Seeing My Ex With Someone Else

Finding out from your friends that your ex is dating again can be upsetting, but seeing your ex with someone else in person, possibly holding hands and kissing is downright shocking. It’s painful because you aren’t ready to see your ex being that close with another person yet.

Not as long as you have feelings for your ex and hope to get your ex back.

The moment you ran into your ex, your anxiety, heart rate, and breathing most likely skyrocketed. The encounter made your palms sweaty, knees weak, and your voice shaky. This happened due to shock and fear and from getting a taste of reality.

If you’re embarrassed for the way seeing your ex with someone else made you feel, don’t be. How you felt and reacted to anxiety was out of your control. Your body merely responded in ways that it has been taught to respond by your parents and personal habits.

To elaborate on that further, if you experienced a lot of anxiety as a child and became afraid of situations you lacked control over, you most likely felt very anxious when you saw your ex with someone else. You immediately felt the way you felt when your parents took charge, so you responded to the encounter in similar manners as before.

But if you grew up with more freedom and control and were encouraged to express your thoughts and feelings, then you most likely didn’t feel hopeless when you saw your ex. You still got hurt because you had high hopes, of course, but not to the point where you thought you were going to collapse. Conversely, you managed to stay in control and perhaps even smiled or waved at your ex.

These are two extreme situations, but the point is that your feelings and reactions depended on your upbringing and the coping mechanisms you developed yourself.

So if you saw your ex with someone else and it affected you emotionally, know that it hurt you so much because you had expectations of your ex. You had hope that your ex frequently thinks about you and that he or she will soon come back.

But instead, your ex showed you that he or she is in love with someone else and that you’re not very high up on his or her priority list. That in turn, made you anxious and afraid that your worst fears may be true. Fears that your ex is happy in the new relationship and that he or she won’t come back.

This post is for those who dread seeing their ex with someone else. Stick around if you want to learn more.

Seeing my ex with someone else

If you saw your ex with someone else, you’re likely thinking about that experience over and over again. You’re remembering your ex’s facial expressions, the things your ex said, and how the new person looked and behaved around your ex.

Your brain is in overdrive mode as a result of the encounter and is analyzing everything that happened and could happen in the future.

This is normal. There’s nothing wrong with you for thinking about an ex who doesn’t deserve your thoughts and time. It’s just that seeing your ex with this new person has triggered your fears and half-processed anxiety. It reminded you that the person you’re emotionally dependent on is still around and that someone else is reaping the benefits of your hard work.

Because you’ve invested time, emotions, and soul into the relationship, you can’t just stop caring about your ex right away. It’s impossible because any kind of investment (whether it be emotional, financial, or spiritual) creates expectations. Those expectations now need time and practice to let go of.

They require you to come to terms with the unfortunate situation and find something else to look forward to.

There may be a better way to put this, but you have to find better things and people to obsess about. Your ex can’t be the main/most important object of desire. If he or she is, you’re going to struggle for as long as you’re attached to your ex.

So do your best to detach from your ex. Detach by reminding yourself that your ex was going to start dating someone else sooner than later and that you couldn’t prevent it. Your life must go on regardless of what your ex does and who he or she dates.

You can’t worry about such things because it has nothing to do with you. Your ex is dating again not because you’re not good enough but because your ex fell out of love with you and found someone else to date. Write that down if you need to. Just don’t blame yourself for your ex’s eagerness to date again.

Self-blame is going to delay your healing and make your life very difficult. Much more difficult than you want it to be.

What to do when you see your ex with someone else?

It’s too late for this advice right now, but next time you see your ex with his or her new boyfriend or girlfriend, you can either say hi to your ex or walk past your ex. What you do is up to you, but if you see that your ex doesn’t want to greet you, it may be best not to greet your ex either.

There’s no point in communicating with your ex when your ex feels uncomfortable and is trying to avoid you like the plague. Your ex’s new partner likely doesn’t want to meet you either. He or she has better things and people to spend time with and worry about.

I know this sounds mean, but it’s true. How many people do you know that are excited to meet their partner’s ex? Not many if you ask me. Especially not if their partner broke up with the dumpee a few weeks or months ago. Thinking about their partner being intimate with someone else is uncomfortable, to say the least. They’d rather not feel weirded out.

