Texting I Miss You To An Ex

It’s normal to feel overwhelming sadness and miss your ex like crazy after the breakup. It’s also normal to have the urge to reach out and text your ex “I miss you” and “I want to be with you.”

The breakup can lead to feelings of anxiety, loneliness, and fear, which in turn can cause you to idealize your ex and want to get back together. 

Nostalgia and anxiety can make you break no contact and say things you shouldn’t say. And you shouldn’t say anything that suffocates, annoys, guilt-trips, and depresses your ex. As a dumpee, you should stay away from your ex and keep your feelings to yourself.

That’s how you can give your ex what he or she wants and allow yourself to detach. If you act on emotions and tell your ex how badly you miss him or her, chances are your ex will feel overwhelmed and scared. Your ex won’t know how to respond and might ignore you or say something that hurts you.

Your ex could, of course, also tell you that he or she misses you too, but what good would that do? It would just make you think that your ex feels the same way about you and that you might get back together if you do the right things.

Unfortunately, reconciliations are more complicated than that. They don’t depend just on what you say and do, but mostly on what your ex experiences, thinks, and feels. Your ex must change his or her perception of you and feel the need to get back with you before you move on and find someone else.

Until your ex realizes your romantic worth and wants you back, there’s no point in telling your ex that you miss him or her a lot. Your ex doesn’t want to hear it, but most importantly, doesn’t deserve to hear it. He or she left you due to a loss of romantic feelings and/or loss of respect.

For that reason, you must respect your ex’s decision and lack of feelings and avoid texting your ex how you feel. You must find a way to get rid of nostalgic feelings and develop the determination not to reach out.

It’s hard not to text your ex when you think about your ex 24/7 and fantasize about your ex coming back and validating you. Every fiber in your body wants you to reconnect with your ex and feel as secure as you felt when you were a couple.

You’re now withdrawing from the lack of happy hormones your brain released into your brain throughout the relationship. This withdrawal makes you feel like nothing you do helps you feel better and that you’ll always miss your ex and want to communicate with him or her.

Fortunately, this isn’t true. You may not feel it, but you’re detoxing from your ex a little bit every day. Every day you go without talking to your ex, you regain a tiny piece of your self-esteem, identity, dignity, happiness, independence, and purpose.

Slowly but surely, you’re accepting the breakup, becoming more resistant to pain and nostalgia, and leaving your ex where he or she belongs – in the past.

You’re missing your ex so much not because your ex is perfect but because your ex broke up with you and hurt your ego and self-esteem.

You’re remembering all the good times and forgetting that your ex made mistakes and detached from you. You’re less to blame than you think because your ex should have expressed problems and emotions better and looked for solutions with you to avoid falling out of love.

If your ex didn’t voice his or her concerns and ask for your cooperation, your ex hid unwanted emotions from you and waited for the relationship to end. Your ex took a passive approach and let negative emotions increase to the point where breaking up seemed like the only viable solution to his or her problems.

I’m telling you this so you don’t think you’re fully responsible for the breakup. Relationships require two self-aware and invested individuals to maintain. If someone feels unhappy, he or she must relay the reasons for unhappiness to the other person and look for solutions together or alone, depending on the issue.

You’re entirely responsible only if you abused your ex. But in that case, the breakup needed to happen so you could improve impulse control and various behavioral patterns. 

Anyway, if you’re thinking of texting your ex “I miss you,” know it’s not a good idea. Your ex shouldn’t know that you obsess about him or her and dream about reconciliation. If your ex knows you’re extremely nostalgic and trying to get back together, your ex will lose remaining respect and/or curiosity and interest.

Your ex will stop thinking about how you’re doing and laser focus on his or her wants and needs. This will reduce your ex’s romantic and non-romantic nostalgia and make your ex keep his or her distance from you.

The more you reveal how you think and feel, the smaller the chances that your ex will miss you and want you back.

Like it or not, dumpees need to hide their feelings from their ex. By hiding them, they can slowly get rid of pain and make their ex curious, nostalgic, and interested in talking or bonding.

Revealed feelings, on the other hand, cause dumpers to feel validated for no reason and decrease their urgency to reach out on their own.

Always remember that your dumper ex should reach out to you and tell you how he or she feels. By contacting you and showing certain emotions, you’ll be able to tell your ex is ready to talk and that he or she has found a reason to talk.

That reason may be curiosity or guilt (a breadcrumb), but at least your ex will have taken the initiative.

In this post, we talk about why texting I miss you to an ex can have the opposite of the desired effect and how you can avoid texting your ex.

Texting I miss you to an ex

If you’re thinking about your ex and missing him or her, bear in mind that some nostalgia is expected. You got rejected and abandoned, so you’re “supposed” to miss your ex.

You’re having a hard time accepting that someone you invested your time and feelings in and saw yourself being with long-term stopped seeing your romantic worth.

You expected this person to reciprocate your efforts and feelings and stick with you through thick and thin. He or she committed to you and indirectly vowed to stay with you no matter what. Your ex probably promised you the world and made you feel extremely good for a while.

But then, something went wrong. Something changed your ex’s feelings and devotion to the relationship. Your ex weighed the pros and cons and decided that the relationship wasn’t working anymore. 

That was when your ex detached completely and quit on you.

You may really want to text your ex and say that you miss him or her, but texting won’t change anything. It won’t bring back your ex’s feelings because your ex perceives you in a certain way and doesn’t want to change that perception. 

