Should I Tell My Ex I Miss Him?

It’s normal to miss your ex after the breakup. The breakup triggered your sentimentality and fear of the unknown, causing you to think about your ex and feel a certain way about him.

If you left your ex, you probably feel responsible for hurting him and making his life difficult. You want him to know you think and care about him even though things didn’t work out between you.

However, if your ex left you, you probably feel obsessed with your ex and crave your ex’s recognition. You want to tell him you miss him (project your feelings onto him) to make him feel validated and say he misses you too.

You want to obtain his validation and not feel so discarded, neglected, unwanted, and alone.

As a dumpee, you need to keep in mind that your ex doesn’t feel what you feel. Your ex feels the opposite of how you feel and wants to be left alone to do what he wants. Even if your ex has processed the separation and misses you, he misses you in a different way – as a friend or a person he was in a relationship with.

That means your ex wants different things and can’t give you the love, reassurance, and security you seek. All your ex can give you is support and a familiar person to talk to.

If you tell your ex you miss him after you got dumped, he could respond in unpredictable ways. He could say he misses you too, that he doesn’t miss you, that he wants you not to say how you feel, that he wants you not to talk to him, or not say anything at all.

It’s impossible to predict how your ex will respond (if he’ll respond) and how you’ll feel after he’s responded. But since none of your words can bring him back and make you feel happy and secure (especially long-term), it’s better not to tell your ex you miss him.

Not only does your ex not deserve to hear you miss him, but your ex also doesn’t want to hear it. He’s a dumper who doesn’t crave your validation and attention.

He may be curious about you and even feel guilty at times, but if he’s not reaching out and trying to reconcile, he’s not on the same emotional wavelength as you. The things he wants and needs differ too much from your expectations, desires, and requirements for happiness.

Therefore, avoid telling your ex you miss him and think about him. Remember that you’re no longer together and that this person wants to focus on life after the breakup. If you profess your feelings and force him to focus on the past, you could trigger his unhealthy reminders of you and make him feel smothered and overwhelmed.

That would put him in a situation where he must do two conflicting things at once – mind your feelings and protect his feelings. The more pain and unease he experiences, the greater the likelihood that he’ll choose to protect his feelings and needs over yours and do something you didn’t expect.

Something that shatters your hope for reconciliation, resets your healing, and makes you more obsessed with your ex and dependent on him for validation.

If you don’t want to get rejected or strung along by your ex, I strongly suggest you avoid telling him you miss him. Avoid communicating with him altogether and by doing so, let him know you have no romantic expectations of him.

You may not get the feedback you want from him, but the guy will miss you more if you leave him to his devices and let him see that you’re gone for good. He’ll wonder why you haven’t been reaching out and perhaps even check your social accounts out of curiosity.

If he doesn’t find what he’s looking for, he could also reach out to you, breadcrumb you, and confuse you. He could make you analyze the things he says and complicate your healing and ability to love yourself.

So whatever you do, don’t tell your ex you miss him and give him the impression that you’re not over him. Don’t make your ex think you need him to love yourself and that you can’t or don’t want to leave the past behind.

Instead, show him you’re moving forward and enjoying your life, Happiness will tell him that your self-esteem is healthy and that your ex can trust you and lower his guard.

In today’s post, we discuss whether you should tell your ex you miss him and what will happen if you tell him how you feel.

Should I tell my ex I miss him?

If you miss the friendship with the ex you left, you shouldn’t text or call your ex and confess to missing him. You should refrain from doing so by remembering that your ex feels rejected and hurt and that he’ll get anxious and hopeful when you reach out and tell him things he wants to hear.

Your ex will stop processing separation anxiety and unwanted feelings and rely on you for healing instead. This means your ex will see you as a person who can validate him and quickly put him out of his misery.

He won’t have to work on improving his self-esteem the hard/right way – by reflecting and adopting new beliefs. When you reach out and tell him you miss him, he’ll forget about the need to work on himself and feel extremely tempted to reconnect with you.

The first thing he’ll do or want to do is tell you he misses you too and that you should meet up and see where it goes. He’ll want you to talk and get back together as quickly as possible.

So if you’re thinking about telling your dumpee ex that you think about him, miss him, love him, or anything along those lines, remember that your ex wants but doesn’t need to hear any of that. Your ex needs to be left alone so he can continue to process the breakup and detach.

Once he’s fully detached and has no romantic expectations of you anymore, you can tell him you miss him as a friend and that you want to stay in touch.

