Showing Up At Ex’s House Unannounced

Showing up at your ex’s house unannounced is probably one of the worst things you can do as a dumpee. Not only do you shock your ex, but you also force your ex to communicate with you and feel bad for hurting you.

You do five things at once: guilt-trip your ex, smother your ex, embarrass your ex, anger your ex, and make your ex lose all respect for you.

Showing up unannounced at your ex’s house has got to be one of the quickest ways of making your ex lose interest and curiosity and not wanting anything to do with you anymore.

The only faster way to get on your ex’s bad side is by threatening your ex and/or taking revenge.

If you haven’t yet shown up at your ex’s house without an invitation, the best advice is the simplest advice; don’t show up at your ex’s door. Instead of embarrassing yourself and making your ex uncomfortable, preserve your value as an ex and a human being by showing your ex you’ve got the strength and the know-how to stay away from your ex and mind your own business.

It won’t be easy not to beg and plead with your ex for another chance while every fiber in your body is telling you to get validation from your most important person, but you must understand that begging won’t make your ex realize how stupid he or she was for leaving you.

If anything, begging will make your ex pity you (if your ex is compassionate) and have the opposite of the desired effect. This effect will, of course, be negative as it will make your ex see that you’re desperate and incapable of accepting the breakup.

Denial, desperation, obsession, and irresistible urges simply aren’t attractive. Dumpers find them repulsive as they feel forced to communicate and help their ex. Dumpers feel pressured into doing something they don’t want when all they want is to enjoy their peace and quiet.

That explains why they feel unheard and disrespected and get irritated so quickly.

If you were extremely anxious and showed up at your ex’s house unannounced in hopes of reattracting your ex, things probably didn’t go very well. You had hoped your ex would notice your commitment to the relationship and willingness to fix your mistakes.

But instead, your ex perceived you as a weak, unattractive dumpee who didn’t know when to quit. Such an unhealthy perception, unfortunately, decreased your ex’s all-time low eagerness to converse, gave your ex more power, and made your ex glad that things ended for good.

I don’t want you to blame yourself for showing up at your ex’s house unannounced and feeling worse than you already do. But I do want you to realize that inviting yourself to your ex’s house is a breakup mistake that won’t impress your ex.

That’s probably an understatement as it will make an already complicated situation even more complicated.

You’ve got to remember that every time you take the initiative and tell, show, or even hint at reconciliation, you immediately make your ex raise his or her guard, make it harder for your ex to feel comfortable around you, and kill any doubts your ex may have about the breakup.

Every direct or indirect rejection also increases your dependence on your ex and decreases your confidence and self-esteem (which is what attracted your ex to you in the first place).

If you weren’t desperate for attention and love when you were still getting to know your ex, you shouldn’t be desperate now either. You shouldn’t act like you’re happier than ever and play jealousy games either as that could make you look manipulative and immoral.

What you should do instead is keep yourself together and give your ex the space he or she asked for.

Space means that you leave your ex alone and let your ex contact you if or when he or she wants to. Your ex might not do that anytime soon because if the breakup is new, your ex is going through the early dumper stages.

But despite that, you must be strong and willing to wait as long as it takes. Waiting doesn’t imply you do literally nothing with your life and just wait by the phone for your ex to text or call. It implies that you detach from your ex and give up on trying to stay in control of the breakup.

That’s the only way your ex will respect you again and stop being afraid of talking to you.

So if you’re hurt and want to take matters of reconciliation into your own hands, don’t show up at your ex’s door and degrade yourself. Don’t chase someone who doesn’t want nor deserves to be chased. You need to realize that your ex has quit on you and that quitters can’t and shouldn’t be reasoned with.

They should be left alone to do what they want.

It doesn’t matter if you got dumped because you cheated on your ex and finally realized how important your ex was to you. Your realizations and zeal for reconciliation don’t matter to your ex because the breakup is no longer about you and in your control.

It’s about your ex and in your ex’s control because your ex lost interest and decides what he or she wants and doesn’t want.

That means your ex has power over you and will keep power until:

1. You improve your self-esteem.
2. Your ex cools off.
3. Your ex changes his or her mind about leaving you and wants you back.

Since you can’t control what your ex thinks, feels, and does, your only option is to let your ex control the breakup while you focus on regaining control of your life. You can do that by doing your best to stay away from your ex, accepting the breakup, and letting your ex go.

I know you don’t want to do that because you miss your ex so much it hurts and want to get back together as soon as possible.

