How To Deal With Anger Towards An Ex?

If you’re experiencing anger and hostile thoughts towards an ex, the thing that will help you more than anything is understanding where your anger comes from. Once you understand why you feel so angry towards your ex, you’ll be able to control your unwanted emotions better and prevent them from making you do impulsive things.

You’ll be able to decide whether to act on anger and do something you’ll probably regret or to pull back from the situation, continue to process the breakup, and cool off.

So to understand where your anger comes from, keep in mind that there are two main things to consider. The first thing is who broke up with who. If you broke up with your ex, you most likely feel angry because you think you can’t do the things you want to do without your ex dangling around all the time. You feel that your ex is still trying to get close to you even though you broke up with your ex and started treating him or her as an ex-partner.

It’s also possible that you’re competing with your ex and that you think your ex is doing better than you.

If your ex broke up with you, however, then you’ve probably entered the anger stage of a breakup and realized that you deserved to be treated better by your ex. You deserved better explanations, more sympathy, fewer excuses, and more support.

But instead, you were left to suffer alone and ended up hurting your self-esteem. It probably took you several weeks to stop blaming yourself for your ex’s mistakes and behaviors and get back on your feet. But after you’ve made some emotional progress, you started seeing things for what they are.

You saw that your ex isn’t worth chasing and apologizing to and that you strongly disapprove of the way he or she handled the breakup. You expected more from someone you’d been in love with. This is especially true if your ex cheated on you, ghosted you, talked badly about you, or started dating someone else right away.

These things prove that your ex had no respect for you, let alone himself or herself and that you have every right to feel disappointed, hurt, or angry. How could you not when you trusted your ex and thought you were heading in the right direction as a couple?

Relationships are emotional, financial, and many other types of investments. And we all know that we put hope in our investments and get hurt when they don’t succeed. We get even more hurt when our expectations fail because of something that happens out of our control.

We feel angry because we did our best but the person responsible for his or her end of the bargain didn’t.

The second batch of things that determine how angry you feel towards your ex is your upbringing, personality, perceptions of your ex, and coping mechanisms. If your parents were angry people and stopped you from expressing yourself in healthy ways, you probably have certain anger issues you need to work on. If this was your first relationship, you may not even have been aware that you had them.

Most people realize they have anger inside them when they encounter issues in a relationship or when they get rejected. That’s when their worst side comes out. This, of course, depends on each person’s personality as not all people get furious when their ex dumps them. Some get very sad and depressed. Especially those with low self-esteem who grew up with controlling parents.

Such people feel they have no control over the situation and that they’re at their ex-partner’s mercy.

Dumpees who typically fight back are the ones with high egos and explosive personalities. Those dumpees can’t stand that their ex rejected them and hurt them, so they oftentimes say hurtful things back. They try to show that they didn’t deserve what they got and that their ex should feel their wrath.

Sometimes they even take revenge as they feel they need to get even.

So if you’re wondering how to deal with anger towards an ex, start by figuring out why you feel angry. Do you feel angry because you’ve been depressed for weeks and are now regaining your strength and realizing that your ex has hurt you badly?

Or could it be that you haven’t engaged in introspection yet and that you have some work to do in regard to controlling your emotions and accepting that not everyone will treat you fairly?

It could be a little bit of both as no one’s perfect. But you should probably know that a little bit of anger is healthy. It’s much healthier than putting yourself down and staying depressed for weeks. Anger is an emotion you can use to combat depression and negative self-destructive thoughts dumpees often have when they feel defeated.

Just make sure not to let your anger consume you and control you. When I say a little bit of anger is healthy, I mean a little bit.🤏A bit of anger shows that you’re progressing through the dumpee stages properly, dealing with depression, and that you’re transitioning from a hopeful state of mind to a hopeless one.

You’re starting to understand that your ex caused you more pain than you deserved and that you shouldn’t just forget about it. You shouldn’t hold grudges, of course, but you should remember that your ex hasn’t handled the breakup well and that your ex probably doesn’t deserve your love and commitment, nor another chance.

There’s a lot more to discuss if you feel angry with your ex. This post will help you learn how to deal with anger towards an ex and teach you that anger is a sign of detachment and that there are ways to benefit from it.

How to deal with anger towards an ex?

Dealing with anger that is directed towards your ex is nowhere near as difficult as it is to deal with depression. That’s because depression is a feeling of hopelessness and a lack of control whereas anger is all about control. Anger makes you feel empowered by the pain and injustice that was done to you, so you wish to seek justice by saying or doing something that would affect your ex and make him or her regret leaving you and hurting you.

Anger is telling you that you’re tired of suffering because of your ex and that you think your ex should have been kinder, more self-aware, and a better person in general. It’s telling you that you should teach your ex a lesson not to mess with you and then wait to see how your ex responds to “justice.”

