My Ex Keeps Contacting Me After Dumping Me

If your ex keeps contacting you after dumping you, your ex most likely doesn’t regret leaving you, nor want you back. Your ex just wants to stay in touch, be friends, assuage guilt (or other unwanted emotions), or hold on to you for convenience, reassurance, or habit. Your ex probably doesn’t want to tell you the reason for reaching out because his or her reason could hurt you, give you hope, and complicate the breakup. 

You shouldn’t assume that calls and texts from an ex mean your ex regrets leaving you and is afraid of asking for another chance. Although that could be the case, dumpers tend not to keep contacting their ex over and over again and hoping their ex will read their mind and initiate the reconciliation talk.

Those who truly want their ex back need their ex back urgently. They need their ex’s love to heal their wounds, validate their importance, obtain support, and give their life purpose. Restoring the relationship becomes extremely important to them. So much so that they ask friends for their ex’s number, add their ex on social media, and try their best to talk their way back into a relationship.

Regretful dumpers tend to appear nervous, anxious, and scared because they know that a potential rejection by their ex will destroy their plans, hurt their (already damaged) self-esteem, multiply their problems, and force them to deal with pain the hard and long way – by learning to accept rejection and finding happiness within themselves.

Dumpers don’t want to suffer alone. They’d rather contact their exes and lean on their exes for support. By leaning on their exes, they can feel validated and distract themselves from various problems.

Some dumpers also reach out continuously to test the waters. They’re curious and want to know what their ex is doing and how their ex is feeling. They don’t like being left in the dark, so they contact their ex to get the information they need.

Information helps them forgive themselves, see themselves differently, and move on.

Information-hungry dumpers aren’t interested in getting back together. They just want to check up on their ex and see if their ex is happy, over the breakup, and with someone else. They want to know if it’s safe to reach out, talk about things they want to talk about, and find someone else to date.

Oftentimes, they ask personal questions about their ex’s life such as “Are you seeing someone” and only make it seem like they’re trying to get back together. Such dumpers unintentionally give their ex tons of hope and by doing so, interrupt their ex’s healing process. 

If you wonder why your ex keeps contacting you, it could be that your ex wants to befriend you, friendzone you, or be your friend with benefits. Your ex may no longer love you, but your ex could still find you sexually attractive and lack people to replace you with (sexually).

If your ex’s libido is high, your ex might want to keep you around strictly for sex and discard you as soon as he or she finds someone he or she sees as a potential long-term partner.

Many dumpers get sexually frustrated, lonely, bored, or curious and want something non-romantic from their ex. They can’t get it from someone else, so they contact their ex and try to rely on their ex. When they get what they need, they tend to once again focus on themselves and leave their ex alone until they need something from their ex again.

That’s when they repeat the process of reaching out and confusing their ex.

That’s why most of the time, dumpers’ reachouts have nothing to do with their ex. They have everything to do with their unmet wants, needs, and expectations. They feel unhappy or unfulfilled, so they contact their ex and hope their ex will make their life better.

If their ex helps them, they continue to focus on themselves and the people who help them move forward.

And if their ex doesn’t help them, they realize they lost their ex completely, not just the romantic part of the relationship and start to comprehend what the breakup truly means for them and what their future will look like.

So if your ex keeps contacting you after the breakup, bear in mind that your ex may have problems he or she wants your help with. Although your ex isn’t your friend, your ex remembers that you used to be helpful and reliable when he or she needed (emotional) support.

You always expressed concern and helped your ex solve problems.

Now that your ex lacks a good support system, your ex continues to reach out and rely on you as if nothing happened. Support helps your ex feel cared for and not alone. It’s unfortunate that you’re forced to overanalyze your ex’s behavior and wonder if your ex still has feelings and wants to get back with you.

You’re forced to spend time, energy, and emotions on unproductive things that no longer matter because you worry about the person who dumped you when you could be rebuilding your life and spending time with people who love you.

In today’s post, we shed some light on what it means when your ex keeps contacting you after dumping you. We also talk about how you should respond to an ex who contacts you for selfish reasons. 

Why does my ex keep contacting me after dumping me?

If your ex keeps contacting you after dumping you, it’s extremely unlikely that your ex wants to reconcile. If your ex wanted you back, your ex would have let you know that during the first or the second reach out. He or she would have been in so much pain that your ex would have expressed regret and created an opportunity to get back together.

Your ex would have apologized multiple times, complimented your personality (not looks), expressed feelings, expected your support, and looked for your approval and commitment. As a regretful dumper, your ex would have done everything in his or her power to impress you and maximize the chances of you taking him or her back.

