Ignoring A Man After A Breakup Can Backfire!

Some women think they must ignore a man after the breakup to get his attention. But let me tell you that ignoring a man almost never works.

Instead of hurting him and making him come back by force, ignoring tends to tell him he’s made a big mistake and that he must pay for it by facing the consequences.

And facing the consequences is what your ex doesn’t want. He wants to feel respected as a human being even if he’s no longer with you. Respect is actually one of his basic psychological/esteem needs—and you must give it to him whether you want to or not.

If you don’t give it and disrespect him on the most fundamental level, bear in mind that you’ll play a very dangerous game. You’ll tell him that he doesn’t deserve a response from you because he isn’t worthy of it.

This will, in turn, make him think that you’re being unfair (again) and that he must do something to make it fair and regain his worth.

What he’ll do after you’ve ignored him really depends on two things:

1. His love for you.
2. Overall maturity.

If he’s a young guy and has a lot to learn, his knee-jerk reaction will probably be to take it out on you by picking a fight with you or by talking badly about you to his friends. If he’s mature, however, then there’s always a chance that he’ll reaffirm his reasons for breaking up with you and possibly even ponder on your ignoring behavior for so long that he’ll develop some kind of resentment for you.

His negative thoughts could essentially worsen his perception of you and make reconciliation very, very difficult.

So if you’re contemplating ignoring a guy after the breakup to get back with him, bear in mind that ignoring a mature or immature person doesn’t make him come back any quicker. On the contrary, it usually makes reconciliation more difficult as it disrespects and annoys the dumper and worsens his pent-up emotions.

The reason for that is that dumpers are emotionally detached and don’t care much about an ex who ignores them. They cared throughout the relationship because they had expectations of their partner and loved him.

But after the relationship, their mentality changed, and so did the value they saw in their ex.

Today, we’ll talk about whether you should consider ignoring a man after the breakup. We’ll talk about when you should ignore a man and when you should not.

Should I be ignoring a man after a breakup?

Look, ignoring a human being, whether it’s your ex, a friend, family member, or a stranger is wrong. It’s wrong whether that person hurt you, betrayed you, or left you for no apparent reason.

Everyone deserves an acknowledgment – a reply. Even exes who treated us poorly. They may not be the most developed as people and right for us, but they are nonetheless still people with feelings. Just how you would want your previous exes to reply to you if you reached out to them, your dumper ex would too.

He has certain expectations of you and probably doesn’t even know it’s hard for you to talk to him after the breakup.

Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you need to talk to your ex and entertain him out of kindness. That wouldn’t contribute to your self-respect at all. It would probably lower it and make you extremely dependent on your ex.

As a dumpee and a person of worth, all you have to do is to acknowledge your ex’s reach out, see what your ex wants, and depending on your ex’s reason for reaching out, decide what to do.

If your ex wants you to sign divorce papers, sign them. If he wants to talk about who’s going to move out, talk about that too. You don’t want to ignore something that urgently needs to be discussed.

If your ex doesn’t have anything important to discuss, however, and keeps stringing you along, then simply ask your ex not to message you anymore. Tell him you’d like some time to process the separation and that you’ll let him know when you’re ready to talk again.

By doing so, you’ll respectfully tell your ex you need space and stop your ex from speculating as to why you ignored him.

All in all, you need to reply to your ex for three reasons:

1. Because your ex deserves a response (even if you don’t have much respect for your ex).
2. Because your ex may come up with his own explanations for your actions and develop resentment.
3. And because your response directly affects your values (who you are and want to be as a person).

If you ignore your ex, you’ll never know what your ex wants. Maybe you don’t want to know because you’re over your ex and couldn’t care less about what he thinks and wants. But if you still want your ex back and ignore him, you won’t know if he’s breadcrumbing you (sending random messages), if he wants to apologize, if he needs you to finalize something important, or if he wants you back.

By ignoring him, you could miss out on getting him back, gaining closure, and growing within. So whether you want your ex back or not, don’t miss out on an opportunity that will determine how you view yourself and others. Your ex shouldn’t change your core values.

If you want to be the best version of yourself, you need to learn what becoming the best really means. Ignoring people definitely doesn’t make you the best. It just makes you into a person who respects herself.

The key to handling an ex reaching out is all about finding a balance between respecting your ex and respecting yourself.

How does an ex-boyfriend feel when you ignore him?

Provided that your ex is mature, your ex could feel hurt for a second or two. But soon, (very soon), he’ll most likely see that you aren’t playing by the rules of conduct and feel disrespected.

That’s when his already bad perception of you will get even worse. I can’t say exactly how your ex will feel because every person is different, but generally speaking, your ex probably won’t like it.

He’ll probably think about your behavior for a while, but when he discerns you don’t respect him, he’ll start to lose respect for you too.