On the other hand, if your ex left you, your ex doesn’t want to hear that you miss him. He wants to see that you’ve accepted the breakup and that you won’t give him a hard time if you communicate.

Your ex just wants to keep his distance and continue moving on with a clear conscience. 

If you reach out and tell him you miss him before he’s ready to talk to you, you’ll likely make him uncomfortable. You’ll make him feel trapped and stressed and stop him from enjoying his space and privacy.

When he sees that you’re unhappy and want him to love you, he’ll raise his guard and resist any attempts to get closer to him.

That will make you feel rejected and unworthy of his love and force you to accept his lack of feelings.

Exes (dumpees and dumpers) shouldn’t tell each other they miss or love each other. They should avoid saying ambiguous things they can take literally and extract hope from. By avoiding words meant for couples, they can avoid emotional setbacks and continue to heal.

Those who tell their ex “I miss you,” usually do so because they don’t understand why they want to profess their feelings and how their profession will make their ex feel. All they know is that they miss their ex and that it’d be nice if their ex valued them and missed them too.

This is why they reach out to their ex when nostalgia and cravings build up and hope for a positive/empowering response. 

Sometimes they hear their ex say he/she misses them too and other times, they don’t even hear back from their ex. It depends on how strongly they approach their ex and how their ex feels and deals with overwhelming expectations and emotions.

If their ex feels disrespected and doesn’t want to respond, their ex may ignore them or push them away.

Hence, it’s better not to pour your heart out to your ex. Don’t tell your ex you miss him because you could learn (the hard way) that your ex doesn’t miss you and that he’s been enjoying himself.

You can’t get much from telling your ex you miss him. No matter how you express yourself, you have to keep moving on and doing your best to forget your ex. The chances of making your ex want to give you another try after expressing your feelings are small.

It’s much more likely that you’ll get rejected and hurt.

With that said, here’s why you shouldn’t tell your ex you miss him.

You can tell your ex you miss him only when you’re over him and know he won’t get pressured. Be specific and tell him exactly what you miss. You can say you miss your talks, walks, laughs, or anything non-romantic.

Avoid complimenting traits, behaviors, and features you’d compliment if you were still together. This includes your ex’s smiles, smell, kisses, and lovemaking. 

What should I do when I want to tell my ex I miss him?

When you feel a strong need to reach out to your ex and tell him you miss him, remember that it won’t change your ex’s feelings for you.

Your reach out and romantic feelings will most likely annoy your ex and destroy the curiosity that had built up after the breakup.

If you’re in pain and/or have strong feelings for your ex, find a way to lower your anxiety and resist the temptation to reach out. Convince yourself that talking to your ex and telling him how you feel will show you need your ex in your life to be happy and that it will likely push your ex away.

It will achieve the opposite of what you’re trying to do and make your ex want even more space and privacy.

A good way to lower your desire to communicate with your ex and receive a validating response from him is to get busy with something. Talk to friends, spend time with family, focus on work, indulge in self-care, and journal your thoughts and feelings.

Distractions and therapeutic activities will ease your urges to interact with your ex and show you that you don’t miss your ex because he’s such a great guy. You miss him because he hurt you and/or because you haven’t detached and found internal peace and happiness yet. 

A part of you still craves your ex and the way you felt in the past.

This will change when you regain your emotional independence and realize you don’t need your ex’s presence and validation. You just need to accept that your ex lost romantic feelings and that your top priority is to fall back in love with yourself.

I understand you want him to know he’s important to you, but the guy shouldn’t be your favorite person anymore. Since he broke up with you, he should be the last person you compliment and put in charge of your feelings.

You can do a lot of things to avoid breaking no contact and telling your ex you miss him. The best way to go about it is to allow yourself to feel what you feel. Tell yourself it’s okay to miss a person who abandoned you and that you’re going through the stages of a breakup.

These stages will take a while to get through, but when you’ve fully processed them, you won’t miss your ex and the good times anymore. You’ll mostly remember the bad times and how your ex handled the breakup.

Negative moments will encourage you to keep your distance and make you accept your ex’s behavior and the way he feels.

Give it some time and you’ll see that your ex isn’t the perfect person you think he is. Sooner than later, your opinion of him will change, and so will your nostalgia and cravings.

Do you still wonder if you should tell your ex you miss him? Have you told an ex you missed him before? Let us know how it went in the comments below.

And if you want to open up about your nostalgia or feelings to us, learn how to do that here.