Don’t get offended if you broke up with a guy and he didn’t respond. Whether he responds or not doesn’t matter anymore. You no longer love him so his response or a lack of it shouldn’t bother you.
It should make you feel happy and relieved because if he were to react, he could guilt-trip you, suffocate you, anger you, or make you sad and depressed. He could complicate things for you.
So don’t worry about it too much. No response isn’t a bad response. It may not be how you expected your ex-boyfriend to react, but it’s much better than seeing him cry, beg and plead, or threaten you in any way, shape, and form.
The reason why you wanted some sort of a response from your ex-boyfriend in the first place is that you expected him to care about you a bit more. You thought he would either try to resist the breakup or ask you questions and show you that you matter to him.
In other words, you thought your ex-boyfriend would respond in a way that would validate your importance. But instead, he did no such thing. He just dealt with the breakup swiftly with confidence and ended up hurting your ego and self-esteem.
You really shouldn’t take your ex-boyfriend’s nonchalant response personally though. What he thinks and feels about you and how he reacts to the breakup is no longer your concern. It’d be your concern only if he didn’t take the breakup well and needed your support coping with anxiety.
That would mean you’d need to reply to your ex-boyfriend whenever he reached out and make sure that he gets over the breakup as soon as possible.
So if you broke up with a guy and he didn’t respond or respond the way you thought he would, don’t overthink things. He has his reasons for keeping cool and you need to respect them.
In today’s post, we’ll discuss why the guy you dated didn’t respond when you broke up with him and what you should do now that you’re no longer a couple.
I broke up with him and he didn’t respond
If you broke up with your ex-boyfriend and he was as cool as a cucumber, you need to understand that your ex-boyfriend didn’t owe you a strong response or some kind of post-breakup friendship.
You were the one who ended the relationship, so technically he didn’t even have to say anything. He was more than free to walk away without having a closure talk or anything else you had in mind.
When he got broken up with, he could just pick up his stuff and go. He could even sign up for Tinder if he wanted to because his responsibility to talk, be loyal, and look after you came to an end. At this point, he was allowed to start taking care of his own wants and needs and do what he always wanted to do.
To you, however, this seemed strange or unfair. You had certain expectations of your ex-boyfriend, so you got confused or hurt. You knew you didn’t want to be with your ex anymore, but deep inside, you still wanted the breakup to go your way.
That’s why you got shocked the moment your boyfriend became your ex-boyfriend and left without a peep.
Before you contact your ex-boyfriend and ask him if he ever even loved you, it’s extremely important for you to understand why you feel the way you do. If you understand that the reason you can’t stop thinking about this matter is because you had different expectations, you could learn to let go of it and move on peacefully.
But if you get offended by your ex’s lack of care for you and do something impulsive (something out of anger), you could start a war with your ex and make things much more difficult for both of you.
You should be careful because any wrong move with an ex-partner could cause unnecessary conflict and resentment.
Why didn’t he respond when I broke up with him?
If the guy you broke up with didn’t respond, he obviously didn’t want to tell you how he felt and what he thought. He wanted to keep his feelings and opinions to himself and let you think what you wanted to think.
It’s not that he wanted to hurt you by refusing to tell you what was on his mind but that he didn’t want to share it with you. He considered his emotions, thoughts, and understandings to be his.
Many men are emotionally crippled. They have trouble expressing difficult emotions, so they often remain stoic or get extremely upset. How they respond really depends on how much self-control they have and how developed they are in general.
The more they understand themselves and the more they know why they feel the way they do, the more likely it is that they’ll verbalize their emotions and thoughts in a healthy manner.
So if you’d like to know why your ex didn’t respond when you broke up with him, here are a few reasons to think about.
A guy who doesn’t want to talk to his ex could react to a breakup in many different ways.
He could:
- Say okay and go no contact
- Seenzone your text
- Ignore you when you try to talk to him
- Go out and have fun with friends
- Date someone new right away
- And focus completely on himself.
An ex-boyfriend doesn’t owe you any explanations. He just needs to take care of responsibilities such as his kids and mortgage and give you his stuff back.
Everything else is irrelevant to him and doesn’t concern him.
So again, if you broke up with your ex and he didn’t respond the way you thought someone who’s been with you for months or years should respond, don’t let your ego get in the way of your happiness. Your intention was to break free from your ex, so this is your chance to have freedom, peace, and quiet.
What can I do when he doesn’t respond?
The best thing to do after the breakup regardless of whether you’re the dumpee or the dumper is to leave your ex alone and focus on yourself. Breakups happen for a reason – because someone isn’t happy, so give your ex the space he needs to detach and process the breakup at his own pace.
Just because he didn’t react strongly doesn’t mean that he isn’t affected by the breakup. He could just be hiding it and you don’t know about it.
He’s a guy, so maybe he’s trying to protect his pride by showing no signs of weakness. Guys who have suffered badly because of their exes sometimes develop themselves this way. They build a high wall around themselves to protect themselves from another painful separation.
It’s a primal defensive strategy people with trust issues and fears do.
I myself would likely not give my partner a strong response either. I did in the past and it was embarrassing, so I’d rather not do that anymore. I’d prefer to just say something like, “I understand. I hope we can be on good terms one day” and leave it at that.
It’s hard to say how I’d feel because I’m not suffering from separation anxiety as I write this, but I probably wouldn’t seek closure. Especially not if my partner wasn’t willing to give it to me, if I already knew why we separated, or if my partner left me for someone else and lost my respect.
