It can be extremely difficult to determine whether an ex will come back after a breakup. There are just too many factors to consider, including the dumper’s ability to grow, way of processing negativity, and most importantly, random bad events.
You can’t foresee if your ex will encounter difficulties that force him or her to reflect and realize your worth. It’s impossible because not even your ex knows what will happen in the future. The dumper doesn’t know if he or she is ready to live a happy ever after or if things will go awry and make him or her run back to you for validation.
Of course, every dumper expects to be happy after the breakup. He or she expects and hopes that things will be easier, simpler, and more enjoyable. If they are or if life is about the same as before, the dumper will not return because getting back with you would mean being unhappy or risking being unhappy.
The dumper will return only if he or she is certain that the life he or she left behind was better than the current life and the experiences he or she is yet to have.
A reconciliation tends to happen when stress, anxiety, fear, self-esteem, and pain overwhelm the dumper and change the way he or she perceives you and the relationship.
The question you want to ask is whether your ex will experience some strong negative emotion that changes your ex’s mentality and makes your ex see you in a better light. You want to know if your ex will have an epiphany and undergo a transformation in thinking.
You’re essentially asking “Will bad things happen to my ex so that my ex can stop thinking negatively of me and see that he/she needs me?”
Unfortunately, that’s not something you and I can answer. Your ex’s happiness post-breakup is difficult to predict UNLESS your ex has unresolved mental health problems or is prone to feeling anxious and scared.
But the problem with such long-lasting personal problems is that they’ve been with your ex for many years. There’s no guarantee that the same old problems will cause your ex to seek validation and security from you.
Your ex might, but it’s much more likely that something or someone new will have to alter your ex’s feelings and perceptions of you.
Your best bet is for your ex to start a new relationship with someone else, get his or her hopes up, forget about you for a while, and get betrayed, abandoned, or ghosted.
This could trigger your ex’s anxiety, separation anxiety, fear of abandonment, fear of the unknown, loneliness, or other unwanted emotions.
Such emotions could, in turn, create a feeling of helplessness and a longing for a better present and future.
If your ex thinks you were a good partner and that you could help him or her deal with problems he or she couldn’t foresee, you could be the person your ex contacts and decides to be with. All your ex needs is to let go of negative associations and see you as a valuable partner.
This may sound easy, but it’s not. A lot of bad things must transpire before your ex can find a reason to revisit the past, examine his or her decisions and behaviors, and admit mistakes. A lot of negative emotions must enter your ex’s mind and compel your ex to see that the relationship with you wasn’t that bad.
That’s why the question of how to know if your ex will come back is extremely difficult to answer. Your love and the quality of the relationship are important, but they’re not everything.
The most important factors are the dumper’s maturity, readiness to deal with problems, way of dealing with problems, and ability to engage in contemplation and admit fault.
If your ex can’t stop viewing himself or herself as a victim and stop resenting you or thinking negatively of you, your ex won’t come back even if his or her world comes crashing down. Your ex will stay bitter and will find different hobbies or people to distract himself or herself with.
A little bit of pain won’t be enough for his or her self-esteem to take a nosedive and make your ex crave your validation.
You have to understand that a successful reconciliation requires a lot of suffering and regret. If your ex is unsure about you, your ex won’t come back or will leave shortly after returning. Either way, your ex won’t give you what you need because your ex won’t feel the need to commit and get help from you.
Reconciliation is essentially a fallback plan. It’s the only plan in place after the main plan has failed. Sometimes it’s not even a secondary plan because some dumpers see multiple people after the breakup before they realize their ex was their best option.
Such dumpers need to see that they had the grass is greener syndrome because they focused on their ex’s bad traits too much. They forgot the most important relationship tasks which include forgiving and expressing gratitude.
Because they ignored the need to maintain their relationship, they slowly became resentful and ultimately decided to get rid of the burden (their ex).
The topic of today’s article is “How to know if your ex will come back?” Expect some hard truths along with a practical approach to breakups and reconciliations.
How to know if your ex will come back?
You can’t be 100% certain if your ex will come back unless your ex is already on his or her way back to you. You can only study your ex’s recent past and determine your ex’s patterns.
If patterns show that your ex has a history of going back to exes after leaving them, that your ex has a hard time finding romantic partners, that your ex has a fear of being alone, that your ex is bad with money or has no place to stay, that your ex has a drug addiction, or that your ex has very low self-esteem, you can assume that your ex will come back when those problems spiral out of control.
Your ex will need you when these problems cause complications and force him or her to do something about them. That’s when your ex will likely approach you and try to get validation and love from you.
Again, it’s hard to predict your ex’s behavior because no one knows how your ex thinks and deals with unwanted thoughts. But if your ex does come back, it will likely be when your ex fails in some big way and feels defeated.
So if you want to know if your ex will come back, look at your ex’s behavior and study his or her patterns. If you realize your ex has a tendency to come back and that your ex has lots of (unresolved or unresolvable) problems, you can probably presume that your ex isn’t happy and that your ex will come back when or if things go from bad to worse.
It’s unlikely that your ex will come back just because you’re nice to your ex. Niceness doesn’t reattract exes. Not until they’re ready to be attracted. And when they’re ready, they usually immediately want their ex back and are ready to work on the relationship again.