But you need to understand that you won’t get back with your ex on your terms. You won’t reconcile by talking to your ex and proving things to your ex because your ex already knows you (or thinks he/she knows you).

Any attempt to change your ex’s opinion and feelings for you will most likely backfire and hurt you again.

So as difficult as it may be, try to take your mind off reconciliation and think about your relationship with yourself.

Dumpers are not only stubborn and convinced they’re right but they’re also ruled by strong breakup emotions. They feel strongly that they’ve made the right decision to dump their ex and that they deserve respect for staying in an unfulfilling relationship for so long.

Because they feel determined and relieved, they tend not to reverse their decision just because they can. It takes much more than pity and guilt for them to redevelop feelings and do the necessary work. What they usually need is something painful that crushes their self-esteem and lowers their ego.

When that happens, they finally reflect and wonder if leaving an ex who gave them love and security was the right thing to do.

In this article, we’ll explore the consequences of showing up at your ex’s house unannounced and the importance of handling the breakup properly and maturely.

Showing up at ex’s house unannounced

Dumpees who show up at their ex’s house unannounced regret it 99% of the time. They see that their ex has no more love and respect for them and that they should have stayed at home, saved face, and found better ways to cope with breakup anxiety.

They basically realize that talking to their ex annoyed their ex rather than proved a point, killed their hope for reconciliation faster than it was safe for them to lose it, and made the breakup much more difficult and painful than it had to be.

Such realizations often make dumpees even sadder and more depressed and force them to wonder if they messed up too badly to reconcile with their ex.

If you’re one of those dumpees, you need to understand that every post-breakup mistake makes the dumper more convinced that breaking up with the dumpee was a wise thing to do.

Small mistakes such as liking the dumper’s social media posts show the dumper you’re still around as a supportive friend and kill the dumper’s sense of urgency whereas big mistakes such as begging and threatening to harm yourself destroy the dumper’s respect for you, which is the basis on which love could be rebuilt.

Every dumper has a different tolerance for desperation, so it’s difficult to say what mistake and how many mistakes push the dumper to the point of no return. But as a rule of thumb, you should know that showing up at your ex’s house unannounced is quite a buzzkill.

It probably infuriated your ex and made your ex think you’re crazy for coming over. This is especially true if your ex lives far away and showed no love or interest in talking.

That being said, here’s why showing up at your ex’s house unannounced causes more harm than good.

It’s never okay to show up at your ex’s house unannounced. Even if your ex encouraged you to visit whenever you wanted while you were still together, a breakup isn’t a relationship. The things your ex allowed and promised you as a partner are no longer valid now that he or she is your ex-partner.

You can’t just show up in front of your ex’s house (or get inside) without your ex’s consent. Your ex may not have told you this, but it’s self-explanatory.

Things have changed after the breakup, so you’re no longer welcome to visit, let alone stay. Now you need to stay away from your ex and respect your ex’s boundaries.

If you don’t respect your ex’s boundaries and show up unannounced because your gut feeling tells you to, your actions will probably be seen as stalking, harassment, and poor self-control. They’ll make your ex feel the kind of emotions he or she has been trying to avoid.

And that’s not how you want your ex to feel as you don’t want to be seen as someone who tries to control people by force. You want to be seen as someone capable of accepting bad news and dealing with them confidently.

I know it can be tempting to show up at your ex’s house, but temptations are just temptations. They don’t excuse your behavior as your ex won’t understand that you’re in pain and want validation and closure.

Most dumpers find it hard to understand how their ex could invade their private space. Their home is their safe haven – the only place that calms them down and makes them feel secure. It’s the last location on Earth they expect to see their ex and talk about things that make them feel uncomfortable.

They don’t even know what they’d do if they ran into their ex on the street, let alone see their ex on their own property.

Put yourself in their shoes and imagine how you’d feel if an ex from years ago came knocking on your door and asking you to get back together.

Chances are you’d be appalled and would have no idea what to do with yourself. And that’s how most dumpers feel. They feel so stressed and repulsed that they react in ways that hurt dumpees.

Oftentimes, they refuse to answer the door or get so angry with their ex that they blame their ex for everything, tell their ex they’re dating someone else already, and threaten their ex with a restraining order.

Dumpers simply don’t like the idea of being forced into a corner and talking about getting back together. They don’t want to change their beliefs and perceptions of their ex because talking about them would remind them of the negative feelings they’re badly trying to distance themselves from.

