Why Do Exes Contact You Out Of The Blue?

Have you ever wondered why exes contact you out of the blue just when you’re starting to feel better? Why do they have to mess with your healing process weeks or months later and confuse the hell out of you?

The answer to these questions is that they don’t do it on purpose. Exes first take some time to themselves to experience life without you and do the things they’d been meaning to do. This is how they stop feeling the need to distance themselves from you, possibly fail in life, and contact you to see how you’re doing.

That’s when they give you bucketloads of false hope and make you think that there’s some love and connection left.

Before you get too excited, you need to know that most exes who contact you out of the blue don’t want you back right away. Most of them have an ulterior motive – one that they won’t always tell you about. Your job as a dumpee is to figure out what that motive is so you don’t get your hopes up too quickly and get hurt just because your ex is bored and curious about you.

If you can quickly discover the reason your ex is reaching out for, you can protect yourself from your ex’s breadcrumbs (confusing messages) and make sure your ex doesn’t keep pestering you longer than necessary. But to keep your ex at a distance, you must be brave. You must tell your ex not to contact you anymore because you need more time to process the breakup and focus on yourself.

As long as your ex’s messages hurt you, confuse you, or give you hope and make you analyze the breakup, your main objective should be to self-prioritize, relearn how to love yourself, and improve your shortcomings. These things will revitalize you and give you what you need to move forward and become stronger.

Message and call your ex, however, and you’ll waste your valuable post-breakup time and stop yourself from making any necessary internal changes.

So before we even talk about why exes contact you out of the blue, remember that if you’re hurting and want your ex back that it doesn’t matter why your ex reached out. What matters is that you handle your ex’s reach out in a way that it doesn’t set you back emotionally and make you obsessed with your ex for the next few days.

In this post, we’ll talk about two things. Why do exes reach out months later when you least expect them to and what you can say and do to stop them from playing with your anxious mind?

Why do exes contact you out of the blue?

There are many explanations as to why exes contact you out of the blue, but the most common explanation of all is that they get time to think. Think not about how awesome you are, but the way they behaved during or after the breakup.

They basically regain their rationality after feeling smothered (emotional) for a long time, so they notice they should have been kinder to their dumpee and that they deliberately or indeliberately caused him or her a lot of pain and suffering.

This is why they often reach out and ask their ex how he or she is. They don’t necessarily apologize because an apology would require them to lower their pride and acknowledge they did something wrong, but they do expect to find out if their ex is doing well.

If their ex is doing well, they immediately assuage their guilt and feel a weight lifted off their shoulders. They feel they don’t have to worry about their ex anymore and that it’s morally okay for them to move on from their ex for good.

If their ex, is hurt, however, then they oftentimes feel even more guilt, apologize or not (depends on their pride), and soon find a way to escape a situation they reached out to resolve (not make it worse).

Dumpees who aren’t coping well with the breakup tend to make dumpers feel guilty and trapped. They force them to have to help them when helping their ex is the last thing they want to do. They’d been meaning to focus on themselves for weeks before they initiated the breakup, so the sudden realization that they can’t free themselves from their ex makes them feel even worse.

How they react after being told or shown their ex needs help coping with the breakup depends on their:

• moral values
• guilt or rather empathy
• emotional strength
• (victim) mentality
• and how they feel toward their ex and about helping their ex

Although many dumpers contact their dumpee out of the blue to check up on their ex, not all dumpers offer to help their ex feel better. Most just want to know if their ex is coping well so they can justify their (mean or unhealthy) actions.

Many dumpers also contact their ex because they’re curious about their ex. Their incentive for reaching out isn’t as emotional as it is for guilty dumpers, but they still wish to know how and what their ex is doing. That’s why they tend to reach out and pretend that the breakup never happened – like everything is okay.

If your ex is merely curious about you, bear in mind that your ex could completely avoid breakup and relationship topics and anything that could remind your ex of the relationship and make your ex feel pressured. Instead of self-sabotaging his or her need for emotional space, your ex could ask about your work, family, friends, pets, and anything that is happening in the present or future.

The best thing you can do about an ex who wants to get on good terms with you is, of course, not to get involved with your ex and stay in no contact. But if for some reason you want to talk to your ex (again, it’s a really bad idea), don’t ask questions you aren’t prepared to hear the worst possible answers to.

