How No Contact Affects Your Ex-girlfriend/Ex-boyfriend?

No contact affects your ex in a myriad of ways as it encourages your ex to get some space from you, allows your ex to live life the way your ex wants to live it, and takes the pressure off his or her shoulders.

It doesn’t, however, always affect your ex in ways you want it to affect your ex. I noticed that a lot of people on the internet claim that no contact will trigger your ex’s separation anxiety and make your ex miss you (possibly regret dumping you).

But I’ve been doing this long enough to know that the majority of dumpers are over their ex the moment the breakup occurs. They’re incapable of suffering the way dumpers suffer because they believe that distancing themselves from their ex is a prerequisite for their happiness and that they should focus on themselves rather than the person who suffocates them.

The only time dumpers get affected right after the breakup is when their ex cheats on them or does something so bad they have no choice but to leave their ex immediately. Such dumpers definitely suffer as they’re forced to respect themselves and let go of their ex. They need to separate themselves from their ex physically even though emotionally, they’re still attached to their ex.

That’s what happens to dumpers who leave their ex to keep their self-respect. The majority of dumpers, however, don’t go through this. Yes, they have their reasons for leaving, but those reasons usually increase in size and quantity with time and make them see that the only way for them to be happy is to end their relationship with their ex.

I’m telling you this so you don’t keep checking your phone every 5 minutes with the expectation to find a message from your ex that says, “I’m sorry for what I did. I want you back. I love you”

It’s safer for you to keep in mind that most dumpers suffer much later when they return to the dating pool and get involved with someone extremely incompatible with them.

That’s when no contact tells them they had GIGS – the grass is greener syndrome (that they took their ex for granted) and that they’ve made the biggest mistake of their lives.

As a dumpee, you must be strong and patient. You must understand that everything will fall into place on its own when the time is right. That’s because your ex could fail miserably and then suddenly start texting and calling you, asking you out, and giving you back the power he’d snatched from you by breaking p with you.

So if you want to know how no contact affects your ex, remember that no contact is about letting go of control. Its purpose isn’t to manipulate your ex into caring about you, but to preserve your worth as a person and let your ex compare you to others. Either that or to let your ex live life without you long enough to discern you were and still are the best option for him or her.

This post is for dumpees who are in no contact, wondering how their absence affects their ex emotionally.

How no contact affects your ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend?

If you’re wondering how no contact affects your ex, bear in mind that it affects your ex the right kind of way not just because you give your ex time. Time indeed helps your ex process anger and other unpleasant emotions created by the breakup, but more often than not, time alone is not enough for your ex to miss you and come running back.

Getting back together with an ex during no contact is not just a matter of patience and perseverance. It’s also about your ex’s readiness to be in a romantic relationship and the luck he or she has with other people.

This means that how you portray yourself, of course, matters a lot as it portrays emotional strength and self-respect, but these two things only scratch the surface of no contact. A much bigger part of no contact consists of your ex’s dating experiences, self-development, happiness in general, and the epiphanies he or she experiences without you.

Most dumpees laser focus only on their part – on what they can say, do, or improve to reattract their ex. They completely forget that they lack control over their ex’s thoughts, actions, and experiences and that they must give their ex time to encounter problems, stressors, and regrets.

So even if their dumper ex gave up on them, this doesn’t mean it’s their job to self-improve, initiate the conversation, and say, “I’ve realized my mistakes and improved on them. Let’s get back together now. Things will be different this time.”

Even though things would likely be different, the dumper doesn’t care about that. He or she has associated negative feelings with the dumpee’s persona, which means that the dumper has lost feelings for the dumpee due to the negative opinions he or she had developed prior to the breakup.

And sadly, the dumper can’t just rewrite those negative opinions when the dumpee wants him or her to rewrite them. The dumper needs a strong (more often than not emotional) push to improve his or her opinion of the dumpee.

That implies he must get rejected, hurt, belittled, shocked, disrespected, controlled, manipulated, or wronged by someone he desires, trusts, and hopes to build something with. That’s the best (often the only) way he can get a taste of his own medicine and realize he’s not as desirable as he had hoped.

We won’t go into detail about how your ex feels from the day of the breakup until he comes back because it would take too long, but if you want to learn what’s going on inside the dumper’s head after the breakup, I suggest you read the post about the 5 dumper stages. It’s a short, yet crucial post written around the idea that dumpers gradually process the breakup at their own pace.

If you try to increase the pace at which they deal with negative emotions, you disturb their need for space, suffocate them, and risk bringing out the worst in them.

No contact depicts strength and self-respect

Even though the purpose of no contact is to recover from heartache, most dumpees start following no contact to “win” their ex back. They think their ex is a one in a million, so they put their faith in the rules of no contact and start counting the days since they’ve stopped interacting with their ex.

By counting, they motivate themselves to keep going and ease their compulsion to reach out.

That’s completely fine. The problem is that many dumpees fall prey to the infamous 30-day no contact rule they come across on the internet. They don’t understand that short-term no contact rules rarely work on the dumper. More often than not, they just push the dumper away as they give the dumpee the green light to contact the dumper when he or she is still in the early stages of a breakup.

So if you’re going to do no contact, do the indefinite no contact. The indefinite no contact rule is just something I call it, but it doesn’t matter what its name is as long as you leave your ex alone forever. Your ex has to be the one to contact you because that’s the only way your ex will see you respect yourself and have what it takes to move on.

Deep inside, you probably already know that contacting your ex after 30, 60, 90, or any preset number of days makes no sense. The human brain isn’t designed to miss the dumpee after a certain number of days. It misses him or her when it thinks about the dumpee a lot or when it experiences anxiety and craves better times.