He or she is perfectly happy with the black picture he/she had painted of you as that picture lets your ex feel victimized. It justifies your ex’s reasons for leaving and allows your ex to stay in control of the breakup. 

So you can send your ex the sweetest, most grateful and romantic text you can think of—and your ex still won’t come back to you. He or she will most likely feel smothered and overprioritized and want more understanding and space from you.

Your ex will see that you’re desperate for recognition and that you prevent him or her from moving forward and enjoying life.

I want you to feel better, but I don’t see how texting your ex “I miss you” will help you. I especially don’t see it happening if your ex is already in a new relationship with someone else. If your ex is moving on and enjoying life (which your ex is), your ex will be taken aback by your profession of nostalgia and feelings.

He or she will likely feel trapped or repulsed and not respond in ways you want him or her to. That means your ex will fail to meet your expectations and directly or indirectly reject you.

Another rejection will then pulverize your wounded heart into tiny pieces and force you to suffer again.

Although your ex could let you down gently or tell you that he or she misses you too, your health is too precious to gamble with. If you care about yourself, you should protect your heart and minimize rejections and setbacks.

You can do that simply by understanding that texting your ex how you feel will smother your ex and hurt you and your chances of reconciliation. 

So whether you want your ex to come back or just tell you that he or she misses you too, keep in mind that your emotions are something you need to keep from your ex. You’re the one who feels nostalgic and wants a response from your ex.

Your ex doesn’t need it. He or she is perfectly fine and wants things to stay the way they are.

Therefore, acknowledge that you want to express your feelings to your ex because:

• you feel nostalgic
• you want validation and company
• you haven’t accepted the breakup and/or moved on
• you’re attached to your ex
• things aren’t going well for you
• you still want your ex to be with you

If you were detached and happy, you wouldn’t want anything to do with your ex. You’d be in control of your thoughts and emotions and wouldn’t feel the need to tell your ex how you feel. You probably wouldn’t even want to text your ex, let alone reveal your vulnerabilities and expectations.

The reason you want your ex to know you miss him or her is because you still consider your ex someone who can help you. Either you want your ex to take you back and validate you or you miss the times when life was easier or different.

You need to figure out why you’re thinking about texting “I miss you” to your ex so that you can plan your next steps and get yourself back.

With that said, here’s what texting your ex “I miss you” will do.

How to avoid texting I miss you to an ex?

If you want to keep healing and regaining control of your emotions and life, you have to avoid texting your ex. You have to do everything in your power to convince yourself that reaching out to the dumper is a terrible idea and that it will cause more problems than it will solve.

It will make your ex feel uncomfortable and elicit a negative response from your ex. 

In order to maintain no contact with your ex, you have to establish in your mind that reaching out never was and never will be an option.

Reaching out won’t help your ex have a change of heart and encourage your ex to give the relationship another chance. If you understand that your reach-out will make things worse, you’ll feel more eager to commit to no contact and wait for your ex to text you and tell you things you want to hear.

So if you’re struggling to stay away from your ex and not profess your feelings, I suggest that you delete your ex’s number and unfollow or remove your ex on social media. Make certain to also tell your friends not to mention your ex and throw away memories and reminders of your ex (pictures, jewelry, letters, gifts..). 

By removing your ex from your life and avoiding places that remind you of your ex, you’ll still obsess about your ex, but you won’t get reminded of your ex everywhere you look. Not unless your ex just broke up with you and made you depressed.

If the breakup just happened, you’ll need a couple of weeks to come to terms with it and be able to function.

So if you want what’s best for you (as well as your ex), remind yourself that it’s normal to feel so sentimental. Tell yourself you’re going through the dumpee stages and that you’ll feel better when you learn to control the urges to reach out.

You’ll have to persevere for weeks. But eventually, you’ll think about your ex less and detach to the point where you don’t need to tell your ex anything. That’s when you’ll know that no contact is working and that you need to keep doing what you’re doing.

So even though it feels incredibly hard not to text your ex you miss him/her, know that it gets easier the longer you stay in no contact. For me, it got much easier about 3 weeks into no contact. Don’t get me wrong, it was still extremely hard, but at least I felt a bit better and knew I had to do longer than 30 days of no contact. 

I realized that the 30-day no contact rule was a hoax and that my ex would reach out when she was ready. And she did reach out – eventually. It took her roughly 4 months to contact me in a weird indirect way when I was feeling well and didn’t depend on her for happiness anymore.

If you want to talk to your ex, it’s best to wait until your ex reaches out. When he or she contacts you, you’ll be better prepared to communicate than you are right now.

You see, as long as you need to reach out to ease your anxiety, you’ll put your ex in charge of your happiness and get hurt if things don’t go your way.

And the chance of things going your way isn’t very high. You have a higher chance of getting what you want when your ex contacts you first.

So use this time to work on your self-esteem and maturity. You want to be detached or semi-detached by the time you hear from your ex. If you’re highly anxious when your ex reaches out, your ex will give you hope and force you to make mistakes.

You can avoid mistakes and additional pain by getting over your ex and improving your life. The more you grow and heal, the smaller the chances that you’ll act on pain and scare your ex away.

Are you thinking about texting “I miss you” to an ex who dumped you? What do you think will happen if you do that? Leave your comment below and we’ll respond to you soon.

And as always, if you’re looking for guidance with your breakup and emotions, subscribe to coaching and get in touch with us.

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.