If She Glows After The Breakup You Were The Problem – True Or False?

There’s this quote or meme going around that goes like this “If she glows after the breakup you were the problem.” Whoever came up with it wants you to think that a woman who glows after the breakup is innocent and her ex the problem.

Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on which side of the breakup you’re on), this line has nothing to do with who the problem was in the relationship and who needed to do the most work.

It merely means that exes may change in appearance and act differently after the breakup, depending on how trapped they felt toward the end of the relationship and how badly they want to look attractive to their ex or someone else.

When a woman (or a man) has a significant transformation after the breakup, he or she has personal reasons for changing.

Dumpers’ reasons are that they feel relieved, eager to move forward with someone else, and wish to disassociate themselves from their ex (forget the past). That’s why they change themselves visually, try new things, have fun, and copy others’ communication and behavioral styles.

Dumpees, on the other hand, make visual and internal long-lasting changes. They do this because they feel rejected and unloved and think they have no choice but to evolve as people. By regretting their mistakes and growing within, they want to get ready for a new connection with their ex or perhaps even with someone else.

Most of the time, they make healthy improvements solely because they want their ex to acknowledge their worth and stop their pain.

Initially, they’re anxious, confused, lost, and depressed—and don’t glow. They start glowing months after the breakup after they’ve recovered emotionally, discovered their worth, and started living their lives. That’s when they turn their pain into relief and rediscover the meaning of life.

So no, it’s not true that if a girl or woman glows after the breakup that you were the problem or the reason she’s glowing. She can glow by dumping you and acting on empowering emotions of relief or by getting over the breakup and realizing she doesn’t need you to feel happy and loved.

Either way, you’re not responsible for her physical changes. The culprits you’re looking for are the breakup itself or rather, her emotions and desire to leave her old life behind. They make her want to look attractive so she can feel that she’s moving on from her previous life.

We should mention that a woman can go to an expensive salon and pamper herself right after the breakup or many months later. If she gets dumped and goes to a salon right away, she usually does that to look good for herself and her ex.

She wants compliments, recognition, and regret from her ex.

However, if she glams up months after the breakup and seems to be having the time of her life, then she’s probably accepted the breakup already and loves that she’s in control of her emotions and life again. She feels the same most dumpers feel after leaving an unfulfilling relationship.

So whatever you do, never take people’s post-breakup looks and behaviors personally. Whether you got dumped or did the dumping yourself, your ex’s life has nothing to do with yours. Your ex will either go through the dumpee or the dumper stages.

If your ex is the dumper, your ex will feel immensely relieved right after dumping you. But if your ex is the dumpee, your ex will need some time to get back on her feet. While she’s recovering, she could try to make herself look visually attractive to feel beautiful and show you what you’re missing out on.

She could also do it for herself, of course, but she probably won’t at first.

Once she’s dealt with the post-breakup blues, she could become a different person. She could have a new hairstyle, a different clothing style, a better-looking physique, more or different makeup, and act more confident, emotionally strong, and happy to be alive.

The breakup could change her in many positive ways, provided she takes the breakup seriously, reflects, and puts the work in. And since she’s the dumpee, it’s quite likely that she’ll make at least some positive changes that you notice from afar.

Today’s topic revolves around the quote “If she glows after the breakup you were the problem.” We discuss why girls and women glow and what that means for you.

If she glows after the breakup you were the problem

Look, if you were abusive, mean, and controlling and she dumped you (or waited for you to dump her), she probably will glow after the breakup. She’d been unhappy and meant to leave the relationship for some time, so you can expect her to doll up, talk to new people, try new things, and act as if she just got out of prison.

The girl or woman will feel relieved and as a result, do relief-inspired things. Every person acts differently, but she’ll probably do or say things you’re not used to and appear unrecognizable, ungrateful, mean, uncaring, spoiled, immature, or weird.

That’s how most dumpees describe their dumpers as they’re baffled by their exes’ never-before-seen attitude and behavior. They don’t understand why their exes look, talk, and act differently. Due to hurt self-esteem, they often think they’re at fault and believe things they read on the internet.

Things such as, “If she glows after the breakup you were the problem.” It’s as if dumpees look for reasons to blame themselves for the breakup. They’re anxious and feel worthless, so they tend to hold themselves accountable for things they have nothing to do with.

They even think their ex is glowing, drinking, partying, and enjoying life because they were bad partners who deserve what happened to them. Little do they know their ex is going through the dumper stages of a breakup and feels elated by the breakup itself.

Because they don’t understand breakup dynamics, feel abandoned, lack healthy self-esteem, and want their ex to return and validate them, they think they held their ex back from living life to the fullest.

Dumpees don’t understand that their ex associated negative thoughts and feelings with them and that their ex had been trying to break free from the shackles that he or she had strapped on himself or herself.

They normally need a few months to rebuild their self-esteem and realize they didn’t trap their ex and force their ex to behave the way he or she behaved. That’s because time helps them gain a clear perspective of the breakup and their ex’s post-breakup behavior.

So if your ex behaves and/or looks different, bear in mind that this is quite common and normal. Your ex feels it’s time to self-prioritize and say yes to life.

This doesn’t mean you were the problem, but that your ex developed negative perceptions of you and stayed in the relationship for so long that leaving it overflowed your ex with relief and the determination to self-prioritize and try things differently.

The breakup immediately stopped your ex from feeling suffocated and enabled your ex to express himself or herself freely. There was no need to pretend to love you and act modest as your ex didn’t need to impress you and worry about your feelings anymore.

