If a guy left you for his ex-girlfriend, he left you for the person he felt stronger feelings for. She wasn’t necessarily better than you romantically – as a partner. He just hadn’t gotten over her and emotionally prepared himself for a new life with you.
He was still thinking about his ex and hoping she would come back to him. When she reached out and expressed interest in him, he couldn’t resist the temptation to reconnect and feel validated. He saw the reach-out as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be with his ex and get what he’d been dreaming of.
Hence, he responded.
He talked to his ex behind your back and maybe even met up with her. Quickly, he restored the bond and left you for her. This probably happened because his ex-girlfriend left him and broke his heart. She triggered his cravings for affection and recognition and made him obsessed with her.
We could say that instead of processing the breakup and working on loving himself, the guy looked for other women to love him. He hoped they would empower him the way his ex did and that he wouldn’t have to suffer anymore.
Eventually, he found you and used you for distraction and support.
You were able to boost his ego and help him feel needed. You did this until his ex came back into the picture and triggered his cravings for recognition and love. That was when he stopped relying on you for self-love and let his ex (the person who rejected him) help him.
He got what he secretly hoped for, so he didn’t hesitate to monkey-branch back to his ex.
Dumpees do that quite often. They start dating someone they can’t fully connect with just to ease their anxiety and pain. They have no long-term plans for the person they’re with because their sole purpose for dating someone other than their ex is to distract themselves and feel validated.
This explains why most of their rushed relationships are rebounds that fail and hurt the people involved. Most of the time, dumpees hurt themselves because they fail to connect with the new person and miss their ex even more as a result.
Other times, (when their ex wants them back), they abandon their relationship and hurt the person they replaced their ex with.
Either way, dumpees shouldn’t date anyone while they’re recovering from the breakup. They should focus on healing and improving themselves. That’s how they can move on from the people they were and forgive themselves for their mistakes.
If they get into a new relationship while they’re still crying and obsessing over their ex, they often feel empty, emotionally drained, and incompatible with the new person. They think the new person is the problem when in reality, it’s them.
They can’t connect with the new person because they expect him or her to have the same characteristics as their ex. Due to nostalgia and unprocessed emotions, they doubt their new relationship and hope they’ll fall in love with their new partner.
Sadly, this doesn’t happen very often. Most of the time, they focus on their partner’s bad points instead of good ones and compare her to their ex. They can’t fully commit to her because their heart still aches for the ex who rejected them.
That’s why the moment their ex reaches out and shows a desire to give the relationship another chance, many dumpees immediately forget about their new partner (or potential partner). They pay attention solely to their ex as their ex is the only person who can take their pain away and love them the way they want to be loved.
Despite getting dumped (and often replaced), dumpees are willing to give their ex another chance. They’re willing to do that because they’re anxious and think they’re hurting because they lost someone great.
In reality, they’re in pain because they feel unloved, unneeded, and discarded. If they were the ones who left their ex, they wouldn’t think of their ex as a unique individual who can save them from their misery.
If your ex or the guy you were seeing dumped his ex-girlfriend in the past, he probably left you because he couldn’t connect with you. He felt you were too different to function as a couple and returned to his ex to be with the person he felt more compatible with.
In that case, he left you because he realized he had more in common with his ex-girlfriend and wanted to feel how he felt before. If he left you for someone he dumped, you have a smaller chance of staying with him than if he left you for someone who dumped him.
Both scenarios are bad, but a guy who leaves you for an ex he dumped probably left you because you were different people. He was emotionally ready for a new connection, so he didn’t just think you were incompatible. You actually were otherwise the relationship would have survived the return of his ex.
The relationship had everything it needed to develop because he was emotionally detached from his ex and ready for a new connection.
If his ex dumped him, on the other hand, then he couldn’t start a new relationship so quickly. He was still processing the rejection and needed more time to fully let go of his ex. The quicker his ex came back, the harder it was for him to reject his ex and continue to bond with you.
In today’s post, we talk about the reasons why a guy left you for his ex-girlfriend and what you can do about it.
Why did he leave me for his ex-girlfriend?
The guy left you for his ex-girlfriend because his ex left a void in his heart. She starved him of validation and self-love and made him think he needed her to be happy and successful. It’s not that his ex loved him more than you but that she had a deeper connection with him and affected him more by breaking up with him.
The breakup made him feel insecure and caused him to put his ex on a pedestal. It made him forget the bad times and forced him to remember mainly the good ones. This tends to happen to those who get broken up with.
People convince themselves their ex is the prize and that they must work hard to obtain their ex’s love. By obtaining it, they can eliminate their rejection pain and separation anxiety and be okay with who they are as people.
A person who leaves you for his ex-girlfriend does so because he wants to stop feeling unwanted emotions and start feeling how he felt in the past with his ex. He wants to stop thinking that his ex doesn’t find him attractive and once again feel comfortable in his skin.
