He Won’t Talk To Me After The Breakup

If your ex won’t talk to you after the breakup, your ex isn’t trying to annoy you and make you suffer. It may feel like your ex is trying to punish you for the things you did wrong during and after the relationship, but your ex is just focusing on himself and doing his best to process the negative emotions caused by the breakup.

Your ex is doing what most dumpers do, which is enjoying the sudden change in relationship dynamics. This change brings your ex a ton of relief and makes your ex wonder why he didn’t initiate the breakup sooner. Had he broken up with you days or weeks sooner, he wouldn’t have to suffer so much. He could just go straight to feeling relieved and engaging in activities he badly wanted to engage in.

If he wanted to spend more time with friends, he could have spent more time with friends. If he wanted to focus on hobbies more, he could have focused on hobbies without the feeling that he was doing something wrong. And if he wanted to date someone he liked, he could have done that too.

The breakup would have allowed your ex to stop interacting with you and do the things he wanted to do. But because your ex delayed the breakup for as long as he could, he put up with more than he was capable of tolerating. That’s why he tired himself out and reached a point where the thought of conversing with you alone made your ex feel uncomfortable.

Your ex doesn’t even have to speak with you to feel pressured. All he has to do is remember the days before the breakup when he felt so smothered he wanted to bury his head in the sand.

Now that you want to speak with him, you instantly trigger his tremendous need for space and privacy. You make him feel like he’s obligated to respond to you even though his obligation to you ended with the breakup.

And that’s not what your ex wants. He broke up with you to have fewer responsibilities. He doesn’t want to feel like he still owes you responses and things couples do together.

Those days are over.

If your ex is a dumpee, however, then your ex is probably ignoring you because he’s hurt and doesn’t want friendship. He either wants you to get back with him or leave him alone so he can work through the rejection and pick himself back up.

Dumpees tend to ignore because they don’t agree with the breakup and respect their ex’s decision or behavior. They had higher expectations of their ex, so they feel shocked and disrespected and don’t talk to their ex after the breakup.

They obsess over their ex because they’re dealing with immense separation anxiety, but they don’t communicate with their ex. Especially those dumpees who have a lot of respect for themselves and feel in control of their actions. Such dumpees show their ex they don’t like their ex’s decisions or actions and that they’re very disappointed in the way their ex handled relationship problems and/or the breakup itself.

So if your ex won’t talk to you after the breakup, keep in mind that your ex isn’t happy about the situation you’ve caused. Your ex thinks he deserves better and that you should stop doing what you’re doing.

If you’re a dumpee, your ex wants you to stop reaching out and leave him alone so he can do the things he’s been meaning to do. And if you’re a dumper, he wants you to stop bothering him with meaningless conversations and leave him alone unless you want to get back with him. He respects himself too much to settle for friendship and get friend-zoned.

In this article, we’ll discuss why your ex won’t talk to you after the breakup and what you can do to encourage him to talk to you.

Why won’t he talk to me after the breakup?

If a breakup is one-sided (not mutual), both dumpees and dumpers need a lot of time to themselves after the breakup. They need to distance themselves from each other and all the things that are making them feel nostalgic, uncomfortable, pressured, or anxious.

Dumpees feel anxious about their ex talking to them and giving them hope whereas dumpers feel smothered by their ex’s behavior or presence and want to escape the uncomfortable conversation so they can go back to focusing on themselves.

As you can tell, they both feel different emotions but want the same thing. They want space because space can help them focus on things that matter to them the most.

Breakups make ex-couples extremely sensitive. They enhance the way they experience negative emotions and force them to avoid them or conversely, oppose them. Some people get angry when their ex does something they perceive as disrespectful whereas others ignore it or ask their ex not to do that anymore.

It varies for every individual, depending on his or her understanding of the situation and ways of coping. If a (sensitive/impatient) person interprets an ex reaching out as extremely offensive behavior and lacks the self-control to handle it appropriately, he or she will likely get furious and tell his or her ex to take a hike.

This person will cling to anger for power and get rid of the ex in a timely fashion. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing to tell his/her ex to stop reaching out, but there are better ways to handle a situation. Especially if the person reaching out is the dumper.

So bear in mind that the guy you’re contacting isn’t talking to you because he’s still processing the breakup and doesn’t want to get angry with you. He might get angry eventually, but that’s only if you keep pushing him.

Here’s a comparison infographic explaining the differences between a dumpee and a dumper not talking to you after the breakup.

Whether your ex is the dumpee or the dumper, you must understand that your ex either needs space or wants space. Your ex expects you to go through with the breakup or to reconcile with him. He doesn’t want you to be in some in-between state.

At least not as long as emotions are raw. And they’re raw while your ex is in pain and/or needs a lot of space and time to regain control of his emotions.