So keep in mind that your ex hasn’t redeveloped feelings and found a reason to get back with you yet. Your ex is still self-prioritizing, enjoying the breakup, and indirectly looking for a reason to need you back romantically. Until your ex finds that reason, your ex will continue to engage in self-distracting behavior that has nothing to do with you.

Unfortunately, it’s much more likely that your ex just feels curious, bored, nostalgic, or guilty and needs your help with something. You used to be supportive, so your ex expects you to keep being supportive after the breakup as well. Your ex doesn’t want to disband the friendship and find someone else to confide in and rely on for relationship/friendship benefits.

As long as you’re willing to listen and respond, your ex feels happy enough and doesn’t need you back as a partner.

It’s also possible that your ex keeps contacting you because you have mutual obligations. If you have kids, shared finances/belongings/a business, or some other obligation that ties you to each other, your ex wants you to cooperate as ex-partners and can’t afford to let go of you completely (just yet).

Your ex must first resolve unfinished business and find ways to stop needing you in his or her life.

It’s difficult to tell why your ex keeps contacting you after breaking up with you without hearing your full story. It’s especially difficult to tell why your ex is reaching out when your ex doesn’t tell you directly and makes you keep analyzing things, giving you hope, and triggering your anxiety.

One thing is for certain, though. If your ex doesn’t soon express his or he reasons for reaching out and doesn’t ask you back, it’s clear that your ex has no intention of ever being with you again. He or she is probably doing okay and will continue to breadcrumb you and make you question his or her feelings, decisions, and actions.

Don’t waste too much time analyzing your ex’s reachouts. There’s no point in doing that when your ex doesn’t appear to be regretful and in a hurry to be with you. If you analyze your ex’s messages every time he or she reaches out, you’ll continue to obsess over your ex and give your ex the power to control your feelings.

You’ll think your ex is coming back around and stay emotionally dependent on your ex.

Dumpers don’t usually contact their dumpee continuously to make sure their ex is the right person for them. Most of the time, they just want to bury the hatchet, assuage their guilt, and stay in touch for a while. When they want the reassurance that their ex is the right person for them, they’re usually with someone else, deciding between multiple partners.

Usually, they pick the new person because they feel infatuated with him or her.

As someone who was dumped, you should never put yourself in a situation where your ex gets to freely express doubt and pick between you and someone else. You should be the option, not an option. If you’re just an option, your ex will either choose the new person or come back with doubts.

And what do doubts do?

They cause dumpers to question their love for you and tempt them to leave when things get tough and give them a new romantic or sexual opportunity elsewhere.

With that said, here’s why your ex keeps contacting you after breaking up with you.

What should I do about my ex’s breadcrumbs?

Never settle for friendship. If you don’t want what your ex has to offer, don’t pretend you’re strong and okay with it. Instead, let your ex know you don’t see the point in staying in touch as ex-partners and that you expect to be left alone.

You don’t need to tell your ex to contact you if he or she has a change of heart and wants you back because that will tell your ex you’re still hoping to get back together.

But do let your ex know you need space and that you need to focus on yourself. Your ex should respect your wishes if you communicate them respectfully, directly, and strongly. If your ex doesn’t respect them and leave you alone, your ex doesn’t understand or care how you feel and needs to be kept at a distance by force.

If nothing else works (after multiple attempts to make it work), you can block your ex and force your ex to respect your need for space. You don’t need to worry about your dumper’s feelings when he or she doesn’t worry about yours. You can just do what’s best for you and focus on getting your happy self back.

Before you block your ex, tell your ex you’re not ready for friendship and that you’d like to focus on yourself for a while. Don’t be too specific and admit that you’re doing no contact with the intention of making your ex miss you and see your romantic potential. The less information you reveal, the more vague, interesting, and attractive you’ll appear.

So simply say you need time to yourself—and let your ex wonder what that means. Your ex will respect you more when he or she doesn’t know you’re miserable and desperate to get back together.

When an ex keeps contacting you, it’s extremely important to look for a solution to stop your ex from breadcrumbing you. Talk to your ex about post-breakup boundaries so that you don’t have to think about the past and get hurt every time your ex reaches out.

Technically, you should have discussed each other’s boundaries right away (during the breakup or right after), but since you haven’t or haven’t adhered to them, you need to do something about them now. The sooner you stand up for yourself, the sooner you can expect to recover and present yourself in a positive light.

Does your ex keep contacting you after dumping you? Why do you think your ex keeps doing that? Share your views in the comments below.

And if you’d like to chat with us about your ex’s breadcrumbing behavior and ways to handle it, check out our coaching options 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.