I’d only talk to people who dumped me if I needed to talk to them because of shared responsibilities or if I had a lot of respect for them and wanted to remain on speaking terms.
This, of course, doesn’t mean that you have to do things the way I would do them. If you’re hurt and you see that your ex wants to talk about the breakup, talk to him.
Just don’t get back with your ex because of that because it won’t end well.
If you’re hurting because your ex is ignoring you and showing he doesn’t want to talk anymore, that doesn’t mean you still love your ex. It means that your ego took a dive and that you wish your ex would acknowledge your worth and capabilities.
The best way to handle such feelings of rejection is to become aware of them. Acknowledge that you feel hurt, unimportant, or disrespected even and that your ex isn’t to blame for this. It’s your expectations and perceptions of the breakup altogether.
Once you understand that you want your ex to say or do something, do your best to control your impulses. Get busy with your life and do something productive. It will allow you to let go of any remaining expectations of your ex and give you new things to look forward to.
So if you broke up with a guy who didn’t respond the way you thought he would, don’t immediately assume that he never loved you or that he’s been waiting for you to break up with him. It’s much more likely that you both stopped investing in the relationship and fell out of love with each other.
You’ll get over it quicker than your ex will get over the breakup
If you’re hurting because your ex didn’t chase you or respond the way you hoped he would, you need to know that you’ll overcome this rejection much quicker than your ex will. And that’s because your ex will likely have to rebuild his self-esteem whereas you’ll just have to recover from a hurt ego.
The difference between rebuilding ego and self-esteem is huge. The former takes a few weeks to process whereas the latter can take months or years, depending on a person’s strength and ability to let go of the past.
That’s why you shouldn’t think that your ex got away with it. When it comes to breakups and divorces, there are no winners. Only two people who weren’t ready, willing, or able to make their relationship work.
My advice is to forgive your ex and focus on yourself. Do what it takes to get your mind off your ex and you’ll soon realize that there’s no point in holding grudges and wondering whether your ex is over you or just pretending to be over you.
If you strive to become the best version of yourself, you won’t need your ex’s validation. Your self-love and purpose in life will be more than enough to move on.
Are you upset with your ex-boyfriend because he didn’t respond to the breakup the way you assumed he would? Share your thoughts below.
And if you’d like to talk to us about your breakup privately, get in touch with us here.
No. No. And no. I was just broken up with literally 3 weeks ago, by text. I did not respond because breaking up with someone via text is disrespectful, insulting and immature. I’m a man in my mid 40’s and have been through a couple of break ups. Doesn’t mean I’ve learned to cope with it nor does not responding mean I don’t care or was cheating I was loyal as can be. Committed as can be and still love her. And I wish she wouldn’t have done that. But, I did not reply to her because she made that decision for both of us and literally didn’t leave any room for me to have a say in this. Everyone’s situation is different. But the reasons/examples given here are not really useful or helpful, as it generalizes that the dumpee “should’ve / could’ve done/said something but didn’t care enough to”. In my personal matter, I didn’t reply because 1). It wouldn’t change anything. I gave her no reason to break up with me. In fact, I gave her all the reasons to show how much I respect her, care for her and loved her. Not my fault for her personal issues/reasons for a break up via tex (ewww). 2). Communication is key. But if one leaves no room for communicating and understanding, and decides to suddenly abandon you like you didn’t mean a thing to them by doing it over text, doesn’t exactly deserve a response. What good would it do? What do you say? “Ok, I understand”? “No, please don’t” ? “Can we talk about it?” If she wanted to talk about it, she would’ve. Like an adult. And 3). I most likely would not have gotten a response or worse, find that she blocked me (wouldn’t that make things even more immature and traumatic?). So, in my (personal) defense, not saying a word says all that needs to be said. If a person doesn’t respect you enough to communicate the break up in a mature matter and have a mutual understanding, they don’t deserve your respect. Because most likely at that point, you’d only be feeding their narcissistic ego and giving them what’s left of your integrity and dignity.
Hi Aaron.
If someone doesn’t treat you right, you should, of course, not entertain him. You should cease contact and go your separate ways. But if he treats you with respect, he deserves a response. A response can express your post-breakup expectations and end the conversation on positive terms.
Kind regards,
Zan
No even if you are a dumper, he owns you “human” response, not love response, especially if you clarified decently why you broke up with him and why you could not tolerate some actions he has.. The man cannot be in love one day and second day not even respond to a request or a kind question. It means he never loved you and you were just for some short time. It is not about relation, love, or coming back together, it is about a man you once gave him yourself and keeping human interaction with respect is an obligation if he is even a human.
Hi Amira
Dumpers become bitter and find different things or people to invest in. They don’t always respond or respond nicely because they feel victimized and pressured. As for dumpees, they they don’t owe dumpers any responses to explanations. They’re hurting and have more important thing to deal with. Things such as shock, anxiety, depression, etc.
Sincerely,
Zan
Hello Ssn,
Continuously refresh my mailbox to see new notifications for your recent article:)
I agree that an ex (if it is a dumpee) doesn’t owe you any explanations.
And yes, when it comes to breakups and divorces, there are no winners.
But dumpers always feel better, but it’s okay…
Thank you 🙏🏻
Hi Linda.
Thanks for reading the blog.
It’s true that dumpers feel stronger as they don’t suffer from separation anxiety and fears. But they tend not to develop themselves as much as dumpees and as a result, often suffer later.
Best regards,
Zan