It’s Not You It’s Me: Breakup Excuse Meaning

Most of us have heard of the “It’s not you, it’s me” breakup excuse. But do we know its meaning? Do we understand why an ex would say it during the breakup? I’m not sure everyone understands this line, which is why I want to talk about it.

When an ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend says “It’s not you, it’s me,” the main problem as your ex suggested isn’t really with you. Your ex may not have enjoyed being with you recently, but at least your ex knows that you’re a decent person and that it wasn’t you who caused the breakup.

It was your ex because your ex didn’t work on the relationship in the kinds of ways that would improve perceptions of you and grow love in the relationship. Your ex just neglected the need to grow and communicate and slowly detached and lost feelings for you.

So when someone says, “It’s not you, it’s me,” know that he or she is only half right and half truthful.

Your ex didn’t tell you the full story because your ex feared it would hurt you and bring a reaction out of you that would make your ex feel uncomfortable and possibly even guilty and smothered.

That’s essentially why dumpers use breakup excuses. They don’t want to tell their exes the truth because they’re afraid for their safety and emotional well-being. So don’t take their breakup excuses seriously. If you do, you’ll never know what went wrong in the relationship and what you need to work on.

You’ll think it’s all your ex’s fault when you might also be partially responsible for the demise of the relationship.

Today, we’ll discuss the meaning behind the “It’s not you, it’s me” breakup excuse. We’ll talk about what kinds of exes tend to say this and why they say it.

What does “It’s not you, it’s me” mean?

Guys and women both use this excuse from time to time. They don’t know how to calm their exes down, so they say the first, most cliché excuse that comes to mind. Some people say, “I need to find myself, I still love you, I just need some time to myself,” whereas, others say “It’s not you, it’s me. I’m to blame.”

No matter what excuse they use, dumpers are aware of the pain they’ve caused their exes and the pain they will continue to cause their exes for the next few months. But because they want to escape a highly emotional situation as quickly as possible and avoid hurting their exes, they say white lies and give their exes fake closure (fake explanations for the end of the relationship.

Normally, dumpees are okay with whatever excuse they get because they can heal as long as they understand (or think they understand) why the breakup occurred. But when it comes to improving the actual reasons behind the breakup and growing within, they can’t do it.

They don’t see a reason to improve because their exes take all the blame. Their exes indirectly tell them they have nothing to work on and that it’s all their fault. And this isn’t fair because dumpees need to grow from the breakup. They need to improve their shortcomings and relationship skills so they can do better in the future.

A good breakup lesson doesn’t have to be painful (even though pain is the best incentive for growth), but a lesson is essential as it’s the most important (often life-changing) gift dumpees can receive from the dumper. It’s a gift that encourages broken-hearted dumpees to become the best versions of themselves!

So keep in mind that not hearing the truth may indeed not hurt you as much as the truth would because what you don’t know doesn’t hurt you. But hearing the truth would allow you to understand where you went wrong and transform your life in ways that help you have better relationships with your next romantic partners.

People who use breakup excuses aren’t necessarily bad people. They’re just cowards who are used to lying to people because lying helps them get out of sticky situations. Their problems are a combination of morals and bad habits of trying not to upset people.

Dumpers who lie about breakups don’t realize that they’re complicating things for their exes.

They don’t understand that they’re:

1. Giving their exes sweet hope (false hope)
2. Putting the attention onto themselves (if they blame themselves, they know their exes will not blame them because it’d be unfair to condemn someone who’s “suffering”)
3. Taking all the blame and making their exes not change or improve anything about themselves

Even though dumpers know they have things to work on, the truth is they have no intention of resolving them. Not the ones that made them fall out of love and that can help them fall back in love at least. Dumpers lose the will to fight and crave space and freedom after the breakup.

That’s why they merely pretend they have things to work on and by doing so, make their exes wait for them for ages.

Here are 5 reasons why dumpers say “It’s not you, it’s me.”

If someone you loved told you, “It’s not you, it’s me,” you now know that the man or woman probably cares about your feelings. But he or she doesn’t care much about telling you the truth because he or she doesn’t think you can handle it the way he or she wants you to handle it.

In other words, your ex has a fear of confrontation and would rather lie than risk bringing an unwanted reaction out of you and getting hurt in return. This tells you that your ex doesn’t have all your best interests at heart. Your ex just doesn’t want to hurt you because your strong reaction could hurt him or her back.

