Why Do I Keep Going Back To My Ex?

If you can’t figure out why you keep going back to your ex again and again, the quickest explanation is that you’re still attached to your ex. You find it hard to stay away from your ex because you’re emotionally dependent on your ex and think that attachment is equivalent to love and connection.

The truth though is that the attachment you have with your ex may not be healthy at all. It may have been created with lots of ups and downs (extremely good and extremely bad moments), fear, pain, and trauma bonding. That would mean that you’re addicted to your ex emotionally and that you need your ex to feel validated, supported, and loved.

In other words, it’s possible that you keep going back to your ex every time you break up out of weakness, desperation, low self-esteem, and unhealthy feelings that you confuse for love. If that’s the case, you feel (rather than think) that your ex is a good dating option for you even though emotionally you’re currently incompatible due to a lack of self-work.

You and your ex are very different, but that doesn’t matter to you because you feel that you need your ex to feel fulfilled.

Another reason why you keep going back to your ex is familiarity. You feel that you already know your ex and like who your ex is, so you don’t want to dive back into the dating pool and start getting to know new people. You’re comfortable with your ex and the way things are (even if they’re not good), and for that reason, would rather stay in your comfort zone than risk getting involved with someone who may or may not be more compatible with you.

Familiarity combined with nostalgia often makes people think that what they had with their ex wasn’t that bad and that their relationship had some bad points, but also many good ones. This is why they ignore the bad moments and all the red flags and go back to an ex they settled for and got used to being with.

There are a few more noteworthy reasons why you keep going back to your ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend. If you’d like to learn about them, keep reading. This is the post for you.

Is it okay to keep going back to your ex?

If you keep going back to your ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend, you keep doing that for a very simple reason. You still find your ex attractive and believe that you can be happy with your ex. You think that your ex can become the person you want him or her to be and that you shouldn’t give up on the relationship too soon.

Although you definitely shouldn’t give up on your ex on impulse, the healthiest statement I can make is that you also shouldn’t keep breaking up and getting back together. Every time you break up with your ex, you cause your ex separation anxiety, pain, and fears and make it a bit easier for you to leave next time you’re unhappy, sad, depressed, or overwhelmed.

That’s why in my opinion, you should leave a person only once. You can’t keep coming and going like your ex is just a temporary stop. Your ex has feelings, expectations, and his or her own life to live, so you must decide whether you want to stay with your ex or leave your ex alone forever.

That’s right, “forever.” Your indecisiveness not only breaks your ex’s heart and wounds your ex but also makes your ex more dependent on you for recognition. So either remember your ex’s worth and give your ex your very best or accept that your relationship with your ex can’t improve no matter what you do and let the broken relationship rest.

A decision of any sort is the least your ex deserves for staying with you until now. Especially if you were the one who always did the dumping because that implies that your ex loves you or doesn’t have the strength to leave you. In any case, you shouldn’t abuse the situation and string your ex along.

You should be understanding and sympathetic towards your ex and willing to do whatever it takes to ensure his or her quick recovery—even if it means going no contact with your ex and letting your ex date others.

Don’t be that dumper who comes back out of familiarity, boredom, broken ego, or jealousy but doesn’t reflect and change. Be the man or woman who engages in introspection, corrects his or her shortcomings, and then returns to the dumpee or moves on as an improved person.

The choice is yours to make. But if you invest in yourself the way you should, you’ll see that you were stuck in the same pattern and that the future now depends on your ability to grow as a person.

In my opinion, it’s okay to go back to your ex. But it’s okay only once you’ve improved your shortcomings, behavioral patterns, perceptions of your ex, feelings for your ex, expectations, relationship goals, and everything you previously ignored or lacked the self-awareness to improve.

Why do I keep going back to my ex?

Now that you know when it’s okay to return to your ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend to give the relationship another go, let’s talk about other reasons why you feel so pulled toward your ex.

Believe it or not, but it’s possible that you just aren’t happy with the way life has been treating you recently.

It’s possible that your emotional health took a toll every time you were stressed or anxious and that you became nostalgic and regretful because of it. A lack of personal happiness tends to compel dumpers to give in to pain and run back to someone familiar and strong. That person is usually an ex because their ex is the only one who can quickly relieve anxiety and provide love and reassurance.

Normally, rejections, romantic failures, a loss of a job, and financial issues shatter dumpers’ self-esteem and urge them to reunite with their exes and make themselves feel better. There are a million things that could have gone wrong in your life. So figure out if you tend to go back to your ex to patch your wounds and stop feeling miserable.

