What Does It Mean When A Guy Talks About His Ex All The Time?

When it comes to uncovering the truth and obtaining information about guys’ relationship history, women are extremely curious creatures. We’re prepared to put our gloves on and dig deeper than any excavator can dig.

I’d say that people, in general, are extremely inquisitive. We need to know what’s going on with our partners to feel secure, treasured, and accepted. But when it comes to feelings of safety, women definitely take the crown.

We oftentimes unknowingly ask intrusive and unpleasant questions with the intention to eliminate doubt, worry, or fear and feel in control.

We want to make sure that the guy we’re with has good intentions and that we can trust him before we get any more entangled with him.

The easiest and fastest way for us to trust a guy is to learn more about his past and judge him by his past actions. His past tells us how the guy treats people, what he’s like as a person, and most importantly, how ready he is to be in a relationship with us.

Our questions and guys’ responses to them tell us if the guys can provide love and security to us and be consistent at it for years to come. It’s unfortunate that we often come across as pushy, needy, clingy, and interrogative and fail to show that we’re able to trust and be trusted. I suppose we need to know everything before we can do that.

But sometimes we don’t even have to ask guys any questions. Sometimes, guys tell us everything we want to know on their own.

They tell us about their exes, the good and the bad times they had with them, the places they visited with their exes, the things they did together, and the mistakes they and their exes had made.

Such guys make us wonder why they’re being so honest with us. We didn’t ask them to share information about their exes, but they shared it anyway.

Something about such guys smells fishy to us and we want to know what it is so we can get to the bottom of it. That’s why we tend to become a bit guarded and wonder what it means when an ex talks about his ex all the time. Why does he need to discuss his past relationships when he should be forgetting the past and moving forward with us?

In my opinion, the answer to such questions depends on the frequency the guy mentions his ex and the emotions he sends your way. If he talks about his ex twice a day or more and appears angry or emotional about her, the guy likely feels victimized and craves his ex’s validation.

He feels hurt and wants his ex to make him feel whole again.

But if he just mentions his ex casually every few days or so and doesn’t talk about what his ex said and how she made him feel, then he probably occasionally mentions his ex because talking to you reminded him of his ex. It made him remember a certain moment and encouraged him to share it with you.

This isn’t as bad as it sounds. It doesn’t mean that your boyfriend is still in love with his ex but that he had a life before he’d met you and that he wants you to know about it.

We all remember our exes from time to time. Our exes were a part of our lives, so it’s impossible to just erase them. We should, however, try not to mention them too often because doing so could frighten the person we’re with and make her feel insecure.

In this post, we’ll answer the question, “What does it mean when a guy talks about his ex all the time?” We’ll discuss how you can tell that a guy has feelings for his ex and when you’re probably just overthinking things.

What does it mean when a guy talks about his ex all the time?

If you’re dating (or interested in dating) a guy who seems to be talking about his ex all the time (not just s few times a week), you need to be careful about this guy.

The guy still has lingering feelings for his ex or is hurt and hasn’t quite processed the hurt his ex has caused him.

He’s still thinking about the past because he hasn’t been able to fully let go of it yet. A part of him still holds on to it and will continue to hold on to it until:

• his ex comes back
• he gets over his ex

Of course, the guy could also not want to be with his ex anymore but still be hurt. But if that’s the case, he likely won’t talk badly about his ex and mention her all the time.

On the contrary, the guy will show you that he’s emotionally independent and that he has no intention of reconciling with his ex. And he’ll do that by focusing on you and making short-term and long-term plans with you.

He might occasionally even tell you that although his ex has hurt him that he doesn’t love her and just wants to get over the pain she’s caused him.

You see, people talk about exes and stressful situations because talking about them helps them assuage anxiety and deal with injustice. It makes them feel understood and gives them the strength not to talk about these things for a while.

So before you jump to conclusions, figure out if your boyfriend talks about his ex frequently or infrequently. Does he merely mention her from time to time, compare her to something/someone, and joke about her or are the conversations about her lengthy, emotional, and frequent?

What about his body language? Are his brows furrowed, his tone sharp and defensive, and his posture and gestures unnatural?

Figuring this out is crucial as it will tell you if your boyfriend has his ex on his mind just when he mentions her or when you don’t know about it as well.

You can even take it a step further and observe your boyfriend’s ability to focus, listen, and reciprocate. If he seems spaced out, distracted, anxious, out of energy, and doesn’t initiate conversations and lovemaking frequently, he likely has something or rather someone on his mind.

He’s thinking about his ex or something that demands his attention and fixing.

But if your boyfriend seems fine mentally and emotionally and always responds the same way, then you probably have nothing to worry about.

Your boyfriend probably just mentions his ex from time to time because he doesn’t think that mentioning her bothers you. He must think it’s okay to mention exes and that you’re secure enough not to get bothered by them.

Many women make the mistake to assume that their boyfriend is still madly in love with his ex because he mentions her from time to time.

They think that an ex is an ex and that her boyfriend’s ex should stay in the past. Although she definitely should stay in the past, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions right away.

We should take the time to observe our partner first and ask him questions. Questions that don’t accuse and criticize him, but gently encourage him to open up.

Some men and women just act on their gut instincts, but I can tell you that gut instincts aren’t always accurate. They tend to compose of fears and anxieties and oftentimes instruct us to do impulsive things that make things worse in the long run.

So instead of telling your boyfriend that he still has feelings for his ex and that he’s playing with your feelings, take a deep breath and try to relax for a bit.

Your boyfriend may not even realize that he talks about his ex a lot—so you may want to first tell him that.

