If your ex asked you if you slept with someone else, it’s probably safe to say that your ex feels a bit insecure and wants to know if your luck has been better than his/hers when it comes to sex.
Your ex is basically looking for reassurance and hopes to hear that he or she is not the only one who’s been having a hard time finding people to sleep and/or be with.
Misery loves company, and your ex is a prime example of it as your ex is now searching for consolation from knowing that your sexual life is as bad or stagnant as his or hers.
If your ex sees that you’ve been focusing on yourself instead of indulging in instant sexual gratification, your ex will be able to breathe a sigh of relief and feel better about the situation he or she is in.
Obviously, sex is important to your ex. Your ex puts a big priority on it and thinks that a person’s (romantic) value is determined by the number of sexual partners he or she has been with.
That kind of thinking is extremely immature and unreasonable as smart, developed, and valuable people take some time to themselves after the breakup. They spend time reflecting on their mistakes and working on self-improvement instead of increasing their body count.
That’s why it’s quite feasible that your former partner is secretly competing with you and doesn’t want you to be happy before he or she finds happiness in others. Your ex is essentially trying to sleep with someone else but is failing at it.
And because he or she is failing at fulfilling his or her sexual needs, your ex is prying into your life and expecting you to admit that you haven’t had much luck either. A no-luck response would empower your ex and make him or her feel less unattractive and less successful with the preferred gender.
What if your ex has already slept with someone else?
In that case, your ex is probably looking for a different kind of reassurance. Your ex wants you to admit to sleeping with someone else so that he or she doesn’t have to feel bad for hurting you and moving on.
Your admission of having sex would make your ex’s sexual experience/s acceptable, and in turn, relieve your ex’s guilt.
No matter how your ex is doing sexually and why your ex asked you if you’d slept with someone else, keep in mind it’s none of your ex’s business. What you do and who you’re with emotionally or sexually doesn’t concern your ex anymore.
Your ex doesn’t have the right to know and shouldn’t ask you questions like that because they’re between you and your (sexual) partners.
The fact that your ex is asking them means your ex is unhappy and that your ex needs some kind of validation from you. Your response can make your ex feel less of a loser or a bad person.
Some dumpers also ask their ex about his or her sex life because they want to have power over their ex. They want to exert control over their ex’s post-breakup life because they’re miserable and lack control over their own life.
Such dumpers want their ex to keep talking to them, hanging out with them, sleeping with them, and doing relationship things with them without committing to the relationship and investing emotionally. They just want to wrap their ex around their little finger and have fun for as long as it lasts.
Typically, the fun lasts until they find someone else or until their ex gets tired of being strung along and does something about it. Something like telling them to take a hike.
So if your ex asked you if you slept with someone else since you broke up, know that you’re not required to tell your ex the truth. You can just politely say that you don’t want to talk about your life, especially sex, and that you’d appreciate it if he or she stopped asking you such questions.
By letting your ex know he or she won’t get a response from you, you’ll achieve two things.
- You’ll show you’re strong and capable of standing up for yourself.
- You’ll show your sexual life is not your ex’s business. It stopped being his or her business when he or she broke the commitment and left.
Your ex can throw tantrums and accuse you of sleeping with people all he or she wants. If your ex does that, it only shows how immature and insecure your ex feels due to the lack of success in his or her private life.
Today, we shed some light on why your ex asked you if you slept with someone else. Additionally, we share tips on how you can respond to questions like that.
Why did my ex ask me if I slept with someone else?
Obviously, an ex who asks if you slept with someone else since the breakup feels at least somewhat insecure. He or she isn’t just curious about you because a curious person wouldn’t go around asking exes if they’d been with someone else.
Only an insecure individual does that. And he/she does it to obtain validation and/or power. An insecure person’s happiness depends on others’ misery and lack of success in life. The worse the people he or she knows are doing, the less jealous and envious he or she feels.
That means people’s unhappiness or lack of momentum reassures them that the people (especially those they know) are doing as bad or worse than them. It reassures them they still have time to be successful and that they have nothing to worry about.
Your ex probably asked you if you slept with someone else because your ex wanted to buy some time. He or she had hoped you had a similar negative experience with finding people to date and that your lack of success would boost his or her confidence.
As a dumpee, you needn’t boost your ex’s confidence, self-esteem, and ego. You just need to keep healing, improving, and focusing on yourself. Your ex should be the one helping you feel more secure after rejecting you and making you blame yourself.
And he or she should be doing that by telling you that he or she hasn’t replaced you or tried to replace you with someone else. That’s how your ex could have helped you avoid blaming yourself and feeling unattractive.
Sexual questions and comments serve no positive purpose post-breakup. They only make dumpees anxious and confused as they give the impression that the dumper is still romantically and sexually interested in the dumpee.
Most dumpers who openly talk about sex with their ex either want their ex sexually or feel insecure and want reassurance.
Very few dumpers ask their ex if he or she slept with another person just for the sake of asking. Those who ask such questions typically have a hidden agenda. An agenda that doesn’t interest their ex.
So bear in mind that your ex needs something from you. Whether it’s sex, validation, friendship, or an occasional person to talk to, your ex thinks you owe him or her complete transparency regarding your sexual life.
Your ex doesn’t understand or respect your post-breakup boundaries. And because of that, your ex bothers you with private matters that are between you and the person you’re seeing.
If it’s been years since you broke up though, then your ex is either nosy and thinks you owe him a response, or he or she is insecure and/or wants you back.
With that said, here are 7 possible reasons why your ex asked you if you slept with someone else.
You should be honest with your ex about sleeping with other people only if your ex regrets dumping you and wants you back. In that case, your ex deserves to know your sexual history so that he or she can take protective measures.