The most important thing to you is that you get some kind of reaction from your ex. You want proof that you matter and that you can influence your ex’s thoughts and affect his or her feelings. A reaction like that would ease your pain a bit as it would tell you that you got back at your ex and that you’re not the only one suffering.

Upon seeing your ex suffer, your anger would instantly subside. You’d feel that you don’t need to hurt your ex and get even as your ex is already in a lot of pain. He or she is struggling, so you’d just walk away and focus on yourself instead. This is why dumpees whose ex is depressed tend not to get very angry with their ex.

They can get angry, of course as every hurt person is capable of feeling angry, but they usually don’t get so angry that they consider hurting their depressed ex and get some kind of revenge. They feel their ex doesn’t deserve punishment and that they should give their ex space or support instead.

If you feel tempted to take revenge on your ex, know that revenge will likely make you feel better as it will make you feel you got even with your ex. But other than instant gratification, it won’t help you deal with anger towards your ex properly.

Instead of learning a thing or two about controlling negative emotions, you’ll program yourself in a way that you react to anger similarly in the future. That means you’ll develop an eye for an eye mentality and that you’ll be hurting people and getting hurt back.

People tend to respond to anger with more anger. And the person you’re getting back at could as well. So deal with anger towards an ex differently. Deal with it by reminding yourself that anger is a part of the healing process and that no matter how strong your anger is that you can’t act on it.

If you do, you won’t just push your ex away and ruin your chances of being with your ex, but also transform yourself into a vengeful person who gets back at people whenever they do something wrong.

How you deal with anger towards an ex will depend on your willpower, morals, and self-control. The better they are, the better/quicker you’ll deal with anger.

Always remember that people can’t make you do anything. “He made me do it” is just an excuse people use for their poor judgment and self-control. Who you are as a person and how you respond to people is entirely up to you. You’re the person in charge of your body and mind.

So ask yourself, “What kind of person do I want to be?” Do I want to be the bringer of justice, aka someone impulsive who plays the role of God, or do I want to let karma take care of my ex and keep my conscience clear? Do I want my family and friends to think of me as a dangerous person who gets back at exes or do I want them to see the good in me?”

It may feel like you have nothing to lose by making your ex suffer, but that’s not true. You could lose people’s support or admiration and have a hard time forgiving yourself when anger fades.

Here are my tips on how to deal with anger towards an ex.

I suppose you should figure out what kind of anger you feel towards your ex, how long it’s been since your ex broke up with you, and what you’ve been doing after the breakup. If you’ve been contacting your ex or letting your ex contact you whenever he or she wanted, you’ve been staying hopeful and kept waiting for your ex to return.

That means you’ve delayed your healing process and will probably get angry with your ex a bit later than a dumpee who went no contact straight away.

But if your ex just broke up with you and you’re feeling very angry, then that’s probably understandable as you had created long-term plans with your ex and didn’t expect your ex to forget about those plans and hurt you so much. You expected your ex to maintain the relationship and include you in his or her life.

How long will anger towards an ex last?

How long anger lasts depends on how much your ex has hurt you, how sensitive you are, how you perceive your ex’s behavior, and what you do to stop feeling angry. If you contact your ex and argue with your ex all the time, your anger will last quite some time. It won’t have a reason to go away as you’ll constantly find new reasons to be angry.

The intensity and duration of anger, therefore, vary for each person. But generally speaking, extreme anger you can expect to last a couple of weeks. During this time, you’ll want your ex to suffer and feel the way you do (miserable). After that, your anger will likely come and go as it pleases. You’ll have days when something triggers you and makes you miss your ex and days when you feel angry with your ex for walking away and hurting you.

Those days should be much easier to endure as you’ll have already stopped looking for ways to get back at your ex. You’ll have realized that vengeance is out of the question and that you’ve got better things to focus on. Things like learning from your mistakes, improving yourself, and moving on with your life.

As a result, you’ll be able to deal with anger much better than when you were in denial, wondering if your ex ever even loved you. But you could still feel a bit angry with your ex for months or longer.

Keep in mind that anger won’t last forever. You might feel angry now that the breakup is fresh and you feel hurt, but give it some time and your anger will subside. You’ll detach to the point where you stop caring about the past and start caring only about yourself.

So if the breakup happened recently and you’ve just gotten out of depression (or you’re about to), bear in mind that anger is helping you detach and grow stronger. You mustn’t get revenge or anything like that just because emotions are raw.

But if it’s been months and you still feel angry, then remind yourself that your ex has hurt you a lot and that although you have the right to be angry with your ex that it’s not helping you let go of your ex/the past and become a better person.

Anger is just a coping mechanism trying to protect you from getting taken advantage of. You don’t need to act on it just because it’s there. Too many people already do, and that’s why they develop resentments.

And resentments are bad for them, not their ex.

Did you learn how to deal with anger towards an ex? How do you cope with anger and other unwanted emotions? Let us know below the post.

However, if you want to vent to us and let us help you get through the breakup, sign up for coaching with 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.