Say that you’ve noticed he talks about his ex quite often and that you’re wondering if he’s okay. Don’t show disapproval and anger but encourage him to open up so he can say what’s on his mind.

You need to communicate with the person you’re seeing as communication is everything. If you can’t communicate for any reason at all, you should do your best to improve it so trust can improve as well.

Either that or break up. Relationships can’t survive without trust.

With that being said, here’s what it means when a guy talks about his ex all the time vs what it means when he mentions his ex only occasionally and unemotionally.

What to do when your boyfriend talks about his ex-girlfriend a lot?

Women tend to get very emotionally affected when their partner talks about his previous romantic relationships. They often get scared and either shut down, get angry, or ignore the problem. How they react depends on their self-esteem which also depends on their past.

The past doesn’t just consist of relationships and trust issues people develop because of relationships. It also consists of a person’s upbringing and his or her faith in oneself.

This means that you mustn’t get upset with the guy because of something that’s happened in your past. You must set your past aside and judge him for the person he is and the things he does.

The first thing you must do when you notice a guy talk about his ex a lot is to inform him about it.

Tell him that it makes you feel a bit uncomfortable and that you would like to know why he talks about his ex so much. Is it because he’s hurt by what his ex has done to him or is there another explanation that you aren’t aware of?

Don’t be afraid to talk to your boyfriend about this. He’s your boyfriend, so he should understand and care about the fact that it bothers you.

As long as the guy cares about you, he will help you feel secure and contribute to the relationship in ways that he needs to. He’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy because losing you would be very painful.

If he doesn’t care about you, however, this guy will likely get upset or angry (defensive) at you. He could get so infuriated that he calls you insecure and blames you for his lack of happiness and self-control.

If that’s the response you get, you should think twice about dating this person. He may not be in love with his ex, but he also doesn’t know how to maintain his love for you. All he knows is that he feels victimized and that he has no intention of changing anything about him.

A guy this stubborn won’t change until he absolutely needs to. Not until you dump him. But when that happens it will probably be too late.

Can your boyfriend get over his ex while he’s with you?

Your boyfriend can definitely get over his ex while he’s in a relationship with you. The only condition is that he must really want to. He must understand that his relationship with his ex has ended and that he must keep moving forward at all and any cost.

The guy must be strong. So strong that he overcomes emotional challenges that he encounters after the breakup and expresses an unyielding desire to bond with you.

It usually takes 3 – 5 months to be able to date after a breakup, but it can take another 5 to fully process the breakup and get over an ex.

How long it takes depends on the length of the relationship, the dependence on the relationship, and the things a person does to stay active, busy, and self-assured.

So yes, your boyfriend can get over his ex while he’s with you, but he must really want to get over his ex (follow the rules of no contact) and develop a mind over matter kind of mentality. That’s the only way he can distance himself from his ex-girlfriend emotionally and wholeheartedly invest in you.

Make sure not to push your boyfriend to invest in you and the relationship too much or he could rebound with you.

Staying with someone who talks about his ex a lot is dangerous

Hearing your boyfriend talk about his ex every day can be emotionally draining. It can make you feel jealous, insecure, powerless, insignificant, neglected, and downright miserable.

That’s why you shouldn’t just ignore the problem and hope that your boyfriend eventually stops talking about his ex. He probably will stop talking about her, but that’s something that could take your boyfriend a very long time.

So much time that you suffer unnecessarily just to get the same results in the end — as if you were to talk to your boyfriend about it. That’s right, talking to your boyfriend about him mentioning his ex-girlfriend won’t make the guy break up with you (not unless you lose your cool and call him a bunch of derogative names).

He’ll break up with you only if he rebounds with you and realizes that he can’t connect with you or stay connected with you.

But in that case, you should have this conversation with him even sooner. You don’t want him to delay the breakup for weeks or months just for the relationship to terminate in the end.

If he’s not into you, you (or he) should leave right away and not when you’re emotionally invested.

My experiences with guys who talked about their ex-girlfriends

I’ve dated two guys who talked about their ex-girlfriends before. The first guy mentioned his ex quite often. He even talked badly about his ex and said he’d never get back with her. This guy eventually started talking to his ex behind my back and left me for her.

As for the other guy, he mentioned his ex only occasionally (maybe once a week or every two weeks). He occasionally compared his ex to other people and I have to admit, it sometimes made me wonder why he would do that. The guy before him had betrayed me and hurt me badly, so naturally, any ex-talk gave me goosebumps and triggered my trust issues and anxiety.

But after talking about it with this person, I realized that it hasn’t even been about a year since they broke up and that his ex was still sort of fresh in his mind. He wasn’t in love with her, but he sometimes remembered the things that happened throughout their relationship.

Fortunately, we were able to talk about it and everything worked out in the end. Ex-talks became less frequent and our trust grew as a result.

So if you’re still wondering what it means when a guy talks about his ex a lot, know that it depends on what “a lot is.” If a lot is every day, the guy is probably hung up on his ex. He craves his ex’s affection and validation and talks to you about her to ease his worries or pain.

But if he only mentions her once in a blue moon and doesn’t get angry, sad, or highly emotional about it, then he likely doesn’t have any feelings for her and just remembers her.

What do you think it means when a guy talks about his ex all the time? Post your thoughts in the comment section below.

Or if you want to talk to us about your breakup, go to our coaching page to get in touch.

Angelie

I’m Angelie, a writer and a designer at Magnet of Success. Whether I’m writing compelling content or designing engaging pictures, I create content that resonates with our visitors and aids them on their self-improvement journey. I enjoy writing about relationship dynamics and the difficulties couples may face.