If you just found out that your girlfriend is texting her ex-boyfriend, try not to overreact and punish her for it.
You’ll make things extremely difficult for your girlfriend if you lose your emotional self-control and show her your worst side.
It will hurt her and guilt-trip her a lot.
So instead of doing that, take a deep breath and remember that things probably aren’t as dark as they seem.
Ask your girlfriend what the purpose behind her actions could be and simply talk to her about it.
Don’t criticize, condemn, accuse, or lose your marbles over it. This won’t do you any good. Just listen and listen intently.
Your girlfriend’s reaction to your inquiry will then tell you everything you need to know.
If she responds by telling you that she’s bored and that she’s texting her ex because she has no one else to talk to, she clearly isn’t being very honest with you.
She’s avoiding telling you the truth because she enjoys texting her ex and likely still has feelings for him.
But if your girlfriend tells you that her ex-boyfriend texted her first and that his intentions are selfless—then your girlfriend is likely being honest with you.
She isn’t texting her ex to go back to him but rather to converse with him out of curiosity and politeness.
I know it can be frightening to catch your girlfriend texting her ex—and I also know that many people leave their partner to go back to their ex.
But you’re her current boyfriend—and this makes it so, so important that you trust your girlfriend with everything you’ve got.
You need to trust her with your heart and soul even if things don’t look too good for you right now.
It’s okay if you’re a little curious as to why she’s texting her ex all of a sudden.
I admit I would raise a brow too.
But don’t become overly insecure about it because your girlfriend isn’t going to like that.
Especially if you cause a scene and accuse her of cheating.
Doing this will seriously damage your relationship bonds and drive a huge wedge between the two of you.
So instead of unleashing your fury on your girlfriend for texting her ex, show her that you’re with her, not against her—and that her ex doesn’t threaten your masculinity.
This article is for those who caught their girlfriend texting her ex-boyfriend. It’s also for those guys whose girlfriend willingly told them that she’s texting her ex again.
Why is my girlfriend texting her ex?
If your girlfriend loves you and texts her ex every now and then, your girlfriend is likely texting her ex for one particular reason.
She wants to stay in touch with her ex and doesn’t want to cut him out of her life just because they’re no longer a couple.
She’s basically texting him to remain friends with him—and that’s completely fine. A lot of ex-couples do that.
Especially the ones who had a mutual, amicable breakup.
But if your ex got dumped by her ex not too long ago and texts her ex every day, then that’s a completely different story.
Your ex is most likely not over her ex yet because the dumpee almost always texts an ex for selfish purposes – to procure love and validation from the dumper.
So the easiest way to tell why your girlfriend texts her ex is to look at her breakup status.
If she’s the dumper and she left the guy because she lost feelings and attracton for him, she’s most likely over him completely.
She doesn’t feel anything for him anymore and has no intention of returning to him in the future.
Not even if the guy begs her and promises to change for her.
But if your girlfriend got her heart shredded to pieces by the ex that she’s texting, then it’s highly likely that she isn’t ready to date anyone other than her ex yet.
She could still be extremely hung up on her ex to the point that she talks to him to feel better about herself.
Here are 5 reasons why your girlfriend keeps texting her ex.
Should I tell my girlfriend to stop texting her ex?
As your girlfriend’s partner, it’s your job to make sure your girlfriend feels happy and secure around you. It’s also your job to give her reassurance, validation, love, and continuous support.
In this way, you can keep a healthy relationship together. Well, at least 50% of it.
The other 50% is your girlfriend’s responsibility.
That’s why your girlfriend also needs to do everything in her power to show you that her love for you is exclusive and genuine.
Just one person investing in the relationship is never going to suffice because romantic relationships require 100% effort and commitment.
If it drops below that, the relationship doesn’t necessarily break apart right away, but it does become prone to:
- arguments
- insecurities and trust issues
- developing bad behavioral patterns and falling out of love and losing attraction
- liking someone else
- losing sight of obligations that matter in the relationship and prioritizing other things/people
- anything that damages the bond between the couple
So if you’re wondering whether you should tell your girlfriend to stop texting her ex, my personal suggestion depends on the situation of your relationship.
If your girlfriend has been texting her ex way before you came along (for many months or years), then what your girlfriend and her ex have is friendship.
They became good friends after their relationship, so technically, you have no right to tell her to stop being friends with her ex.
Not even if they used to be intimate with each other for years or decades.
However, if your girlfriend never told you about texting her ex and you just found out about it, then you may want to take a more investigative approach.
Talk to your girlfriend about the reasons behind her texts and you’ll soon have a better understanding of the situation.
Your girlfriend will verbally or nonverbally hand over information to you whether she wants to or not. Just look at the way she reacts to your polite inquiry.
