When Your Ex Moves On And You Haven’t

When your ex moves on and you haven’t, remember that the breakup isn’t a competition. It doesn’t matter who moves on first and is dating someone else. What matters is how motivated you are to reflect on the failed relationship and change the parts about you that aren’t working and could use improvement.

If you realize your mistakes and want to be a better person and a partner, you’re automatically ahead of your ex because you’re working on improving yourself and doing your best to avoid similar mistakes and failures in the future.

Self-improvement is the only category that matters and that you’re allowed to compete in. Every other category is a waste of energy and time. Worrying about who moves on quicker serves no purpose other than keeping you obsessed with your ex for the wrong reasons.

It makes you focus on your ex and neglect yourself.

Always remember that in breakups someone usually moves on first. That someone is the dumper because the dumper detached before the relationship officially ended and may even have found someone else to date.

When the dumpee moves on first, it’s because the dumper was forced to dump the dumpee because of cheating or something he or she couldn’t overlook. Either that or because the dumper is depressed or has anxiety or other problems to resolve.

Sometimes the dumper and the dumpee move on almost simultaneously, but this doesn’t happen very often. It happens when they both stop caring and investing in the relationship around the same time and fall out of love. Both become okay with breaking up and going solo.

So if your ex has moved on and you haven’t, ask yourself why you care about it so much. Does knowing that your ex is doing well emotionally (presumably better than you) make you feel inferior? Does it hurt your self-esteem and cause you to overthink?

You were with this person for a while, so you probably think his or her detachment and happiness are directly related to your absence. That’s not true.

Although your ex is doing okay, you weren’t holding your ex back. If your ex is a dumper, the breakup itself made your ex feel relieved and in control of his or her life.

You weren’t such a bad partner that your ex suddenly started feeling free and acting like a different person. It has nothing to do with who you are as a person, so don’t take it personally. Think of your ex’s behavior as typical dumper behavior and his or he detachment as a part of the breakup.

Your dumper ex moved on quicker than you because he or she lost feelings during the relationship. You couldn’t move on quicker or at the same time because the breakup was “unwinnable” from the beginning.

Dumpees simply need longer to process the breakup and move on. It’s not fair they have to suffer, but it’s the way things are. Attached people suffer whereas detached ones don’t. Due to their suffering and reflection, though, they develop self-awareness and have better relationships because of it.

Even though self-growth doesn’t make you happy now, it will make you happy in the future. You’ll be better prepared for a successful long-term relationship than an ex who instantly moves on and doesn’t spend any time thinking about his or her flaws and mistakes.

You’ll have a higher chance of making a relationship work and being happy than the person who moved on quicker than you. That doesn’t even matter, but it’s something you should be aware of if you’re stressing about your ex moving on quicker than you.

When you’re fully over your ex, you won’t care when and with whom your ex has moved on. You’ll be preoccupied with your own emotions and things that give you purpose. All you’ll care about is your own detachment and happiness.

Your ex’s moving on won’t affect your self-esteem and distract you anymore.

In this post, we discuss what to do when your ex moves on and you haven’t.

When your ex moves on and you haven’t

Every person moves on at a different pace. Some dumpees get over their ex in a matter of days or weeks whereas the more attached ones need months or years to fully let go. When they let go depends on how they handle the breakup.

If they stalk their ex on social media and take in a lot of unnecessary information, they stay hooked on their ex for a long time. They don’t let themselves move on because they constantly remind themselves of their ex and ruin their emotional progress.

Moving on requires you to take the breakup seriously and stop checking up on your ex. Stop learning things about your ex’s new, detached, independent, and happy life. You won’t heal as fast as you can if you see your ex is happy while you’re miserable. You’ll probably overthink things and complicate your detachment process (which is complicated enough already).

To let go and heal, you’ll have to convince yourself that it’s okay if your ex moves on before you. It’s okay if you need to stop loving your ex and start loving yourself first. It’s how breakups work.

Dumpees have to accept the breakup and the possibility that their ex might not come back. This is how they can fall back in love with themselves and forget about their ex.

If your ex moved on super fast after the breakup, it means that your ex never cared about you, focused on your negative points and fell out of love, or wasn’t capable of getting or staying attached due to some unresolved (childhood) issue.

Whatever the case may be, your ex allowed himself or herself to lose interest and rely on himself or herself for happiness. This happened toward the end of the relationship when your ex concluded he or she could be happier without you.

You weren’t perfect, but your ex wasn’t either. Your ex had shortcomings too. But instead of resolving them alone or with you, your ex concentrated on your imperfections and lost feelings.