So don’t assume that your ex will and should talk to you just because you’d spent x number of years together. Your ex doesn’t owe you anything as an ex. He just needs to be nice to you. But that’s a moral obligation rather than a responsibility as an ex-partner.

How to make him talk to you after the breakup?

If your ex won’t talk to you after the breakup, there’s a reason he won’t talk to you. Maybe it’s something you said or did or perhaps your ex perceives you in a certain way and needs time to take it less seriously.

Whatever it may be, you shouldn’t continue reaching out to your ex after your ex has ignored you. One message or call was more than enough to see that your ex isn’t emotionally ready to be friends and that you won’t achieve anything by contacting him on your terms.

If you want him to speak to you (and actually enjoy it), you have to change strategies. Rather than reaching out to him, take a step back and let him reach out instead. Yes, it could take a while for your ex to do that, but at least your ex will talk to you because he’ll want to talk to you.

He won’t keep refusing to talk to you or ignoring you and hurting you. You should educate yourself on breakups and what ex-partners want a bit more so that you don’t expect too much from your ex too soon.

You might be able to be good friends one day, but right now, your ex needs space. You probably do too (especially if you’re the dumpee). Don’t try to force things when you’re still in the early stages of a breakup and think you need your ex in your life to be happy.

The reason you’re obsessed with your ex is that you’re very used to communicating with your ex. You need to work on severing this bond so that you can be independent of your ex and focus on your wants and needs.

I know you want to talk to him, but there’s a place and time for that. And right now, this isn’t the time nor the place. You need to let more time pass so that he can make some emotional progress and want to talk to you. When he wants to talk, rest assured that he’ll reach out to you.

You won’t have to do anything as he’ll actually feel the desire to converse.

So no matter how difficult not speaking with him has been for you, let him come to you. He already knows you want to talk, so pestering him about it isn’t going to help. It’s going to irritate him and make him react in ways you probably haven’t seen before.

You could see him react in anger and say something so mean that you’ll feel rejected for weeks.

So while your ex is processing the breakup and indirectly looking for reasons to converse with you, don’t do anything reckless. Just wait for him to deal with the breakup in ways that feel best to him.

If he sees that you’re not a danger to him and yourself, he might breadcrumb you after a while. And if his life doesn’t go very well and he gets hurt, he might even ask to get back with you. Keep your hopes low so you can avoid further disappointment and move on in case he doesn’t reach out and want you back.

Accept that he might never talk to you or talk to you the way he used to

Although most exes eventually communicate (at least for a little while), you need to know that breakups change the way ex-couples perceive each other and communicate. Breakups make things weird between exes as exes forget how to act around each other. They were used to talking about deep/important topics, so when they start talking again, they discover they can’t talk about those things anymore.

They can only make small talk and communicate about surface-level matters.

If you’re brokenhearted, unimportant conversations likely won’t make you very happy. You’ll probably feel like your ex is acting strange (perhaps even playing mind games) and that he’s keeping his distance from you on purpose to hurt you.

However, if you dumped your ex, then, you’ll probably notice your ex holding back and walking on eggshells around you. You’ll see that your ex is trying to restore the connection but doesn’t know what approach to pick. As a result, he’s constantly changing strategies and trying to impress you.

You need to keep in mind that exes can be friends, but not right after the breakup. As long as they have expectations of each other, they should get space and work on lowering their expectations. By lowering them, they can be okay with each other saying and doing whatever they want.

So if you’re trying to speak with your ex but he doesn’t, accept that your ex might not speak with you any time soon (or ever) and that if you do start talking again that things might not work the way they used to. Friendship could feel fake to you whereas a romantic relationship could make it hard for you to trust your ex and lower your guard around him.

These things can, of course, be overcome with practice and effort, but not all exes overcome them. Some exes can’t get over the past and see their exes as friends.

How long should you not talk after a breakup?

The duration of no contact is different for every person. Some people need a few weeks of no contact to disassociate negative emotions from their exes whereas others need months or years to do that.

To make it simple for you, you should not talk to your ex for as long as you’re emotional. If you feel hurt, resentful, suffocated, or anything you shouldn’t feel, you should wait some more and let time help you process unwanted emotions.

When/if you contact your ex should also depend on whether you’re a dumpee or a dumper. If you’re a dumpee and you’re over your ex, you can probably reach out to your ex and find out if your ex is ready and willing to be friends. If your ex isn’t, you can go back to no contact and let your ex message you if he wants to.

If you’re the dumper, however, then you should give your ex as much time as your ex needs. And if your ex doesn’t reach out let’s say after a year and a half, then you can probably reach out to say hello.

It might surprise your ex, but it shouldn’t trigger a painful setback for him as your ex should be over the breakup and almost completely if not completely healed.

Does your ex not want to talk to you after a breakup and it’s confusing you? Let us know how you’re reaching out to your ex in the comments below.

And if you’d like to discuss your ex’s ignoring behavior with us privately, reach out to us 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.