What Does It Mean When Your Ex Answers Your Call?

Unfortunately, there are just a few small differences between an ex answering your call, ignoring your call, and blocking your calls because none of these things mean that your ex wants you back. Most of the time, an ex answering your call indicates that your ex doesn’t resent you and is willing to communicate with you out of courtesy and respect.

Your ex has enough control over his or her emotions to pick up the phone, hear you out, answer a few questions, and talk about shallow things. By talking to you, your ex can do the morally right thing (which is to not ignore) and see if you’re capable of communicating about non-smothering things.

Non-smothering things would be any non-relationship/breakup topics that let your ex enjoy physical and emotional space without feeling guilty, ashamed, and pressured. If your ex does feel any of these emotions, you will likely see your ex shut down, reply concisely with sharp remarks, and look for a way to end the conversation prematurely.

Your ex likely won’t stick around for long. Not unless your ex has been dying to speak with you to relieve guilt. In that case, you could have a three-hour conversation and help your ex forgive himself or herself for hurting you. After that, you probably won’t hear from your ex for a while because your ex will have received what he or she needs from you.

So if your ex answers your call and you’re wondering what it means, know that it doesn’t mean much. It probably just means that your ex is a decent human being who doesn’t despise you, that your ex wants to see what you’re calling about, and that your ex may want to see if it’s possible to be friends with you and stay in touch.

As a dumpee, you shouldn’t be calling your ex because it won’t change anything. Your dumper ex should be the one calling you because that would show that your ex needs something from you rather than you relying on your ex.

But if you called your ex and your ex answered, you mustn’t think that your ex wouldn’t have picked up if he or she didn’t love you or had doubts about breaking up with you. Your ex’s love isn’t that black or white as it doesn’t depend on whether your ex picks up the call.

Human beings are far more complex than that. They normally pick up the phone call from an ex just to see what their ex wants because doing so is the right thing to do. Oftentimes, they don’t feel like answering at all because they’re afraid their ex will say something pressuring. But despite that, they pick up the call and appear to be very excited to hear from their ex.

There are two reasons exes sound enthusiastic on their first phone call. The first reason is that some time has passed since they spoke to their exes, so they grew apart and forgot how to act around their exes. They’re a bit uncertain and nervous, so they overemphasize their excitement and sound almost thrilled to hear from their exes.

The second reason is that dumpers don’t know how dumpees feel about them and without them. If they were left alone for a few weeks, some dumpers wonder what their exes have been up to and if they’ve forgotten about them. As a result, they become curious about their exes and try to learn more about their exes after picking up the call. They want to know how their exes are doing emotionally and try to catch up.

To dumpees, it feels like they’re back to normal, but things are far from it. Dumpers merely appear to be back to their relaxed, joking, and perhaps even flirtatious selves but that doesn’t last long. It lasts only for as long as they have emotional reasons to act that way. Once they talk for a while and see that dumpees don’t have any hard feelings toward them, they feel reassured and lose interest.

That’s when they ditch dumpees, confuse them, and make them wonder if they’ve made a mistake.

This article is for dumpees whose ex answered their call. We’ll discuss why dumpers pick up calls from dumpees and what dumpees should do after.

What does it mean when your ex answers your call?

When your ex answers your call, your ex’s behavior tells you that he or she has no ill feelings towards you and that your ex may even be ready to talk again. This doesn’t, however, mean that your ex wants anything more than friendship. If your ex wanted you back romantically, your ex would have called himself or herself.

Your ex would have taken the initiative and done everything in his or her power to get back together with you. This is because your ex would have been in pain and would need to ease the pain by reconnecting with the person he or she admires and wants to settle down with.

Since your ex didn’t call you and merely picked up the call, it’s apparent that your ex was in no rush to talk to you. Your ex was okay with not speaking with you as your ex wasn’t hurting because of your absence.

Therefore, your ex had no plans of asking you to give the relationship another chance. Your ex was just moving on and doing his or her stuff until you called and showed an interest in speaking.

I’d like you to understand that your ex answering the call isn’t worth celebrating. It’s something all dumpers should do but don’t. Many dumpers pretend not to see the call, aka ignore it or block the dumpee because they feel overwhelmed with pressure and expectations.

So all in all, your ex is a decent person whose impression of you hasn’t been painted pitch black. It’s still got some color to it as your ex is mature enough to acknowledge your good traits.

You should interpret your ex answering your call or calls as your ex being nice and willing to hear what you have to say. You shouldn’t, however, think of it as a way of sneaking back into a relationship with your ex. Thoughts and hopes like that will create expectations and set you back emotionally when they don’t come true.