Besides, the more you talk to your ex and your ex’s new partner, the more you’re going to think about them later on and wonder what makes your ex’s new partner better than you. Just like your ex’s new partner, you could do without such thoughts and fears, so think about whether you should even communicate with your ex.

At this moment, you have nothing to prove to your ex. You can’t prove your worth and get validated even if you try as your ex is with someone else already and doesn’t want to talk to you.

If you decide to talk to your ex, it should be because:

• you and your ex are emotionally ready to talk
• you have no expectations of your ex (won’t get hurt if your ex does something you don’t like)
• you want to talk about non-relationship matters
• your ex’s new partner is okay with it

You might not know if your ex’s boyfriend or girlfriend is okay with it, but if they appear uncomfortable, you should probably avoid talking or finish the conversation quickly and get out of there. It may be better for everyone that you keep the past in the past and let people focus on the present.

Seeing my ex with someone else on social media

Fortunately, you have a lot more control over the things you see on social media than you do in person. With a few clicks or taps, you can instantly and permanently stop your ex from appearing on your page and getting in your head. All you have to do is unfollow (not delete or block your ex) and immediately deny your ex access to your brain.

If that doesn’t work because you can’t stop checking your ex’s profile and getting hurt, then you can even delete your ex or disable/delete your social media. I suggest the latter so that you don’t have any regrets later when you heal and/or realize that you could have dealt with your ex differently.

But the point is that if seeing your ex happy with someone else on social media kills you, you should do something about it. Don’t just let your ex spam his or her new partner all over the internet and think you need to put up with it. The truth is that you don’t have to put up with anything or anyone. No one expects you to be okay with it.

So take control of your life and do what you think is best for you. If you have the self-control to resist checking your ex’s socials, unfollowing will suffice. But if the breakup is fresh and you haven’t gathered the strength not to check yet, then unfriending or deactivating your account would be a better option.

You can even give your account to a friend or family member for a few weeks until the urge to check up on your ex decreases. You can do lots of things to prevent yourself from analyzing your ex’s online behavior and getting hurt in the process. You just have to be brave and take action.

Decades ago (before the internet), dumpees only had to worry about running into their ex, hearing things about their ex from people they associated with, and receiving breadcrumbs from their ex. Today, they also have to worry about their ex posting happy pictures on social media.

Those pictures portray the best of dumpers’ lives, but even if dumpees are aware that they’re fake or half-fake, it doesn’t make it any easier on them. That’s because reminders of their ex give them anxiety and force them to think about their ex.

So if seeing your ex with someone else on social media hurts you and hinders you from moving on, know that you don’t have to keep suffering. You can do whatever it takes to stop hurting as long as you don’t hurt your ex back.

Try to calm down

If you can’t stop reliving the moment when you saw your ex dating someone else, this isn’t the time to stalk your ex online or message your ex. It’s time to find a way to distract yourself from your ex. Surround yourself with people who support you and sign up for professional help if you need to.

The more people you speak with and open up to, the less you’ll obsess over your ex and his or her new partner. A good support system and social life, in general, make a huge difference in getting over your ex. I suggest you take this seriously so that you can get your ex out of your system as quickly as your body lets you.

Some people shut themselves in and don’t do much after the breakup. They just think about the breakup over and over again and keep waiting for their ex to come back. By doing so, they stay addicted to their ex and fail to create a life they would be proud of and that their ex could respect.

You need to do what helps you detach and calm down, not what your fears and anxiety tell you to do. If you listen to your gut feelings, you’ll get rejected and/or more obsessed with your ex. So stay away from your ex physically and emotionally.

Do it so you can heal and stop worrying about whether your ex is in a rebound relationship or a relationship that can blossom into a long-lasting one.

Getting over your ex and overcoming fears created by the breakup will take time. But if take the breakup seriously and give it time, you won’t just feel better soon, but also develop yourself into a stronger and wiser person.

Does seeing your ex with someone else hurt you badly? Post in the comment section about what worries you the most.

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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.