If you determine that she’s a dumpee and that she craves her ex’s recognition, you should first explain a few things to her.
Tell her that texting her ex is bad for her self-esteem and that it’s causing damage to your relationship as well.
Don’t forget to mention that she has to let go of the past so that she can move on with you.
Just make sure that you explain that to her in a calm, collected manner otherwise you’ll fail to encourage her to see the bigger picture.
You could inadvertently cause so much pain and discomfort that she impulsively rejects your healthy suggestions.
So keep in mind that the purpose of this topic isn’t to give your girlfriend an ultimatum and for the lack of better words, force her to stop talking to her ex.
All I suggest is that you influence your girlfriend with good morals and ethics and tell her how it feels to be in your shoes.
If you give this information to your ex respectfully and explain everything you’ve read so far in this article, your girlfriend will probably listen to you.
She’ll admit that talking to her ex behind your back is wrong and that she should cut him off for the sake of the relationship.
What if she doesn’t want to stop talking to her ex?
Here comes the tricky part.
If you tried to explain to your girlfriend that you’re not comfortable with her talking to her ex, there’s honestly not much more you can do to change her mind.
You can’t even beg her or threaten to leave her.
That’s why you have an important decision to make:
- You can either trust your girlfriend despite her talking to her ex.
- Or you can tell her that you can’t continue to invest in her and leave her to her ex.
I know that you love your girlfriend and that making the right decision is going to be difficult.
That’s why you need to make sure that your partner doesn’t love you back before you do something you’ll regret.
Here’s how you can do that:
- Observe the times when your girlfriend talks to her ex. If it’s at night, her affection for you is a bit suspicious as she could be emotionally cheating on you.
- Discern if she talks to her ex only when you’re not around.
- Ask her politely if you can see what they’re talking about. If she’s hesitant about it, you have a bad sign.
- Look at the way they talk to each other. Do they send pictures, memes, and hang out frequently?
- What about her ex-boyfriend? If you have access to your girlfriend’s conversations, does he ask/talk about things you don’t approve of?
There are many ways to see if your girlfriend is cheating on you, but to do that, you have to set your emotions aside and go at it objectively.
When you do, you’ll quickly gather the evidence that you need and realize if your ex is a heartless cheater who’s been playing you for a fool or if she just likes talking to her ex.
So once more, look at your ex from a third-person point of view and discern whether your ex loves you more than her ex.
If her actions reveal that she doesn’t, your girlfriend obviously isn’t the right person for you. She’s too heartbroken and self-centered to care about how her actions affect you.
All she’s interested in is her ex’s attention.
What do I do if my ex-girlfriend is still talking to her ex (husband) and loves him?
When your girlfriend says that she’s still in love with her ex, you might want to re-evaluate your plans with your ex.
You might want to consider the fact that your girlfriend doesn’t love you and that she can’t for as long as she’s hurting over the loss of her relationship.
That’s why the most sensible thing to do would be to leave your girlfriend in a quick, yet painless manner.
She’s not emotionally ready for a relationship with you right now, so don’t take it personally.
Your girlfriend likely thinks that you’re a good guy. But because she’s afraid of being alone and would rather be with someone than no one, she, unfortunately, dragged you in her mess.
She blatantly strung you along until you found out about her feelings the hard way.
It sucks that she didn’t tell you this herself or that it took her this long to tell you, but it is what it is—and there’s no point worrying about it.
Your girlfriend probably feels guilty for hiding the truth for so long. Or maybe she didn’t know she’s not emotionally ready for a new relationship.
Whatever the case may be, it doesn’t matter right now because it doesn’t change the fact that she’s not in love with you.
If she’s still in love with her ex, your relationship was probably short-term or didn’t last longer than two years.
But no matter how long it was, be glad that this happened because you deserve more than she can offer.
What if my girlfriend says she loves her ex and me at the same time?
Things are just getting messy now.
As someone who deserves the best from your girlfriend, you really don’t want to put yourself in a love triangle.
This often happens with exes when they start dating someone new right away, but still respect their ex to some degree.
The dumper basically feels confused about his or her feelings and has a hard time deciding between the dumpee and the new person.
If you find yourself in this dreadful situation, my suggestion is that you get out of it as quickly as you can.
Run fast and don’t look back because your ex will otherwise torture you with her indecisiveness more than you can imagine.
She will force you to compete with her new guy and emotionally starve you for recognition.
This will likely go on for a very long time. Probably until you get fed up with her lack of affection and tell her to scram.
Are you still wondering what to do if your girlfriend is texting her ex-boyfriend? Has this article provided you with realistic information? I’d like to hear what you think, so comment below.
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.
