I Can’t Stop Thinking About My Ex!

If you can’t stop thinking about your ex, you need to understand that the obsessive ex-thoughts you’re experiencing are not unique to you. Most dumpees have them from the moment their ex breaks up with them until the time they process separation anxiety and fears and accept that their ex might not come back.

Once they come to terms with the breakup, lose hope, and improve their confidence in their worth and abilities, they quickly stop putting their ex on a pedestal and start thinking about themselves more. They still have moments where they ponder about their ex, of course, but they don’t think about their ex 24/7, 7 days a week.

How often dumpees think about their ex depends on many things, starting with their self-esteem, the things their ex does, how long ago the breakup occurred, and how many and what kind of breakup mistakes they make.

For example, if they watch their ex’s every move on social media and see that their ex is having a great time without them, they tend to think about their ex a lot. That’s because they feel anxious and therefore, have a strong emotional reason to obsess about their ex.

So if you can’t stop thinking about your ex, the first thing you should do is understand that breakups cause a lot of anxiety and that initially (maybe for a month or two), it’s almost impossible not to think about the dumper.

The dumper causes a ton of anxiety, so anxiety alone is usually a strong enough incentive for thinking about an ex who has rejected you and hurt you. But if months go by and you still can’t stop thinking about your ex all the time and having nightmares, then you may want to figure out if you’re handling the breakup correctly.

Are you talking to your ex, stalking your ex, praying that your ex will come back, talking to people who give you a lot of reconciliation hope, sending your ex gifts, or in any way, shape, or form investing time and energy in your ex?

If you are, you may want to stop doing that so you can detach from your ex and stop delaying your recovery.

This article will shed some light on why you can’t stop thinking about your ex and what you can do to decrease your ex-obsession and increase your productivity.

Why can’t I stop thinking about my ex?

It’s completely normal to think about your ex all the time after the breakup. It’s also normal to break down sobbing as you relive the breakup over and over again. Breakups are extremely traumatic experiences.

They not only make you face your fears of losing someone dear to you but also force you to deal with a very painful rejection.

This rejection makes you take things very personally and traps you in this loop of self-blame and self-torture. It makes you think that something’s wrong with you and that if you had just one more chance that you could make your ex see your worth and turn things back around.

In reality, one more chance wouldn’t change anything. Your ex has detached, so your ex wouldn’t change his or her opinion of you by allowing you to prove your worth. Your ex would just feel trapped and become more determined to stick with the breakup.

Now that you’re thinking about your ex, you analyze everything and anything. You think about the present, past, and future and try to understand what went wrong and how you can make your ex love you again.

Some of the things you could think about after the breakup are:

• the way the breakup happened
• how your ex treated you
• the things you like about your ex
• the good memories
• what your relationship could be like
• your ex running back to you

Since your ex is not receptive to you and you remember how secure you felt when your ex was receptive, you now crave the peaceful times from the past. You imagine the good moments with your ex and make them seem better than they actually were.

This is thanks to nostalgia because nostalgia combined with anxiety, fear, and uncertainty force you to put rose-colored glasses on and distort your perception of reality. Suddenly, you don’t care about the arguments and all the bad times.

All you can remember with the glasses on is how loving your ex was and how you wish to once again feel loved and cared for.

So in a way, you’re deceiving yourself because if things were as perfect as you think, the breakup wouldn’t have happened. You and your ex would have been able to talk things through and find a healthy solution.

Of course, every relationship is different.

Sometimes dumpees are abusive and need to get broken up with to learn their lessons. We shouldn’t defend people who had plenty of chances to change but didn’t. This is especially true if dumpees needed to mature very badly.

But most of the time, it’s not the dumpees’ fault.

I’ve been doing this long enough to know that dumpers usually leave because they have a poor relationship mentality and lose interest and attraction.

They simply don’t want to stay in a relationship because they have the grass is greener syndrome and think there’s someone better for them out there. And although there is someone better, that’s not what relationships are about.

Any wise person will tell you that couples need to work on their relationships rather than look for someone perfect.

Those who look for someone better tend to jump from one relationship to the next and never learn the importance of commitment and perseverance.

The point I’m trying to make is that if you can’t stop thinking about your ex, this isn’t because your ex was excellent in every way.

It’s because:

1. You accepted your ex as he or she is.
2. Your ex broke the commitment and showed you that he or she doesn’t value you as much as you value him or her.

It sucks that you think about your ex so much while your ex is busy with his or her new life. But that’s just the way things are when you get dumped. Once your ex gets attached to someone he or she likes and gets dumped himself or herself, your ex will go through the same dumpee stages as you.

If you do your best to focus on yourself and let karma take care of your ex, you won’t even know about it. Well, you might if your ex breadcrumbs you and wants a lot of attention and affection all of a sudden.

That being said, here are 7 reasons why you can’t stop thinking about your ex.

When you think about your ex like crazy, it’s of utmost importance that you don’t let your ex-thoughts and anxiety control you. If you reach out to your ex and communicate, that won’t just give you more things to think about, but it will also hurt you more.

It will make you feel good and hopeful for a moment, but once hope runs out, you’ll go back to obsessing about your ex and wondering if he or she will eventually come back. Although there’s always a chance that your ex might return, it’s not healthy to put yourself in such an uncertain situation.