If you’re having doubts, answer this for me. How would you feel if your friend ignored you? Would you ignore it and pretend nothing happened? If you did let it slide, what about his second or third ignore? Would you let those go too?

If you cared about yourself, I think you would either ask your friend why he’s ignoring you (call him out for his behavior) or get disappointed and give up on your friend. You’d do something that would affect your friendship.

Don’t think that your ex is much different from a friend. The truth is that he’s worse than that. He’s more like an acquaintance with whom you were intimate. So don’t think your ex has feelings for you hidden beneath the surface and that you’ll trigger those feelings by mistreating him.

If exes could be brought back that way, all dumpees would have to do is find ways to hurt their ex.

Is ignoring your ex powerful?

I know there’s a lot of conflicting information on the internet about ignoring an ex and that some will tell you that ignoring your ex is powerful and a good technique, but don’t be fooled. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you to manipulate your ex into caring for you.

Love doesn’t work that way.

And even if it did, you don’t want to have a guilty conscience because someone said it could work. What you want is your ex to love you because he wants to love you. Not just because you’re sly and good at playing with people’s feelings.

When it comes to love, you need to understand that you can’t manipulate respect. You may be able to trick people who don’t know you by portraying yourself as someone you’re not, but when it comes to exes (those who know you in and out), you won’t be able to play with their feelings.

Those people already know how they feel and why they feel that way. And ignoring them, thinking it will have a positive effect on them is not what your broken relationship needs to get another chance. What it needs is for your and your ex’s feelings to grow from a strong, healthy foundation.

You can’t achieve that if you find a way to exploit your ex’s weaknesses. Think about how crazy it sounds. Ignoring a person to make him care about you… It’s equivalent to punching him and hoping that he develops respect for you.

I suppose some dumpees think they can hurt their ex and make him care more because they also got hurt and forced to care. Such dumpees need to learn the difference between a person with feelings a person without them.

When does ignoring a man work in your favor?

Ignoring a man after the breakup works only if the guy broke up with you prematurely or if he’s the impulsive type who gets hurt by your disrespectful behavior and mistakes pain for love.

Such a guy may indeed come back after you’ve ignored him. But keep in mind that when he comes back, he’ll most likely come back just to ease his anxiety. This means that when he heals, he’s prone to leaving again because he doesn’t have a love bond with you.

All he has is his exhausted mentality, which is a strong conviction that he’s better off on his own.

So be careful with a guy who comes back after you’ve ignored him. There’s a high chance he’ll come back just to feel better about himself—and that he’ll leave you when you validate his importance.

When to ignore a man after a breakup?

Most of the time, ignoring a man after the breakup is not a very good idea. It’s especially not a good idea if your ex has a short fuse and thinks poorly of you. In this case, ignoring him could bring the worst out of him and cause him to despise you or take revenge.

This is something you don’t want as it would hurt you more. It’d make you miserable and if you still have feelings for your ex, make you more dependent on your ex.

What you want is for your ex to improve the way he thinks and feels about you. And you can do that only if you aim for a balance between respect and self-respect.

You can show him you respect him if you respond to him and show him you respect yourself if you distance yourself from him by following the indefinite no contact rule.

Personally, I don’t delay responses or play games with my exes. I respond to them whenever it’s convenient for me. Doing so eases my dumpees’ anxiety and gives my dumpers basic respect. It’s a win-win for everyone.

So unless your ex is anxious, hurt, or wants you back, know that delaying your response won’t change much in terms of your ex’s love for you. It can’t because you’re a dumpee whose replies have lost power when you got dumped.

It’s just the way it is.

Mature dumpers tend not to care about what their dumpees say or do because they lose romantic respect for their ex. That’s why they don’t make a scene even if they get ignored. It’s only the immature dumpers with a victim mentality that tend to react to an ex who ignores them.

Those dumpees can’t stand being ignored, so they take justice into their own hands. Needless to say, they don’t react poorly out of love but rather because they wish to feel important.

So if you’re thinking of ignoring a man after a breakup, my advice is not to do it. Don’t ignore a man unless he has a restraining order and/or threatens you or your family. In that case, you should probably contact the authorities and get somewhere safe.

But what about narcissists and people who don’t stop contacting you even though you’ve kindly asked them to?

Angry, vindictive people are the only exception. If they wish to cause you harm, you don’t need to keep asking them to leave you alone. After asking them once or twice, you don’t need to repeat yourself and can just do what’s best for your emotional health.

I know some of you think you don’t owe anything to an ex who cheated on you or did something awful—and that may be true. But please keep in mind that you don’t want to bring a bad reaction out of your ex nor make yourself into a person who ignores others.

If possible, you want your conscience to remain clear and your ex without a reason to retaliate with fury.

Have you ever thought about ignoring your ex after the breakup? Let me know your thoughts by commenting below.

And also, if you’re not sure what to do yet and you want personalized 1-on-1 guidance, click here to see our coaching plans.

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.