Who typically says “It’s not you, it’s me?”

Generally speaking, depressed, anxious, cowardly, weak, and tricky people as well as those who don’t want to hurt you tend to say “It’s not you, it’s me.” They’re the most afraid of reactions, so they say anything that prevents you from exploding, crying, begging, and making their life more difficult than it has to be.

Such people sometimes cry during breakups. But they don’t do that because they love you and want to be with you. They cry because they feel bad for hurting you, destroying your plans, and throwing away a good relationship. You need to be aware of that so you don’t feel bad for dumpers when they cry and appear sad.

They may cry during the breakup and perhaps even a day or two after, but they won’t go through the kind of pain you will. You’ll have to work through separation anxiety whereas they have already detached from you and started craving a life without you.

Guys and women who say, “It’s not you, it’s me” won’t need months to get over the breakup. They do the dumping, so they feel relieved and in most cases, ready to date someone else literally right away. Nothing’s holding them back from moving on and enjoying themselves because they’d been unhappy for such a long time that all they want is to be happy again.

You can’t stop them from being happy. All you can do (and should do) is start no contact and let them not work on themselves. I say “not work on themselves” because they obviously won’t. I’ve been doing this long enough to know that very few dumpers try to improve themselves.

By the time they break up with their exes, they’re so exhausted that all they want is to focus on themselves and have fun. I don’t blame them. But they shouldn’t say “it’s them” when they clearly don’t think they’re to blame and have things to work on.

So if a person you liked or loved said it’s him or her and not you, keep in mind that the man or woman hasn’t been honest with you. Instead of telling you what you needed to hear, he or she told you what you wanted to hear. This made you believe that your ex won’t date anyone else and that your ex could come back to you once your ex has resolved his or her issues.

But as we’ve mentioned earlier, it’s not about your ex’s problems. It’s about the emotions your ex associates with you and the way he or she perceives you. Perceptions take a lot of work to improve. They require determination, which most dumpers get only if they fail miserable and need help.

That’s when they’re normally able to forget about the things their exes did or didn’t do, let go of hard feelings, and return to invest in their exes and the relationship.

How to respond to “It’s not you, it’s me?”

It’s probably too late for you to make use of this advice with your ex, but if someone else gives you this excuse in the future, you can refuse to accept it for an answer. Don’t call your ex out on it, but do try to make your ex tell you the real reasons he or she broke up with you for.

If you have a feeling that your ex is depressed, encourage your ex to open up to you. Ask your ex to share what’s troubling him/her and assure your ex you won’t react negatively to it. Say that you accept the breakup but that you’d like to hear what the issue is so you can work on yourself and do better in your next relationships.

If your ex doesn’t feel threatened, respects you, and understands why it’s important for you to know the truth, your ex will hesitantly tell you the real reasons for breaking up with you. You need to make sure to thank your ex for opening up.

Once you get closure from an ex who wasn’t willing to give it to you, it’s then time for you to tell your ex something important. Tell your ex that you don’t want to stay in touch because you’ll be focusing on yourself and will need time to process everything that has happened. If you need to talk about something important or feel ready to talk, say that you’ll reach out and discuss things.

But if you don’t need to discuss urgent matters, then you’ll be minding your own business and taking care of things you’d been meaning to take care of. You need to say this so your ex doesn’t send you breadcrumbs and string you along.

If your ex doesn’t want to be with you, he or she doesn’t deserve to talk to you and pretend to be friends with you.

At least not while you’re healing and trying to disassociate from your ex. You can be friends with your ex when you’ve lost feelings and realized that your ex could make a decent friend. But if your ex told you breakup excuses, blatantly lied to you, and started dating someone else right away, you probably won’t have much respect for your ex anyway.

You’ll see that your ex didn’t respect you and that you don’t need friends like that in your life. You need people who care about you even when their goals don’t alight with yours.

Did you learn what it means when someone says “It’s not you, it’s me?” What do you think this notorious excuse means? Let us know in the comments section below the post.

And if you’d like to discuss breakup excuses or anything related to breakups with us, sign up for breakup coaching here.

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. Buy me a coffee, learn more about me, or get in touch today.