So don’t think you must say and do something to make your ex want to be with you again. Reconciliations aren’t about saying or doing the right things. They’re about waiting for the dumper to hit a rough patch because that’s when the power balance shifts.
When the dumper loses power, he or she goes from being in control to feeling helpless and weak. This internal change incentivizes the dumper to seek reassurance, forgiveness, intimacy, and security from the dumpee.
If the dumpee takes the dumper back, he or she immediately becomes the dumper’s safety net and a source of validation and happiness.
I want you to understand that the dumper’s return depends more on the dumper than on you. In terms of percentage, you probably have 10% of total control. The other 90% is in your ex’s hands as he or she is responsible for his or her thoughts, decisions, emotions, and actions.
It feels nice to think that you’re mainly responsible for getting back together, but that’s because you’re hurt. Pain blinds you with the illusion of action and tells you to act before your ex moves on with someone else.
In reality, your ex has moved on long before the breakup happened. You just didn’t know because your ex hid it from you and stayed with you until better opportunities presented themselves. A better opportunity was a new person or some other distraction.
Anyway, the best way to know if your ex will come back is to analyze your ex’s ability to be happy and self-sufficient.
If your ex is frequently branching from one person to the next, it’s a sign that your ex is looking for happiness in others and that your ex could return once he or she runs out of people to extract validation and support from.
You probably don’t want your ex to come back after he or she has been with half a dozen people, but that’s what it usually takes. Exes don’t come back simply because they have nothing better to do. They come back because they have no one better to be with.
All the people they connected with disappointed or hurt them, so they feel they have no choice but to go back to a relationship that gave them the relationship benefits and support they previously had but couldn’t appreciate.
Sadly, you probably won’t see any signs that your ex will come back on social media. Your ex won’t give you any concrete signs until he or she has failed miserably and wants you back.
But if you’re looking for signs like that, then you can tell your ex will come back when your ex:
- reaches out and appears nervous (fears rejection)
- wants to see you as soon as possible (feels a sense of urgency)
- compliments you and tells you he/she regrets leaving (expects a compliment in return)
- asks you if you’re thinking about getting back together (wants to make sure you’re on the same page)
You’ll see these signs when your ex has redeveloped feelings and expectations and wants you back right away. It will be obvious your ex wants you back because your ex won’t stop interacting with you until your ex has set up a date with you or asked for another chance.
As a breakup analyst and coach, I’ve discovered a recurring behavior among dumpers that often leads to reconciliation. I’ve realized that regretful dumpers always humble themselves, choose words selectively, and give their ex power back.
They don’t brag, try to make their ex jealous, and talk about unimportant things for too long.
As soon as they establish a rapport with their ex, they get straight to the point (talk about reconciliation). They do so because they don’t like the situation they’re in. It hurts them to stay away from their ex and live with self-doubt and uncertainty for the future.
If your ex didn’t make it seem like he or she wanted you back right now, you need to forget about looking for signs of regret and look for signs that your ex might come back in the future. Analyze your ex’s personality and behavior and you should know if your ex can even be happy without you or with someone else.
Unless your ex is a total disaster, you won’t know if your ex will fail and reflect. However, you will know that your ex has a tough road ahead and that you have nothing to envy and be jealous of.
With that said, here’s how to know if your ex will come back in the future.
How to know if your ex won’t come back?
You can tell your ex won’t come back (at least for a while) when it’s been months and your ex still blames you for everything. An ex who holds you entirely responsible for the breakup is incapable of seeing things from another perspective and reflecting on his or her behavior.
Such an ex has no intention of asking himself “What could I have done to stop the breakup” and shows no care and empathy towards his ex’s suffering. Instead of giving the dumpee closure and helping her move on, he points out her bad traits and indirectly destroys her self-esteem.
That’s his way of saying that he won’t work on himself and come back.
Dumpers who don’t come back tend to burn bridges with their exes. They see the breakup as competition and trash-talk their exes, argue with them, take them to court, get a restraining order against them, and sleep with their friends.
They focus on instant gratifications and as a result, fail to evolve as people and partners.
You can tell your ex won’t come back if his or her self-awareness and attitude stink. If your ex is so hateful, vengeful, and underdeveloped that your ex blames you for his or her problems, your ex probably won’t improve with time and see your value.
An ex like that will likely keep reminding himself or herself that you aren’t an adequate partner for him or her and many other people.
Sadly, many dumpees don’t get another chance. Some don’t get it because their relationship was unhealthy whereas others simply don’t see their exes grow and change their views. Their exes remain more or less the same maturity-wise and continue to self-prioritize.
If you want your ex back or move on, you also need to change your perception of your ex. You have to stop looking at your ex through rose-tinted glasses and become emotionally independent. That will improve your chances of reconciliation but also make you less reliant on your ex for happiness.
What’s your opinion on this topic? What are some ways to know if your ex will come back? Share your views and post questions in the comments section below.
And lastly, if despite reading the article you still don’t know what to do and can’t tell if your ex will come back, sign up for private coaching. We’ll analyze your breakup together and devise a plan tailored to your needs and situation.
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.