They’d rather sit at home and do nothing all day than talk to their ex and feel pressured and guilt-tripped.

I get that you need closure, but showing up unannounced for any reason you can think of (especially for closure) is a horrible idea. Dumpers hate surprises and prefer to focus on themselves and those they appreciate.

Also, imagine how you’d feel if you caught your ex doing something you aren’t ready for (let’s say dating someone else). Something like that could crush you and make you so angry that you do something you regret. Something like banging down your ex’s door, vandalizing his/her property, or sending spiteful text messages.

Maybe you don’t sink that low when someone you love moves on so quickly, but seeing your ex with someone else and him or her paying no attention to you can be a very shocking and difficult experience to process. It can attack your ego and pride and make you lose control over your actions.

You need to be aware of the consequences of feeling unworthy and being replaced by your ex so that you don’t act on your anger/anxiety and destroy what’s left of the relationship.

Although some dumpers greet their heartbroken ex patiently out of respect for themselves and their ex, most of them do that out of pity or fear of retaliation. They worry that they’ll suffer their ex’s wrath or get hit by karma if they don’t handle their ex with care and patience.

I haven’t come across any dumpers who were genuinely pleased to see their desperate dumpee at their front door. The breakup makes dumpers crave space way too badly for them to be excited to talk about the dumpee’s regrets, realizations, and promises to grow.

Conversations about the relationship and breakup make dumpers feel trapped and eager to escape the smothering situation. It doesn’t make them want to be with their ex. That’s what dumpees want as they hope to talk their way back into the relationship with their ex.

Dumpees think that by forcing themselves into their ex’s life, their ex will suddenly become nostalgic and desperate to bond and catch up. But that seldom happens as dumpers fell out of love and stopped depending on the dumpee for validation.

They feel emotionally exhausted and want to be left alone to their own devices.

If they feel that they can’t focus on themselves because their ex keeps asking for their attention, they usually get annoyed and do something that hurts dumpees and makes it difficult for them to love themselves.

So if you showed up at your ex’s house or are thinking of showing up, I strongly encourage you to leave your ex alone. Forcing yourself into your ex’s life is not the way to make a good impression on your ex. It’s actually one of the worst ways for you to lose your ex’s respect and your respect for yourself.

If you ignore this warning, you’ll probably get rejected again and be forced to go through a second breakup.

What do I do if I showed up at my ex’s house unannounced?

If you took the liberty of showing up at your ex’s house, you need to do some damage control. You may feel like apologizing and sending your ex gifts, but that would only show you’re hurt and that you have expectations of your ex (that you need him or her to accept your apology and start talking again).

The best thing for you to do in this situation is to simply do nothing. If your ex treated you badly, your ex doesn’t even want your apology. He or she wants to stay away from you and not worry about your problems.

The time for your ex to be worried about you has ended. It’s time for your ex to self-prioritize and slowly go through the stages dumpers go through.

The only time you can kind of show up at your ex’s place unannounced is when you’re tired of waiting for your ex to collect his or her belongings and prolonging your suffering. But even in that case, it would be better to have someone else contact your ex in your stead and drop off your ex’s stuff.

If you have people you can rely on, you needn’t embarrass yourself and risk getting in direct contact with your ex. There are better ways to get your unfinished business done.

You can talk about children and the house you bought together via text (not in person), get closure by signing up for therapy, exchange your belongings by asking your friends and family to get involved, and grow as a person by reflecting, journaling, and reading.

Everything you need to get through the breakup is already at your disposal. You just need to get out of denial and accept the end of the relationship first.

So before you show up at your ex’s house (or do that or something similarly desperate again), identify the reasons why you feel such a strong compulsion to speak with your ex.

After some deliberation, you should discover that you want to see your ex because your ex is happy and you’re miserable—and that you want your ex to recognize your worth.

That should be enough for you to step on the brakes, stop seeking your ex’s validation, and let your ex enjoy his or her peace.

If it’s not enough, then you need to remind yourself that it will be much harder to get back with your ex and feel like yourself again if you demand attention from an ex who doesn’t want to give it to you.

In conclusion, you should consider your and your ex’s emotional states before you show up at your ex’s house unannounced. If you’re unsure about how to proceed, it may be best to speak with a licensed therapist or someone with breakup experience.

Family and friends may want the best for you, but they don’t always give the best advice. Feel free to get in touch with us if you found this article informative and want our help.

And if you want to share your opinion and ask a question or two, feel free to do that in the comments section below the post.

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. Learn more about me or get in touch today.