Why Am I Obsessed With My Ex?

Most dumpees are obsessed with their ex after the breakup. They think about their ex 24/7 and even dream about their ex coming back to them. No matter how badly they want to move on, they can’t get their ex out of their head and think about people worthy of their attention and time.

Dumpees aren’t obsessed with their ex because their ex is the best person they ever dated. Although dumpees think highly of their ex, the reason they’re obsessed with their ex is that their ex rejected them romantically and stopped their brain from releasing happy hormones.

Their ex made them take the breakup personally, destroyed their self-esteem, ruined their relationship plans, and made them scared of living a life without their ex.

In the relationship, dumpees got comfortable and attached to their ex. They don’t want to detach and start anew with someone else because they’ve already found a person they value and want to be with long-term.

Since their ex doesn’t want the same, they feel immense separation anxiety and a fear of being alone, forgotten, and replaced. The worst thing that could happen to them is finding out that their ex is with someone else and that their ex has no intention of coming back and investing in the relationship.

That would destroy their hope for reconciliation and make their anxiety and pain skyrocket.

So if you’re wondering “Why am I obsessed with my ex,” bear in mind that it’s perfectly normal to obsess with your ex after the breakup. The breakup put you through immense shock and forced you to start letting go of your ex (go through the dumpee stages of a breakup – also known as the stages of grief).

This can be a long, exhausting process that can take a year or longer to get through. It depends on your experiences with breakups, attachment style, coping mechanisms, ability to self-distract, socializing, your ex’s behavior, and the help you get on your journey to recovery.

If you have someone to vent to and rely on for guidance and support, you can expect to recover much quicker than someone who feels lonely and keeps his thoughts and emotions to himself.

You must understand that the breakup hurt you so badly that it put your ex on a pedestal and made you dependent on your ex for healing and self-love. It made you see your ex as someone who put you into the emotional mess you’re in today and someone who can get you out of that mess. 

Your ex is both the cause of your pain and the solution to it. He or she has absolute power over you and decides how you think and feel. If your ex reaches out and tells you he or she misses you, you get your hopes up and feel good.

And if your ex posts pictures with someone new on social media, you get jealous and hurt and analyze the new person obsessively.

As long as you want your ex back and/or feel rejected or mistreated, your ex will continue to occupy your mind and prevent you from focusing on yourself or others.

Your ex will make you:

• relive the breakup a thousand times
• fantasize about reconciliation
• study your ex’s texts
• crave an apology or explanation
• stalk him or her online
• tempt you to reach out and/or take control of the breakup

Your ex’s absence and lack of care or affection will make you so obsessed with your ex that you’ll have a hard time focusing on anything or anyone else. Most of your days will consist of thinking about your ex and wondering when or if he or she will contact you and want you back.

You’ll wonder whether your ex misses you at all or if you’re the only one obsessing over the breakup, wishing for the nightmare to end.

Although your ex doesn’t miss you romantically or obsess about you (your ex isn’t in pain), your ex does think about you from time to time. Your ex wonders how you’re doing and what or who is keeping you busy. Your ex gets curious about you like you get curious about him or her, but your ex’s curiosity probably doesn’t last long.

It probably disappears very quickly – when your ex focuses on the negative aspects of the relationship. 

Only the most curious dumpers reach out and dig for information. Such dumpers ask (personal) questions and disappear after they’ve obtained the information they sought. They don’t see the need to converse every day. Not if they reach out only to check up on their ex and assuage their guilt.

Curiosity and guilt don’t make them want to be with their ex. They only make them reach out for themselves.

Some dumpers also want to be friends and talk as if nothing happened. Such friendship-seeking dumpers tend to confuse dumpees and give them tons of false hope and anxiety. They make dumpees obsessed with them and prolong their detachment and healing.

If you’re wondering why you’re obsessed with your ex, it could be because your ex keeps reaching out and/or doing things you’re not ready for him or her to do. For example, if your ex is flaunting his or her new relationship online and making you feel replaced, your ex is essentially making you feel insecure.

Your ex’s behavior is forcing you to lose more hope than you’re capable of losing and making you anxious or depressed. The less caring and thoughtful your ex appears, the more hurt and obsessed you get.

You might also find yourself obsessing over your ex if you don’t take active steps to avoid thinking about your ex. If you don’t follow the rules of no contact and do what it takes to keep your ex out of sight, you neglect your healing by allowing yourself to look for information on your ex. 

You absorb information you want but don’t need and by doing so, give yourself unnecessary things to analyze and obsess about. 

As a dumpee, you should avoid all information related to your ex. You should follow the indefinite no contact rule and avoid driving yourself crazy with your ex.

Even if you do no contact, you’ll still obsess over your ex. But you’ll obsess significantly less and recover much quicker than if you check your ex’s socials and ask your friends to keep you in the loop about your ex.

Always remember that the quickest way to get your happy self back is by avoiding breakup mistakes, keeping busy, and working on increasing your self-love.

Analyzing, snooping, reaching out, and coming up with reconciliation methods, on the other hand, will keep you obsessed with your ex and stop you from rebuilding your self-esteem and regaining your identity and independence.

In this post, we discuss why you’re obsessed with your ex after the breakup and how you can detox from your ex.

Why am I obsessed with my ex?

It’s perfectly normal to feel obsessed with your ex after a breakup. Breakups are some of the most painful predicaments people go through. They cause so much anxiety, pain, anger, and desire for validation and answers that dumpees become extremely obsessed with their ex.