It’s safer for you to get rid of hope than it is to hold on to it. Yes, hope is not easy to get rid of, but once you do, you’ll realize it was the best thing you’ve ever done.

How do I stop thinking about my ex?

If you want to stop thinking about your ex in just a few days, this likely won’t happen. You won’t be able to get your ex out of your head that quickly because you’ve become obsessed with your ex.

And as you may know, obsessions take time to process. They require you to be patient and do the opposite of what’s making you obsessed.

So first things first, work on letting go of hope. Do this by throwing away your ex’s gifts and things that remind you of your ex. If house decor triggers the reminders of your ex, change things up a little. Do whatever it takes not to be reminded of your ex in the environment you’re supposed to feel safe.

Once you’ve done that, make sure to adhere to the rules of no contact. These rules will help you avoid breakup mistakes and allow you to think about your ex less every day. Every person recovers at a different rate, but when I got dumped, it took me about 6 months or so to recover.

That means that healing is a marathon, not a race. It takes patience, commitment, and a lot of support. Especially right after the breakup because that’s when anxiety is the highest.

So now that you understand it will take a while to break this obsession with your ex, start doing things that keep your brain engaged. This can be any hobbies or interests that you like or may not feel like doing now that you’re tired and depressed.

It’s important that you force yourself to get out of the house and do things. It doesn’t matter what you do as long as you avoid looking at your phone every ten minutes and expecting your ex to call. If possible, leave your phone at home and stay out for a few hours a day.

That will prevent you from relying on your ex for healing and help you practice self-reliance and self-control.

If that doesn’t help, then talk to your friends and family and sign up for therapy as well. Talking about your ex may seem counterproductive, but it can be very therapeutic if you feel depressed and anxious.

Just make sure to talk about your ex ONLY when you’re struggling to cope with anxiety. You don’t want to talk about your ex when you’re doing fine because that will make you think about your ex more and prolong your healing.

Another thing dumpees often struggle with is self-forgiveness. They blame themselves for saying or doing something that triggered the breakup and by doing so, force themselves to re-imagine their mistakes over and over.

If you feel that you’re not good enough, you need to snap out of it by reminding yourself that everyone makes mistakes. But partners who are ready for a serious commitment resolve disagreements and various problems together.

It’s why they decided to team up.

So if your ex didn’t want to fix things with you, know that your ex was way more at fault than you. That’s because he or she abandoned the relationship when the relationship was put to the test. In other words, your ex took the easy way out and decided to look for happiness elsewhere.

And lastly, make sure to give yourself as much time as it takes. If you set deadlines for your healing, you’ll be very disappointed when the deadline comes and you’re still not over your ex. You’ll feel that it’s taking too long to recover and that you should have been over your ex already.

Is my ex thinking about me too?

Your ex without a doubt thinks about you from time to time. He or she wonders how you’re handling the breakup and what you’re doing in your spare time. If it’s been a while since you broke up, your ex probably also wants to know if you’re dating someone new already and if you’re having a good time with that person and on your own.

Your ex does not, however, obsess about you the way you do. Your ex is the dumper (isn’t in any pain), so your ex doesn’t feel a need to obsess. Nothing drives your ex to obsess, so your ex likely just focuses on himself or herself for the most part.

You’ve got to remember that your ex feels relieved and can’t think about you not even nearly as much as you think about your ex.

Relief causes your dumper to prioritize himself or herself and move on from the past.

But that doesn’t mean that your ex has forgotten about you. Lots of dumpees fear this possibility, but your ex hasn’t completely sawed off the past.

It’s impossible to do that because you’re a part of your ex’s memory and will continue to exist as such.

Of course, as time goes on, you’ll become a distant memory to your ex, but so will your ex to you. You’ll both have trouble recalling certain events, but you’ll never completely stop thinking about each other.

Occasionally, you’ll still remember each other and might be curious about each other.

Some of the things that could remind you of each other are:

• places you visited together
• the music you listened to and the movies you watched
• the food you prepared/ate
• nicknames, specific words, inside jokes
• quirks

Your ex will think about you when you’re not thinking about your ex

Right after the breakup, your ex isn’t thinking about you much (especially not in a way you want your ex to think about you) because of the aforementioned relief. Your ex is just doing his or her things and enjoying freedom.

But when your ex stops feeling relieved and empowered from the breakup, things could change very quickly. That’s because your ex will become susceptible to stressors and might experience the negative side of life as well.

Your ex won’t be able to keep chasing highs and staying elated forever.

Sooner than later, your ex will reach the neutrality stage of a breakup in which he or she could encounter stressors.

So remember. Your ex will think about you the most when he or she:

• feels down
• experiences relationship issues
• dates someone he or she can’t connect with
• compares people to you
• gets broken up with
• becomes nostalgic
• falls into depression
• experiences loneliness or anxiety
• realizes you weren’t that bad a romantic partner

Basically, when your ex experiences issues and senses that you don’t need him or her is when your ex will think about you and perhaps even miss you. You need to leave your ex alone until that happens so you don’t give your ex more power and ruin your ex’s perception of you.

Are you finding it hard to stop thinking about your ex? What are you doing to feel less attached to your ex and more dependent on yourself? Let us know in the comments section below the article.

And lastly, if you want to talk to us about why you can’t stop thinking about your ex, click here to visit our page dedicated to 1-on-1 coaching.