He’s prepared to do anything to increase his love for himself. He’s even okay with cheating on you with his ex-girlfriend as long as doing so makes him fulfill his emotional needs. His needs are more important to him than it is to be loyal, moral, and respectful.
A guy who leaves you for his ex-girlfriend is a cheater and a monkey-brancher. He’s someone who abandons people and mistreats them for his selfish gain. He doesn’t worry about his behavior and how it affects people who care about him.
At least not initially. When he’s having fun with his ex, he’s only interested in ways he can benefit from his ex.
He might start feeling guilty later, but it probably won’t happen before he goes through the quick infatuation period with his ex. Don’t expect the guy to understand what he did to you before then. If he cared, he would have been honest with you from the start.
He wouldn’t have cheated and left you for his ex in the first place.
Yes, people make emotional decisions/mistakes and regret them later. But cheating and leaving you for his ex is no mistake. It’s a premeditated decision dumpers happily and willingly make.
When they realize they betrayed a person in the worst way possible, they sometimes reach out to apologize and try to assuage their guilty conscience. They do that for themselves rather than the person they hurt.
So keep in mind that a guy who leaves you for his ex-girlfriend either hasn’t moved on from his ex or couldn’t connect with you or get along with you. Either way, he doesn’t deserve you because he went behind your back to secure a spot in a relationship with someone he was supposed to be done with.
If he wanted to be with his ex, he shouldn’t have gotten involved with you. Depending on who left whom, he should have talked to his ex or waited for his ex to reach out to him. That way, he wouldn’t have hurt you the way he did.
Having said that, here’s why he left you for his ex-girlfriend.
Will he come back if he left me for his ex-girlfriend?
If he left you for his ex-girlfriend, he won’t come back anytime soon. The guy will do everything in his power to make the relationship with his ex work. He could, of course, come back at some point in the future, but this can happen only when they experience similar issues as before and break up again.
Another breakup could incentivize him to reflect on his decisions and actions and make him run back to you for love and safety.
There’s no guarantee that he’ll come back to you if they break up. But if he does return, it will be when he realizes their relationship is over for good and that he made a selfish decision to leave you.
To think negatively of his ex/relationship, he must get hurt very badly. He must encounter personality clashes or issues that they can’t overcome as a couple. Such issues could make him think positively of you and force the guy to come running back before you move on and meet someone else.
Before he returns, keep in mind that his relationship must fail. Not only that, but he must also think the relationship with his ex doesn’t deserve another chance and that he should move forward with his life. He can move forward by getting back with you, dating someone else, or staying single.
Every dumper responds differently to breakups. Some go back to their exes whereas others connect with themselves and then someone else. How they act depends on their breakup knowledge, emotions, coping mechanisms, and perceptions of their ex. If they respect and value their ex, they go back to their ex and try to make the relationship work.
But if their ex begged for attention and love for ages or if they don’t like their ex, they find other things or people to distract themselves with. In other words, they move on and don’t look back.
In the early stages of a breakup, it’s nearly impossible to predict if the dumper will come back. There are too many factors to consider, starting with the dumper’s ability to stay happy and his or her way of dealing with problems.
You may be able to tell how your ex feels about you and whether your ex will come back when your ex starts having issues in the relationship and appears doubtful, angry, nostalgic, and afraid of losing you.
That’s when you can conclude that your ex’s relationship is on the decline and that your ex will re-attach to you when the relationship ends.
Instead of wasting your time thinking about whether your ex will come back after leaving you for someone else, focus on accepting the breakup and what your ex did to you. See your ex not for the person he was but for the person he is.
This will help you stop blaming yourself and thinking poorly of yourself and also enable you to hold your ex accountable for his actions. You mustn’t think lightly of cheating. Think of it as one of the worst sins a person can commit.
Your heart may want to be with a cheater, but you need to understand why you crave your ex so badly. You need to understand you want to be with your ex to stop hurting and feeling scared. Your pain has very little to do with the things your ex did for you throughout the relationship.
It’s got everything to do with your distorted perception of your ex and the way you see yourself. As a dumpee, you shouldn’t make it too easy for your cheating ex. Before you let him back into your life, you should make sure he comes clean about his cheating and that he’s learned about how he made you feel.
This will reduce the probability of getting cheated on in the future.
If you want to be with the guy, you should leave him alone while he’s with the new person. Focus on yourself rather than him and respond wisely to his breadcrumbs. Don’t let him string you along and use you for self-forgiveness.
Unless he wants you back, stay in no contact and detach from him. Work on improving your self-esteem so you can control your emotions and reconciliation if it comes to that. Your ex mustn’t think you’ve been obsessing over him since he left you and that you’re willing to take him back despite the betrayal.
If your ex knows you lack respect for yourself, your ex will have a hard time respecting you and staying with you even if he comes back. He’ll think you’re a pushover and that he deserves someone stronger and better.
Did he leave you for his ex-girlfriend? Why do you think he ditched you for her? Leave your comment below the post.
And if you’re looking for help with your breakup, sign up for a coaching session with us.
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.