Don’t ask things like:

• Do you still love me?
• What do you think of me?
• Our relationship wasn’t that bad, right?
• Are you seeing anyone?
• How could you treat me so poorly after everything I did for you?
• Do you think we’ll get back together in the future?
• What about all the things you’ve promised me?

My advice is to talk about surface-level topics with your ex. That way, you won’t risk trapping your ex and making him or her see that talking to you is unpleasant and impossible.

Anyway, exes also contact you out of the blue because they spend some time away from you and run into trouble. Whether they get rejected by someone new and get hurt or become depressed after losing a job, they turn to you for emotional support because you’re their most recent ex.

You’re the man or woman your ex had a bond with and relied on in times of need. You played an important role in your ex’s life, which means your ex still sees you as someone he or she can benefit from emotionally, financially, physically, sexually, or in any needed way.

You mustn’t offer your ex support on a silver platter the moment your ex needs you or your ex could use you to handle his or her issues and abandon you afterward. You and your ex should handle your issues individually until you get back together or agree on friendship.

Another reason why exes contact you out of the blue is that they’re lonely. They have no one (or no one compatible) to bond with, so they turn to you for validation and self-love. By contacting you, they boost their self-importance and gather the strength to keep looking for people they can connect with and build something with.

So in other words, they contact you just to know the problem isn’t with them and that they are physically and mentally attractive enough to find a worthy partner, fling, or whatever they’re looking for.

It’s important that you pick up on your ex’s intentions so you don’t help your ex when your ex should be the one helping you cope with the post-breakup blues. You’re the one who needs support whereas your ex (the dumper) should deal with his or her own issues.

It’s why your ex broke up with you.

To recap, here are 5 reasons why exes contact you out of the blue sometime after the breakup.

If you’re looking for specific reasons why exes contact you out of the blue, however, then here are a few actual occurrences that encourage or force dumpers to reach out.

1. Losing a job, business, friend.
2. Breaking up with a new partner or getting broken up with.
3. Getting nostalgic/reminded of an ex (hearing ex’s favorite song or visiting a place that triggers strong emotions).
4. Having nothing to do and wanting someone to talk to.
5. Missing the friendship/sexual aspect of the relationship.
6. Thinking about an ex so much that thoughts develop into curiosity and/or feelings.

What to do when your ex contacts you out of the blue?

Whether your ex contacts you daily, weekly, or monthly, there’s only one thing for you left to do. You must convey to your ex confidently and politely that you’re not interested in being friends and that you’re enjoying your life too much to let your ex back into your life.

The easiest way you can do this isn’t to brag about your new life and all the people that have been waiting in line to get a chance at being in a relationship with you. It’s to ask your ex to stop contacting you because you’re trying to move on from the past and stay in the present. Say it’s nothing personal, but that you’d like to focus just on yourself and the things you’ve been meaning to do for a long time.

That will convey to your ex that you’re emotionally strong, self-sufficient, and focused enough to distance yourself from someone you were emotionally connected to up until the very end. If you do this right, your ex won’t think you’re dependent on him or her for love and recognition. Conversely, your ex will see you don’t need anyone to get over the breakup and that you’re already enjoying your new life and independence.

That could retain your value the moment your ex reaches out—and later, make your ex crave your strength and ability to tackle all kinds of problems. So if you’re wondering what to do when your ex contacts you out of the blue, do that which preserves your worth and portrays you in the most valuable light possible.

I wish you could exude confidence by remaining friends with your ex, but, unfortunately, friendships tend to achieve the opposite. They put you in the dreadful friend zone with your ex and make your ex take you even more for granted than when he or she was with you.

This is why the only way you can show you’re in total control of your life and gain your ex’s respect is by distancing yourself from your ex and letting your ex do and think what he or she wants.

Always remember that your ex isn’t waiting for you to attract him or her back. As long as your ex isn’t asking you back, he or she wants the opposite of that (more space) and won’t reciprocate your highly emotional actions. Your ex will reject them and hurt you instead.

You’ll have a much better chance of impressing your ex by trying not to impress your ex at all.

That’s because silence after the breakup will depict strength, leave your ex to his/her devices, and let your ex think about you whenever and in whichever way he or she wants.

Are you still wondering why exes contact you out of the blue? Do you have any questions regarding this topic? Don’t hesitate to post them below. 👇

And also, if you want to go into more detail about your breakup, visit our coaching page to see how you can 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.