problems), but negative experiences and emotions are the only reason exes return. No dumper will come back just because you’re a great person. Reconciliations have more to do with the dumper than they have to do with you.

They’re about her unmet wants, needs, and expectations rather than your personality.

Don’t let that bother you. Try to acknowledge the fact that dumpers leave relationships for themselves and come back to them for themselves. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you’ll understand their reasons for coming back and know what to do.

Today’s post is for dumpees who got their ex back after a year. We’ll discuss what makes an ex come back after 12 months and what the dumpee should remember and do when getting back with an ex.

Why would an ex come back after a year?

Every dumper comes back for different reasons. Some dumpers fall sick and want their ex’s care, support, and affection, some fail romantically and desire their ex’s validation, and some struggle to find work, friends, and purpose and want their ex to help them reach their goals.

No matter what the exact reason for coming back after a year is, an ex comes back because he or she is unhappy and wants to be happy. He or she is tired of failure and pain and wants to heal and feel better in the shortest time possible.

The dumpee can do that for the dumper as he or she can provide support and instantly help the dumper feel accepted, needed, and loved.

The dumper doesn’t need any of these things until he or she needs them. That’s when the dumper becomes nostalgic and obsessed with the dumpee and needs him or her back urgently. The dumper can’t wait long due to anxiety, pain, and unmet needs.

Hence, you can expect a regretful ex to want you back immediately. Expect the dumper to reach out, initiate conversations, ask you questions, and show a strong desire to get back together as quickly as possible. A person in pain needs you to feel loved and needed and will try to meet up with you as soon as possible.

Either that or she will tell you what you need to hear over the phone.

The point is that the dumper will contact you and ask you back as soon as she realizes that the path forward is inaccessible and that she could move forward with your help.

So why would an ex come back after a year and not sooner?

An ex comes back after a year because she needs a year to get in trouble, realize your worth, and miss the romantic aspect of the relationship.

A year may seem like a long time, especially if you’re waiting for your ex to reach out and come back, but in reality, it’s not that long. Many dumpers come back years or even decades after the breakup when they get broken up with by someone else and/or experience pain they can’t deal with on their own.

That’s when they wonder about their ex, redevelop respect and feelings, and contact their ex to see if their ex is willing to get back together. Many times, they ask for another chance even if their ex is dating someone else already and seems to be happy. When they’re unhappy, they’re desperate and want their ex’s happiness for themselves.

So bear in mind that some exes fail in some important way and get hurt after a year of breaking up. Such dumpers often remember their ex’s positive features, forgive their ex for hurting them, and want to be with their ex again. They want their ex close to them to forget their failures, feel validated, and ease their suffering.

Your ex doesn’t want to wait and resolve her problems and reduce pain on her own. Your ex probably tried to do that but had no success. As a result, she turned to you for help and put her faith in you. You’ve become your ex’s savior – a pillar of support and a beacon of hope; someone your ex can confide in and rely on for personal problems.

That doesn’t mean your ex doesn’t love you and has come back just to use you. Sometimes that happens too, but if your ex treats you nicely, wants your affection, and invests time, emotions, and money in you, your ex probably has genuine feelings for you and sees potential in the relationship.

You’ll see whether your ex has come back for the right reasons in the near future (within a few weeks of getting back together) when your ex gets what she needs and turns back to her usual self.

Having said that, here’s why an ex would come back after a year of being broken up.

If your ex-girlfriend came back after a year, remember that she tried to leave you behind but couldn’t. She did her absolute best to enjoy life, distract herself, connect with new people, and replace you. But because relief and elation couldn’t last forever, she eventually reached the neutrality stage of a breakup and encountered problems she didn’t expect to encounter.

She thought her life would keep getting better and that she’d find her prince charming. Unfortunately for her, reality hit her hard after a year, made her see that her expectations were unrealistic, and that she was at least partially responsible for breaking up with you.

When she realized that, she finally lowered her ego and pride, stopped being stubborn, and acknowledged your positive traits. It took her a year, but eventually, she ran back to you for validation and verbally or non-verbally admitted her mistakes.

Things to be aware of when your ex comes back after a year

When your ex comes out of nowhere after a year and claims to still have feelings for you, the first thing you need to do is figure out your ex’s reasons for coming back. Your ex may not reveal them to you, so you’ll probably have to ask some difficult questions and encourage your ex to be honest.

If your ex says things like, “I realized I still loved you, I missed you, I wasn’t happy without you, she is only telling half the story. Your ex is not disclosing what actually went wrong and triggered her unhappiness and reflection. Your ex needs to be open and tell you things you deserve and need to know.

Reconciliation is a golden opportunity for her to explain her failures, feelings, and motives for wanting to try again after quitting on you.

The reason dumpers don’t go into details about why they want their ex back is that they’re afraid of 1)admitting they were wrong and 2)being judged. They don’t want their ex to know they dated other people, failed with them, went broke, got sick, lost friends, failed school, or for any reason at all fell into depression.

They don’t want to look miserable and unappealing to their ex because they don’t want their ex to reject them and hurt them.

As someone who was dumped, you must make sure your ex has come back for you and herself, rather than just for herself. If she comes back just for herself, she could use you for emotional support and leave you when she gets what she came back for. This happens occasionally, so make sure your ex values you and invests in you.

You can tell she’s in it for the long haul if she treats you with the utmost respect, wants to spend a lot of time with you, takes your requests seriously, communicates openly and truthfully, and does her best to showcase change and commitment.

Don’t jump back into a relationship with your ex if she doesn’t care about your feelings and the broken relationship. If you take back someone who comes back for any other reason than love, you’ll get your heart broken again and feel stupid for letting your ex back into your life.

If you’re not sure about whether your ex has changed or committed to changing, you can always take your ex back on a trial period. Tell your ex you want to see how she behaves for a few weeks before you make the relationship official. An ex who loves you and feels ashamed about leaving will happily agree to your terms.

She’ll do anything to win your trust and love back. An ex who doesn’t want you back long-term, however, will call you insecure and try to make you sound like you have insecurities and issues to work on.

So pay close attention to your ex’s behavior toward you. How your ex treats you is important because it shows how your ex thinks and feels about you.

Whether it’s been a year or ten years since she left, she needs to communicate respectfully and do her best to make you trust her again. Test her and be a bit tough on her if you need to. She’ll be okay with it because it won’t cause her much stress. It won’t be as difficult for her as it was for you when she left you and made you feel worthless.

Testing isn’t punishment for the pain she’s caused. It’s your assurance that she’s the right person for you and that you can safely invest your heart in her.

Did your ex-girlfriend come back after a month and make you wonder why it took her so long? Why do you think exes come back after months or years? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

And if you want to discuss your relationship or breakup concerns with us, sign up for a coaching session 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.