Your ex could just focus on hers and do what made her happy.

And what made her happy was to engage in interesting hobbies and activities. It was easier to do that after the breakup than before as your ex felt free and had lots of free time on her hands.

With that said, here’s why it doesn’t mean you were the problem if your ex-girlfriend glows after the breakup.

The point is that if she glows after the breakup and/or treats you terribly, you were the problem only in her eyes. She focused on your negative traits and behaviors and told herself you weren’t her ideal partner.

She did this so many times that she began to believe it.

And when she believed it, you couldn’t change her mind because her beliefs were reinforced by her emotions and repetitive thoughts. They became a part of her—and there’s no changing that. Not by pretending to be her friend and trying to stop her from feeling relieved.

If you try to ruin her fun now that she’s the most relieved and happy, you’ll make her feel smothered (the way she felt at the end of the relationship) and force her to push you away.

The more aggressive your approach is, the more likely she is to push you away and hurt you.

Were you the problem if she glows as a dumpee?

If you left your ex and your ex got her glow on immediately after the breakup, your ex must have been meaning to get out of the relationship for a while. She must have felt pressured and uncomfortable and was waiting for an opportunity to make her escape.

By dumping her, your ex essentially avoided breaking your heart and feeling bad for hurting you. Some dumpees do that. They’re scared of initiating the breakup, so they stop investing in their ex and hurt their ex so much and for so long that their ex suggests taking a break or breaking up.

That makes them dumpers as they want to break up but lack the courage to break the bad news to their ex.

Anyway, everyone knows that dumpees get sad and depressed after the breakup. This is because they feel powerless and experience overwhelming amounts of separation anxiety and fear. They need (not just want) their ex to take them back to love them and reassure them they’re important and that everything will be okay.

Reassurance helps them keep their sanity and composure whereas a lack of it drives them insane.

So were you the problem if she glows after the breakup? Are you the reason she seems to be radiating positive energy and doing so well?

That’s unlikely. Unless you were manipulative, controlling, abusive, and cruel, she’s merely looking after herself and trying to regain her identity. The longer it’s been since you broke up, the more likely it is that she’s gotten rid of some of her flaws, changed physically, improved her social life, and found purpose in her life.

Dumpees’s self-esteem hits rock bottom, so they often rebuild themselves from the ground up. This means they make hundreds of small and big changes and transform themselves into better and more attractive people.

Pain and suffering basically force them to reflect and become the best versions of themselves. Dumpees know that if they don’t change and become more productive and attractive their ex won’t become regretful and want them back.

But what dumpees tend not to understand is that their ex isn’t waiting for them to grow and get back with them. Their ex is just focusing on himself/herself and enjoying the space and relief the breakup provides.

To regret breaking up, the dumper must encounter problems, get hurt, and think about his or her actions and decisions. If the dumper discerns he or she was the problem, the dumper then comes back and tries to rebuild trust and love.

So who’s responsible for the breakup?

It’s rare for just one person to be fully responsible for a breakup. Most of the time, both individuals share some responsibility, although it may not be equal. The reason for the breakup could be due to incompatibility or poor communication skills, which led to a lack of maturity and the inability to maintain a healthy relationship.

I suppose the person responsible for breaking up the most is the dumper as the dumper gives up on the relationship and abandons the dumpee. The dumper ignores the need to work things out and refuses to put their relationship back on track.

Some of the most common reasons dumpers leave include:

• lack of care, patience, empathy, and gratitude
• emotional unavailability
• unresolved childhood issues
• mental health problems
• inability to resolve problems and stay in love
• power imbalance and resentment
• temptations and cheating
• poor relationship mentality, doubts, poor commitment
• desire to focus on themselves or something/someone else

Dumpees, on the other hand, tend to get broken up with because they:

• repeat the same mistakes over and over again
• make their ex feel disrespected
• fail to understand their ex and communicate properly
• accuse their ex of things
• expect too much too soon or in the wrong ways
• overprioritize their ex and underprioritize themselves
• overwhelm their ex with difficult emotions and needs

No matter what the issue is, couples first become couples because they fall in love and commit to working through relationship problems together. If they don’t know or don’t do that, they eventually give up on each other and become ex-couples.

They determine that the relationship requires more energy, time, and effort than it is worth.

So ultimately, the person who gives up is more responsible for the breakup unless he or she has been requesting changes without success. At some point, the dumper has no choice but to give an ultimatum and/or leave the dumpee.

That’s when the breakup can be justified as the dumpee’s lack of willingness to evolve and change drags the dumper down with him/her.

Every person has different relationship limits.

Some of mine are:

• cheating
• lying about important things
• abusiveness
• manipulation
• over-possessiveness
• drugs

If your or your ex’s boundaries were crossed (especially multiple times) and the relationship didn’t change, the breakup probably needed to happen so you could distance yourselves from each other, invest in yourselves, and/or find someone who was okay with lower or different relationship standards.

So bear in mind the breakup happened because someone wasn’t happy and needs to grow whether he or she is aware of it or not. This is the perfect time to make some changes and improvements.

This concludes the article. Would you say you were the problem if she glows after the breakup? Why do you think people change or look different? Kindly share your views on this topic below the post.

And if you’d like to talk privately about this or some other breakup topic, visit our coaching page for more information on how to get in touch and what to expect.

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. Learn more about me or get in touch today.