They make their post-breakup lives entirely about their ex and analyze everything their ex says, does, and doesn’t do. Obsessing gives them a tiny sense of control and hope and makes their suffering a little bit better.

If you’re obsessing over your ex, it doesn’t mean that you’re weak and incapable of moving on. It means that you’re attached and that you need some time to detach and rebuild yourself. Your ex doesn’t need any time to detach because your ex did that at the end of the relationship.

You’re the only one who feels rejected and needs to stop feeling dependent on your ex.

Most dumpees feel obsessed with their ex to some degree. They feel abandoned and hurt and think their ex should also suffer after the breakup. They don’t think it’s fair that they’re the only ones who get to suffer and need their ex to feel validated and happy.

That’s why some dumpees get angry with their ex or try to make their ex jealous. They’re thirsty for some kind of reaction from their ex that makes them feel in control of the breakup. A reaction (even if it’s negative) tells them they can manipulate their ex’s thoughts and feelings and makes them feel even.

Hence, one of the reasons you’re obsessed with your ex could be a lack of reaction from your ex. If your ex is minding his or her own business, you could still be hoping that your ex reaches out and/or gives you something to work with.

Something that gives you a feeling of control, reduces your pain, and helps you love yourself. 

Conversely, if your ex is doing things you don’t want him or her to do, you feel that your ex is distancing himself or herself from you and that you’re losing control. You don’t want your ex to be happy without you, so you’re taking your ex’s happiness personally and contemplating interfering with your ex’s happiness.

Encounters with your ex, dreams about your ex, bad dates, nostalgic places, or songs can also make you obsessed with your ex. They can make you sentimental and force you to laser-focus on your ex for days or longer.

Depending on how far into the dumpee stages you are, such things can overwhelm you with information and reminders of the past and stop you from healing and growing.

If you try dating too soon and rebound as a result, you’ll probably obsess over your ex as well. You’ll tell yourself your ex was your ideal partner and that you need to do everything you can to get back with your ex.

Post-breakup romantic failures will make you super nostalgic and desperate to reconcile with your ex as quickly as possible.

Having said that, here’s why you’re obsessed with your ex.

Why am I obsessed with my ex years later?

If you’re obsessed with your ex years later, you probably made numerous breakup mistakes, let your ex breadcrumb you, or refused or failed to improve yourself and move on. You kept your ex close to your heart and couldn’t find anything or anyone to replace your ex with. 

If you didn’t find any hobbies or people to keep yourself busy with, you probably convinced yourself your life was better when you were with your ex. You had more going on, so you wish your life could be busier or different.

You wish things were more exciting and that you could share your experiences with someone who cares about you and wants the same things in life. 

Since you’re alone and have the time to think, you ponder about your ex and how you felt when you were together. You’re ignoring the bad times (the reasons for breaking up), and making simple things such as talking and cuddling seem better than they were.

Nostalgia for the past and cravings for a better present and future remind you that your ex fulfilled your needs and that he or she could continue to do that if you were to get back together.

What they aren’t telling you, though, is that you’re looking at your ex and the relationship you had with your ex through rose-colored glasses.

Things weren’t anywhere near as peachy as you remember. If they were, you wouldn’t have broken up. You would have found a way to fix things before they became unfixable. Hence, you may be obsessing about your ex years later because you never saw your ex from a different (more realistic) perspective.

You remained (emotionally) close to your ex and idealized your ex as a perfect human being. This will change when you acknowledge your ex’s flaws and mistakes and make your ex partially responsible for the breakup.

Generally speaking, the longer and more intense your relationship was, the longer you can expect to obsess over your ex. A year or so seems to be the average time for short-term relationships and dumpees with healthy self-esteem. As for 5+ year, abusive, and codependent relationships, they tend to take twice that much or longer. 

Again, it depends on other factors in and outside of dumpees’ control. If dumpees have abandonment issues, remain in touch with their ex, keep getting rejected, and don’t do anything meaningful with their lives, they may need longer than 2 years.

They may not recover even after 5 years.  The only way they’ll fully recover is if they break their obsessive patterns and regain their emotional independence. 

How to stop being obsessed with an ex?

To get rid of your obsession with your ex, identify the reasons you’re obsessed. Figure out if your reasons stem from childhood, your romantic failures, or your or your ex’s unhealthy post-breakup behavior.

You’re obsessed with your ex for a reason. Start by reflecting on your breakup and learning more about breakup dynamics. I wrote a book that may help you get familiarized with breakup dynamics. You can find it here.

If you already know how breakups work, then you can wean off your ex by cutting your ex off, adhering to no contact rules, signing up for therapy, journaling your thoughts and feelings, improving your flaws, discovering your ex’s shortcomings, spending time with friends and new people, getting out of your comfort zone, throwing away your ex’s gifts, avoiding reminders of your ex, picking up new hobbies, making your ex at least partially responsible for the breakup, starting a workout routine, improving your self-esteem, and finding purpose outside of the relationship with your ex.

You can do a lot to disconnect from your ex and reconnect with yourself. But you have to want to do that and take action. You have to see how obsessive thoughts and feelings are restricting your happiness and growth and wasting your time.

When you understand what obsession is doing to you, you just need to find the determination to heal and fall back in love with yourself. Make sure to give yourself time to detach. Just as it took you a while to get attached, it will take you some time to detach.

Be patient and kind to yourself. Your hard work will pay off sooner than later.

Are you still wondering why you’re obsessed with your ex? What do you think is preventing you from getting over your ex? Let us know in the comments below.

And if you’re looking for personal guidance with your breakup obsession or other problems, sign up for a private coaching session with us here.