When feelings disappeared, your ex decided to seek happiness elsewhere and moved on once and for all. That was when you got dumped and saw a different side of your ex. You realized your ex didn’t love you anymore and that he or she wasn’t open to compromise.

At that point, you were the only person willing to change and work on the relationship. Your ex felt no desire or need to do the work necessary to redevelop love and commitment.

So know that you couldn’t move on faster than someone who had moved on before you even knew something was wrong. You couldn’t compete with your ex because your ex didn’t give you a fair shot. He or she would have made it fair only if you both lost feelings or still had feelings.

Since you had feelings, relationship plans, and hope for the relationship, you continued to hold on to your ex after the breakup. The relationship ended, but you stayed attached and in love.

You first need to give up on your relationship goals and stop seeing your ex as the only person who can take your pain away and make you happy.

You must learn to rely on yourself for healing and self-love and let your ex be as happy as he or she wants to be. The moment you realize your life is about you, not your ex, you’ll wonder why you wasted so much time thinking about your ex’s moving on.

For now, you need to be strong and avoid taking your ex’s detachment personally. Frequently remind yourself that you’ll eventually get over your ex and find true happiness within yourself.

It might take some time for that to happen, but when it does, your ex will lose all importance in your eyes and stop occupying your mind.

Having said that, here’s what you should do when your ex moves on and you haven’t.

What if my dumpee ex moved on quicker than me?

It may be unusual for a dumpee to move on quicker than you, but it happens from time to time. It usually indicates that the dumpee was already detached and over the dumper prior to the breakup. He or she may have met someone else and wanted to abandon the relationship.

The dumper made the job easier as he or she didn’t have to feel bad for breaking your heart.

Some dumpers are actually dumpees. They aren’t getting love and respect from their ex, so they leave while they’re still attached and become dumpees themselves. Such dumpees move on last as they need to process attachment and lack of love from their ex.

They need to relearn to love themselves and find happiness outside of the relationship with their ex.

A dumpee needs more than good self-esteem to move on and stop caring about the dumper. He or she needs to find a way to let go of hope and change the way he or she perceives the dumper.

By focusing on the things that weren’t working and changing the way he or she thinks about the dumper and the relationship, the dumpee can stop blaming him/herself and looking at the dumper through rose-tinted glasses.

This means the dumpee can regain his or her rationality and move on despite feeling unfulfilled and attached to the dumper.

So if your dumpee ex moved on quicker than you, know that your ex was probably the dumper and/or detached from you before you broke up with him or her. Either that or you broke up due to depression, grief, or unresolved problems and failed to find the happiness you thought you’d find shortly after breaking up.

Your life didn’t improve much or at all, so you checked up on your ex and saw that he or she was doing well. That probably made you feel insecure and anxious or nostalgic.

Don’t contact your ex just to lean on him or her for support. Contact your ex only if you regret leaving and think your ex will forgive you and take you back. Forget about friendship as well. This isn’t the time to be friends with your ex.

You can think about that when you move on and can handle seeing your ex with someone else.

What should I do if my ex moved on?

You already know that you shouldn’t breadcrumb your ex if you dumped your ex. Breadcrumbing (random messages) will confuse your ex and give your ex hope. You also shouldn’t beg your ex for another chance if you got dumped by your ex and saw him or her move on (especially with someone else).

If your ex has moved on and doesn’t want you back, you should accept your ex’s decision and leave your ex to his or her devices. Don’t pester your ex when your ex moves on. Don’t do it even if you don’t want your ex back and just want your ex to validate you.

Whether you want a relationship, friendship, validation, or nothing with your ex, keep in mind that you both need some space from each other to let go of the relationship and distance yourselves from the problems that split you up.

If you don’t get space, you’ll stay hung up on the dumper and waste your self-improvement time. You’ll hope your ex realizes your worth and gives you the recognition you crave.

My advice is to start no contact and convince yourself that your ex’s life no longer concerns you. Whether your ex is happy or miserable, it doesn’t change anything for you. Not unless you take your ex’s moving on to heart and allow it to mess with your self-esteem.

In that case, you’ll need to pick yourself back up and focus even harder on detachment.

Your goal as a dumpee is to leave your ex alone and ensure your happiness. When you accomplish that, your ex’s emotional state won’t affect you anymore.

Did your ex move on and you haven’t? Does that bother you because you want your ex back? Let us know what’s on your mind in the comments section below.

And if you want to talk about your ex’s moving on with us, check out our coaching options.

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.