Whether it’s by will or force, those are the only conditions that make an ex let go of negative post-breakup emotions and improve his or her perceptions of you. Time merely allows your ex to meet those conditions.

So forget about no contact affecting your ex when you want it to affect your ex. No contact will have the kind of effect you’re hoping for when your ex carries on with the same old mentality, gets hurt, and realizes you had nothing or very little to do with the breakup.

All you must do until then is wait for your ex to realize that he or she was (also) at fault and preserve your dignity and self-respect. If you do that, your ex will eventually see that you value yourself more than any romantic relationship and that you’re going to be just fine with or without him or her.

No contact gives your ex room to breathe and helps you look more attractive

When the breakup ensued, your ex felt relieved and wanted to focus only on his or her needs and forget about yours. That’s why no contact can actually help your ex get the space he or she has been asking for and improve the way your ex perceives you.

You must agree that the image your ex has created of you could use an improvement—and that’s what no contact aims to do. It intends to send a message that you respect your ex’s wish to be alone and that you’re not going to communicate and pressure him or her into doing something he or she doesn’t want to do.

Not contact isn’t some sick manipulation technique meant to trigger your ex’s deepest fears. This self-imposed rule merely removes you from your ex’s life and gives your ex that which he or she needs to enjoy life.

That alone can leave a good impression on your ex as it can make your ex see that you understand him or her emotionally and that you respect yourself enough not to beg and plead for another chance. I’ve mentioned this many times in other articles before, but I’ll say it again.

Your ex will never think of you as a catch if you don’t treat yourself and present yourself as one. He or she will find you repulsive and run for the mountains to avoid interacting with you.

So if you want your ex to find you attractive in every possible way, give up on trying to convince your ex that you deserve another chance. Stop trying to prove your worth because when you do, you’ll soon heal from rejection and realize that you shouldn’t even have to prove anything to your ex.

Whether you gave it your best or not, your ex decided to give up on you and must now reevaluate your personality and the ability to make him or her happy. And your ex can do that only if you leave him or her alone and focus on your own wants and needs.

No contact erases some bad feelings and memories

Don’t get me wrong. No contact doesn’t erase all the bad memories from the dumper’s brain as time doesn’t delete highly emotional situations from the memory. It merely allows the dumper to stop feeling the weight behind some negative experiences and makes him or her more rational.

That means that if the relationship wasn’t entirely bad that the dumper will have fewer negative occurrences to cling on to convince himself/herself that the breakup needed to happen and that you were the cause of the problem.

The point of no contact is to let your ex cool off and allow him or her to wonder why you even broke up. Of course, that could take time as your ex needs an incentive to reflect on the relationship. But the power of no contact could one day make your ex see the relationship in a better light and allow nostalgia to creep in.

That’s when your ex could reach out to you and find out how you’ve been.

You need to hold on until then so your ex can stop thinking about the reasons why the relationship needed to end and start thinking about the reasons why he or she overreacted and messed up.

You’ll know your ex has improved his or her opinion of you when your ex starts initiating conversations, asking you questions, and taking an interest in your life.

No contact helps you evolve

Don’t worry that your ex won’t see your improvements. When your ex is ready to see them, rest assured that he or she will. And you won’t even have to communicate with your ex. No contact on its own will constantly send a message to your ex that you’re not following the same old patterns (especially if you were clingy) and that you’re finding joy in other things and people.

All you have to do for your ex to understand you’re doing things differently is stay away from your ex and keep working on yourself.

No contact is essentially a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for you to shed your skin and become the best version of yourself. The more your breakup has hurt you, the longer you’ll stay obsessed with your ex and the more time you’ll spend reflecting and improving.

I’m not saying pain and obsession are good, but if you had things you badly needed to improve, this is your chance to improve them. Write down your shortcomings, get therapy, talk to friends and family, and learn how you can do better in your next relationship.

With new skills and an improved personality, you’ll be much better equipped for your next long-term relationship. That’s what could make your ex interested in you again when he or she reaches out to test the waters.

Here’s how no contact affects your ex when everything goes according to plan.

No contact intends to develop and exude:

• Strength
• Independence
• Confidence
• Courage
• Dignity
• Self-control
• Determination
• Conviction in beliefs
• Resilience
• Morals
• Emotional intelligence
• Ambitions
• And everything you weren’t good at before and improved upon

You may not be able to prove all or any of these traits during no contact, but that doesn’t mean they won’t come in handy when your ex reaches out and wants you back or simply in your next relationship. Always remember that you have to grow for yourself because you’re the only person that will be there for you from start to finish.

What if no contact doesn’t affect my ex?

The thing about no contact is that you likely won’t see any short-term improvements. It usually takes dumpers months or even years to process everything they need to process and get involved with someone who convinces them that one of their exes was well-suited for them.

It’s through failures, pain, and comparisons that dumpers get affected by no contact and come back. And this is something you have no control over. Sometimes dumpers have to learn valuable lessons. Lessons that teach them a thing or two about gratitude, commitment, loyalty, and respect.

You must not get in their life before they learn those lessons or they lose even more respect for you.

So if your ex doesn’t get affected by no contact by the time you want him or her to get affected, keep moving on. You can’t afford to put your life on hold for your ex just because you think the relationship with your ex seemed perfect.

Even if it was perfect, relationships can’t be maintained by one person. They require an equally interested participant who knows the importance of the relationship and is prepared and willing to do whatever it takes to water it.

I know the breakup feels like it’s killing you right now, but eventually, you’ll stop caring about the whole no contact thing.

You’ll see that your health is more important than an ex who left you and that you must focus on yourself and the people who matter to you.

Are you still wondering how no contact affects your ex? What are you hoping no contact will achieve with your ex? Share your thoughts below the article.

If you’d like to talk to us about your breakup privately, however, visit our coaching page.

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.