If you do, then you likely don’t love your ex. You’re just using your ex to love yourself and then break up with him or her when you feel in control of your life again.

Another possible explanation for running back to your ex is that you have an anxious attachment style filled with childhood fears and unhealthy wiring. If that’s the case, you feel extremely attracted to your romantic partners and have a hard time detaching from them.

To resolve this matter, you have some digging to do. Figure out who or what triggered your incessant need for emotional connection and improve the way you give and perceive love. That way, you’ll connect with people you like for the right reasons and disconnect from those who aren’t the most compatible with you.

Below you will find 8 reasons why you keep going back to your ex.

All kinds of couples reconcile

It’s not just self-aware and healthy ex-couples that give their relationship another chance. Sometimes ex-couples get back together even if someone was abusive and significantly underdeveloped. The reason for that is that they’ve developed an unhealthy, yet strong bond that propels them toward each other even after the breakup.

The unhealthy bond makes ex-couples crave the ups and downs they’d experienced throughout the relationship and through those cravings, convinces them that what they had is worth another chance. Such couples tend to find themselves trapped in pattern of breaking up and getting back together and don’t understand what a healthy relationship is.

They think a good relationship is a relationship you literally can’t live without and that there is supposed to be lots of pain, misery, and suffering in it.

Although relationships definitely aren’t a cakewalk, it’s no secret that they don’t have to feel like you need them. If you need a relationship to be content and at peace with yourself, that relationship is way too important to you. It’s worth more than you, which means that you’re going to suffer when your partner fails to reach your expectations and/or breaks up with you.

The best relationships are relationships that provide you with love, peace, and stability and help you grow. They allow you to take from them but also encourage you to invest in them.

So if you think that you need your ex rather than want your ex every time you break up, figure out if you’re codependent and lack purpose and ambition in life. If you discern that you do, you shouldn’t be dating anyone right now.

You should be learning how to love yourself, making more friends, discovering things you like, and when you’re ready, find someone who matches your values, goals, and interests.

If you lose yourself in the relationship and prioritize your partner over your own importance, it’s very easy for the relationship to become abusive and imbalanced in terms of power. That’s because the stronger person unknowingly takes control of the relationship and inadvertently loses love and respect for his or her partner.

That then causes the more reliant person to become angry, jealous, and insecure and forces him or her to act on his or her biggest fears that push the other person away.

For couples not to push each other away, they both have to be 1)understanding of each other’s behavior, 2)equally secure, or 3)equally insecure. But if they’re both insecure, there’s a high chance that someone will eventually make new friends, outgrow the other person, and become less interested in the relationship than his or her partner. This means that the relationship will become imbalanced and capable of severely hurting the more invested person.

That’s why both parties should grow simultaneously. They should both make plans on how to improve and progress in life so they can continue to respect and love each other.

Relationships are never completely 50/50, but the good thing about it is that they don’t have to be. As long as both partners are self-aware and committed to working on the relationship, they can keep the relationship balanced and healthy.

You have work to do

Simply put, you’ll stop going back to your ex when you realize why you keep going back time after time. That’s because you’ll either fix the things you need to fix and reconcile with your ex permanently or stay away from your ex and eventually move on to someone else.

It’s your responsibility to figure out whether you truly love your ex or merely need your ex. So reflect on the relationship as much as possible and you’ll sooner than later learn if your ex is someone you want to settle down with but can’t because you’re not ready or if your ex isn’t your ideal partner and you’re better off on your own.

Whatever you decide is okay. Just make sure you first get to the bottom of your repetitive behavior and then work on yourself. The more work you do now, the higher the chances that your relationship with your ex or with someone else will be successful.

Ignore the lessons life has advised you to fix multiple times, however, and you’ll continue to break up until you eventually tire yourself out and leave for good. That’s when you’ll probably blame your ex for your inability to connect with your ex and bring your issues into the next relationship.

If you don’t want that to happen, you have to invest in yourself now. Don’t wait for your ex or someone else to fix your matters for you because that will never happen. Others can’t do the necessary self-development work for you. It’s called self-development for a reason, so take it seriously and find ways to develop yourself.

Thinking about your issues and journaling will help you a lot. But if you want to take things further, you should find a professional who will show you things from a different angle and point you in the right direction.

Let us know why you think you keep going back to your ex in the comments below.

And if you want our help with breaking up and getting back together, reach out to us here.