Well you just pretty much described what’s going on with me, sort of. He broke up with me, started dating someone and then quickly moved in with her. I reached out to him first because I do want to slowly transition to friends. I’ve done alot of self reflection and am making some necessary changes I need to make about myself. He’s responsible for putting me on that road. That is a good thing. I texted him after about a week and a half of not talking to him to just touch base. Yes I knew it was going to cause me some anxiety but I was willing to rip off that band-aid because I know deep down that it’s part of my journey towards getting over him and us becoming friends again in the future. I simply was attempting to open the lines of communication. He responded positively to my text and he called me the next day. I kept the convo light and I ended the call on a positive note and told him to take care. The next morning I sent him a text thanking him for being the friend I didn’t know I needed and then I told him it’s because of him that I’m making necessary changes to myself so that I don’t make the same mistakes in future relationships. A couple of hours later he responded with calling me by a nickname he hadn’t called me in quite some time and then told me that I may never know how or what he feels about me. He turned the text conversation very heavy. I had no intention of it going there. Anyway, he told me that he loves me, that I’m his heart and his soulmate but I had pushed him away so many times. He’s right, I did. He’s not 100% innocent either but this is about my journey and fixing what’s broken in me. Right now I’m not too concerned about his role in how we find ourselves where we are today.
A couple of things to note in all of this, we lived in the same apartment complex and we had been seeing each other for a couple of years. We were off more than we were on…but, we were always friends. He had been pushing hard for is to get a place to live together and I kept saying no. I wanted us to be on solid ground first. Where this whole thing gets murky is, he called me about 2 months ago to tell me that he had started seeing someone and he wanted me to hear it from him. Yes it hurt a little but I was fine with that because I understood the areas of our relationship that needed alot of work and that this was also part of his journey. I ALWAYS thought we’d always be friends and circle back around to each other romantically at the right time. Fast forward to a couple of weeks later and he got a letter from property management that they were not renewing his lease. It never occurred to me that he would live anywhere other than the town we live in. I would look for places for him and forward them to him, etc. I even joked about us being neighbors in a new neighborhood. Well, fast forward to now and he is living with the new girlfriend as of two weeks ago. He knew before he did it that it would be a deal breaker for me. So here we are, him telling me yesterday that he loves me, blah, blah, blah. I told him that we can work towards being friends but I’m perfectly at ease with us not being friends too. I also reminded him that I meant what I said about him moving in with her being a deal breaker for me.
IMO, and God knows I’ve been more wrong than right when it comes to relationship issues, I feel like deep down he knows that he’s in a rebound relationship that’s not likely to work especially now because they rushed it, and that he’s trying to keep me around until it falls apart between them… especially since I’m moving into a house in June and he knows this. While the thought of him waking up next to another woman every morning sucks so bad, I kind of feel bad for her because she has no idea what’s probably coming her way. I really feel like he’s going to self sabatoge their relationship and that he already started by calling me by my nickname and saying the things he did to me yesterday. I’m backing off now. I won’t contact him but I won’t block or ignore him either if he contacts me.
Wow!!! You have topic for situations that my mind wouldn’t never imagine… thank you for coming with all possible situations Zan!
You can’t believe how much I appreciate it :))
Thank you, Linda.
You’re the best!
I think this is a very difficult topic. This happened with my ex and her ex (I broke up with her last January) I met this girl who at the time had a boyfriend, but I noticed she still had photos of her previous boyfriend on her social media (that was weird) a few months later she broke up with her boyfriend (the one before me) and things went well until the other guy (lets caller bf1 started to text her) she told me about it and how much she had suffered because of him to which I suggested to stop talking to him because I didn’t wanted to see her hurt again.
At first it seemed as if she wasn’t paying attention to him and didn’t like to talk to him (but still she never asked him to stop texting her) until they from time to time met in person.
We lived separated me by myself and she with her mom. At some point she got hit by a car and I told her why didn’t she talked to bf1 because he’s a lawyer to which she replied “hell no, I don’t care to talk to him” OK I said and that was that.
But a few weeks later she told me that he had visited her the day after I suggested to talk to him and that he visited weekly…
I got upset about it because I told her why do you say “hell no if you’re going to have him at your house…” why don’t you just say sure or whatever…
I might have overreacted but knowing her history it was a bit suspicious (she was always like that saying something but doing something else completely different)
I guess what I’m trying to say is it really depends on the person. I’ve been in relationships in which you can trust your partner fully, but trust is something people build, we all contribute to be trusted and trust is not something to take for granted.
Once again, thank you so much for the blog Zan, it has helped me a lot through this journey.
Thank you for your comment, Tom.
Trust indeed takes time to develop. But the scariest part about it is that you can lose it even quicker.
Best,
Zan