Did my ex inquire about my sexual life because he/she wants me back?
If your ex wants you back, your ex won’t just ask you about your sexual life and leave you alone after that. Your ex will take the initiative and try to get back together with you very badly. Your ex will be in a hurry to reconcile because pain, misery, and lack of romantic success after you will make your ex crave validation and love.
Most dumpees assume that an ex who asks questions about their dating life wants them back, but that’s seldom the case. usually, dumpers lack romantic feelings and regret and have a completely different motive for asking private questions.
Dumpers who don’t want their ex back often ask things like:
- Did you sleep with anyone?
- Are you seeing anyone right now?
- Who’s that person you’re talking to?
Unfortunately, these questions don’t indicate love and a desire to reconnect emotionally. They indicate that the dumper feels insecure due to a lack of success in the pursuit of validation and happiness.
It may seem that your ex wants you back, but you need to be careful before you make that conclusion. You need to observe your ex’s behavior for a while before you assume your ex has had an epiphany.
If your ex appears happy and seems to be seeing someone else, your ex probably doesn’t want you back. Your ex is okay with the way things are and is thinking about the present and the future rather than the past.
This means your ex doesn’t need your help with anything and doesn’t fear losing you to someone else.
So try not to get your hopes up and think your ex wants you back the moment your ex asks about your sexual life and says confusing things. Instead, try to remember that your ex probably feels bad, insecure, unworthy, or lacks breakup knowledge and manners.
Whatever the case may be, an ex who wants you back will put in the necessary work. You won’t have to do anything other than be kind and respectful.
You can be certain about that because an ex who wants you back knows that he or she messed up and is aware of the fact that reconciliation rests on his or her shoulders.
What should I do if my ex asks me if I slept with someone else?
When your ex asks if you slept with someone else, you don’t need to answer with a yes or no. If you don’t feel comfortable talking about your sex life (which you shouldn’t be), you should say you don’t want to talk about it.
Add that what you do after the breakup, especially with other people is no one’s business, not even your ex’s. It’s your life—and you’re not going to share it with anyone.
Whether your ex accepts that or accuses you of sleeping with others is out of your control and not your problem. Your job is to protect yourself and the people you slept with.
You don’t want to brag about how easy it was for you to bring people home. That would be very immature and inconsiderate of the people you slept with.
If you haven’t slept with any people, that’s okay! You don’t need to pretend that you did. Pretending to sleep with others won’t make your ex jealous to the point that it forces your ex to want you back.
If you rub it in your ex’s face, it will probably just anger your ex and make your ex resentful. And when your ex is resentful, your chances of getting back together will diminish. You’ll have an extremely hard time making your ex feel love and getting back together.
It’s better for you that you remain humble, mysterious, and disinterested in talking about your private life.
Why do you think your ex asked you if you slept with someone else? What did your ex want from you? Comment below and let us know.
And finally, if you’re looking for breakup guidance, check out our coaching options here.
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.
As someone who got monkeybranched my ex has not lacked any action since our breakup. Me on the other hand have been left dry for the past 6 months. And even if she would ask me about it I would tell her it’s a private matter.
But truth to be told, I don’t have a high bodycount, I have heard from people I look good, but I have a difficult time hooking up and meeting women. It kinda shows, I’m 38 years old and even though I have dated on occasion this was my first real relationship. So I don’t know if I have activly stayed away from it as much as I have been missing out on it.
But on the flipside there is another aspect to it, and I may risk writing things that could border on some religious views.
But, what if sex can be seen as a form of currency? What a person is doing is that they are giving themselves to another person. Sex is cool and all but wouldn’t you want to be special to a person you adore? Is this the place you could draw the line between fu**ing and making love?
These are no beliefs I hold on to adamantly, I just think it’s an interesting thought.
Hi Gordon.
I’m glad you didn’t sleep with other people. It would have made you rebound and made things a million times worse. Leave the sleeping around to your ex. She’s apparently good at it. I think that a lower body count is better, not worse. The older you are and the fewer people you’ve been with, the longer and more successful your relationships have been.
Some people have sex just for fun, they chase highs and don’t get attached. Because of that, they don’t learn relationship lessons and improve in all aspects of their life.
Sincerely,
Zan
literally every new article that you write Zan it’s so lit!
Well done for helping us all understand how all this dynamic of breakup works
So grateful for all the 🩵
Daniela
It’s not mate guarding. It’s Mr. Tinydick trying to exert control, as such a person needs to compensate psychologically. He would never, ever, ask someone he respected such an intrusive question. Why are you denying yourself an important and healthy part of life? Sex is medicinal. As yourself why are you abstaining in order to appear chaste to some clod who doesn’t care anyway. He certainly isn’t holding back his mouth is he? Of course not.
He’ll say and do things to make you feel bad about yourself to make himself look better in comparison. Don’t fall for it. Read what Zan is saying, it’s no one’s business.
Some male dumpers use this as a macho loyalty test on their female dumpees; not cool, I know, but I think some of that is just mother nature, mate guarding. But anyway, men who do this will ask a female they dumped this, and if her response is a number they’ve deemed too high, they consider her loose & disrespectful & leave in disgust. It’s one of the reasons I haven’t slept with anyone new since my ex left. One can only apply this to a female dumpee so long though before it becomes very unfair. She can’t be expected to wait 5 years for him with no partners.
Hi Daniela.
Your ex was willing to let you go and lose you to someone else. He has no fear of not being with you. So if he asks you this question, it probably won’t be to secure a spot in your life but to feel better about his choices and life.
I can see how your theory could apply to dating, though. Some guys want the moral high ground.
Best wishes,
Zan