I’m not saying you can’t get back with an ex who still picks up your calls, but the chances of that happening are small. You’ll have much higher chances of success if your ex does the heavy lifting.

This includes:

• calling
• texting
• planning
• inviting
• apologizing
• seeking validation

Your ex should be putting in the effort and you should be answering the calls. But also, you shouldn’t keep talking to your ex if your ex just wants to be friends or something you don’t agree with. You should tell your ex you’re not ready to be what your ex wants you to be and to stop calling.

That should keep your ex at a safe distance and allow you to keep moving on.

Here are some explanations of what it means when your ex answers your call.

It’s a neutral sign if your ex responds to your calls and texts

Dumpees tend to look for hope in the things their ex says and does. This is how they keep their anxiety under control and push through days when they feel like they’ve lost everything.

But even though they’re looking for hope, their friends, therapists, and breakup writers mustn’t give it to them. They must remain neutral and say the way things are. The truth can be hard to hear, but it’s much better than lies and false promises.

That’s why I’d like you to understand that your ex responding to your calls is neither a good nor a bad sign. It’s just a so-so sign as it shows that your ex has respect for you but especially for himself/herself. An ex without integrity, empathy, and a poor understanding of breakups would likely just get angry with you and block you.

Your ex didn’t do that because your ex has at least some self-awareness and understanding of what’s going on. Your ex probably got dumped before and learned to be nice to people. And that, you mustn’t interpret as a sign that your ex wants you back.

It’s just a moral code your ex lives by. It’s got very little to do with who you are and what you’ve done in the past. Always remember that people are who they are and want to be. If they want to be decent human beings, they will do decent things. And if they haven’t put much thought into it and lag behind in the personal development department, they’ll act the way they always have when issues arose.

So keep in mind three things.

1. Your ex is currently in control of negative emotions created by the breakup and wants to do the right thing.
2. Your ex’s perceptions of you aren’t so bad that your ex can’t stand talking to you.
3. Your ex may want to be friends.

What your ex wants doesn’t matter. Your ex broke up with you to get rid of relationship expectations and the effort he or she was forced to put into it. This is your time to focus on yourself and discover what it is that you want out of life and relationships.

My ex answers my calls but doesn’t call me back

If your ex doesn’t reciprocate your calls, your ex is just picking up your calls to ease your anxiety and avoid hurting you. Your ex doesn’t want to make things more difficult for you, so your ex does what you want or need.

Maybe your ex knows that reaching out to you could confuse you and give you false hope, but what’s even more probable is that your ex feels no interest in speaking with you. Your ex gets his or her interest depleted when you contact him/her on your terms and force/guilt-trip your ex to communicate with you.

Here’s something you can do to see if your ex has no interest or obligation to call you back. Simply stop calling your ex and see if your ex calls you back. If your ex calls, your ex will probably do so to pull you closer and secure a friendship with you.

But if your ex doesn’t call, your ex will either enjoy the space you’re giving him or her or just leave you alone to recover from heartbreak. I suppose it depends on how self-aware your ex is and what your ex wants from you.

If your ex doesn’t call you back after you’ve reached out, that would mean relationship dynamics are completely one-sided and need to change. You need to change (stop interacting with your ex) so that you can balance out the post-breakup power, respect, and interest.

If you keep reaching out, you’ll never impress your ex because your ex will never feel the desire to give you a call back. Your ex will let you do all the work and by doing so, let the relationship stay severely imbalanced.

My ex answers my calls and calls me back

If your ex does call you back, then what you have is friendship. You ended up settling for it as you’d let your ex know you were perfectly happy to stay in touch and communicate about unimportant things. Now that you’ve fallen into the friend zone with your ex, you’ll have a hard time getting out of it.

It will be difficult because talking to your ex won’t make your ex realize your worth. If anything, it will show your ex that you’re happy to stick around as a friend and that it’s okay for him or her to start dating other people again. The reason it will be okay for your ex to date is that your ex will see you’re not grieving the breakup.

Your ex will have no idea that you’re still emotionally dependent on him/her. Of course, knowing that you’re still in love won’t make your ex care about you more and prevent your ex from dating other people, but it will guilt-trip your ex, which will create new problems (reasons to avoid you).

So if you’re wondering “What does it mean when your ex answers your call,” bear in mind that it doesn’t mean anything promising. If you don’t handle your breakup confidently and appropriately, it will likely create more problems than it will solve.

What do you think it means when your ex answers your call or calls? Do you consider it a good sign? Let us know below the post and we’ll get back to you soon.

However, if you’d like to discuss your breakup with us alone, click here to learn more about our services.

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.