Why Do I Still Think About My Ex?

There are many different reasons why you still think about your ex. Some of the most likely ones are that you’re hurt, sad, and lonely and haven’t fully processed the breakup. Consciously or subconsciously, you still remember and crave the way you felt when you were with your ex.

You felt secure and in control of your thoughts and emotions, so you wish to re-experience those moments and feel needed and validated. You hope that your ex solves your problems for you and enriches your life.

A devastating breakup takes months and months to get over.

Depending on the intensity and length of the relationship, it can take anywhere between half a year to 2 years. The average time is around 8 months to a year as that’s how long it takes to kick the dumper off the pedestal and replace him or her with someone or something better.

It’s normal to think about your ex after the breakup. It’s normal to be obsessed with him or her as well. The breakup is essentially a romantic rejection. It triggers your insecurities, destroys your self-esteem, and forces you to forget the life you created and the life you envisioned for yourself. 

The breakup makes you go through the dumpee stages of a breakup during which you learn to rely on yourself for healing, happiness, and success in life. The more you relied on your ex throughout the relationship, the more the breakup will hurt and the more often you’ll think about your ex and dream about him or her.

If you were codependent or if your relationship had high highs and low lows, you’ll repeatedly fantasize about your ex realizing his or her mistakes and coming back to save you from your misery.

You’ll do this because your brain will miss the hormones it released when it fixed relationship problems and gave you a sense of accomplishment and security.

So if you still think about your ex months or years after the breakup, know that it likely has something to do with your ex’s abandonment and the way it traumatized you and forced you to obsess with your ex.

The breakup hurt you more than anything and transformed your ex into a person who could explain things to you and heal your wounds.

In other words, the breakup made you think your ex is special and took your power away from you.

To undo the damage your ex has caused, your brain now reminds you of your ex. It tells you you haven’t fully come to terms with the breakup and that thinking about it will relieve pain and unprocessed feelings.

Thinking and talking about your ex is therapeutic. You need to do that to close the chapter with your ex and look forward to better things.

You see, people often think about their exes. They do so randomly or because they lack closure, healing, and acceptance of the breakup.

Many times, they haven’t detached and found meaning outside of the relationship. Other times, they think about their ex simply because they were used to spending time with their ex and encounter things that remind them of their ex.

Because their ex is gone, they feel that something’s missing and instantly think about their ex and how much easier or different life used to be. Things such as songs, movies, words, locations, and people remind them of their ex and make them wonder about their ex more than they’d like to admit.

This doesn’t necessarily mean they’re still in love with their ex. It could also mean that they associate certain things with their ex and that they need more time to disassociate them. They need to slowly get their ex out of their system and forget about their life with their ex.

They’ll never completely forget their ex, but most things that trigger (unwanted) reminders will disappear with time. Dumpees will create new memories with other people and stop caring about their ex altogether.

There’s nothing wrong with you if you still think about your ex. All dumpees who got dumped against their will ponder about their ex for at least a few months. They want their ex to come back or at least validate them and show them they matter.

Dumpees consider their ex someone who can stop their pain and ease their obsession. They think their ex can stop them from hurting quicker and more successfully than any other person.

And they’re right. Initially, the dumper has all the power. He or she can instantly heal them.

The problem is that their ex doesn’t want to do that. He or she is happy with the breakup and doesn’t want to change a thing. The dumper feels relieved and wishes he or she had left the relationship sooner. A quicker departure would have allowed him or her to self-prioritize and absolve himself or herself of responsibilities and guilt.

The sad thing about thinking about your ex is that you’re not thinking enough about yourself. You’re spending a lot of time coming up with pointless ideas on how to fix the broken relationship and reconnect with your ex.

This doesn’t help you in any productive way.

It just empowers you with a tiny bit of sense of control which has a double/conflicting effect on you. On the one hand, it prevents you from losing control and going insane. But on the other, it prolongs your detachment and emotional independence.

Hence, you need to think about your ex when you’re highly anxious and not think about your ex when you’re doing well. This way, you’ll process the things you need to process and stop seeing your ex as a reliable individual.

In today’s article, we go into detail about the reasons why you still think about your ex and share some tips on how to minimize your obsession with your ex.

Why do I still think about my ex?

Ex-thoughts on their own aren’t dangerous. They’re a part of a healthy healing process every dumpee goes through. The real problem is the obsessive thinking that prevents you from working, communicating, and performing your daily tasks.

This kind of thinking is a sign of denial and/or obsession and shows you need to focus on severing the bond with your ex. You can do that by journaling your feelings and opening up to friends, therapists, and people who listen.

By expressing yourself and staying physically active, you’ll feel less anxious and eager to interact with your ex.

On the other hand, if it’s been weeks, months, or years since the breakup and you occasionally think about your ex, that’s completely fine. You probably developed a habit of thinking about your ex after the breakup due to the pain your ex has put you through.

The breakup traumatized you, forced you to think about your ex, and developed emotional dependence on him or her. You needn’t worry because your habit of thinking about your ex will wane with time. It won’t disappear completely because your ex (whether you like it or not) was a big part of your life for a while.

But it will decrease significantly when you process the past and stop feeling bothered by the fact that you still think about your ex. Unhappiness, bitterness, revulsion, and other strong and unpleasant emotions your thoughts create when you think about your ex are the reasons you keep thinking about your ex.

Just like breakup pain, these emotions hinder you from letting go of the past and thinking about more important people and things. You’ll have to forgive your ex if you want to stop thinking about your ex.

You’ll also have to forgive yourself. If you blame yourself for the breakup and feel guilty, you’ll have to accept your mistakes and hold your ex at least partially responsible for the breakup.

No dumpee is solely at fault for the breakup.

Cheaters may be responsible for betraying their partner, but their partner or ex-partner also contributed to the breakup with destructive words and behavior. Their ex made them feel a certain way or didn’t make them feel a certain way and made them feel tempted to look for satisfaction outside of the relationship.

I’m not saying cheatees are at fault, but they probably could have expressed themselves better at times and given affection in ways their ex wanted to receive it.

Now that your ex is gone, you’re missing your ex and remembering the good times. You’re ignoring all the bad things because bad things don’t match how you feel. There’s a big mismatch between your perception of your ex and reality, so you think mainly about things that give you hope and ease your anxiety.

You think about the nice things your ex did for you and tell yourself you had a wonderful relationship. It wasn’t perfect, but it’s good enough for you now that you’re in pain and miss the relationship. You feel like a big void in your chest prevents you from being yourself, so you’re willing to do anything to fill that void.

You’re probably even considering showing up at your ex’s house unannounced and trying to reason with your ex. If reasoning could make your ex want you back and stop your obsessive thoughts and pain, you’d happily throw your pride away and do something desperate.

Hopefully, your obsessive thoughts aren’t that intense, and you’re not thinking about contacting your ex and pouring your heart out. If you’re thinking you need to say or do something to get your ex back, you need to talk to people who can knock some sense into you, distract yourself, and do whatever it takes not to reach out.

If you give in to anxiety and obsession and contact your ex, you’ll project your expectations onto your ex and risk getting hurt and staying hurt. 

You may experience the broken heart syndrome. This isn’t just a metaphor. It’s a heart condition first discovered and reported by a Japanese cardiovascular specialist.

It’s believed that a sudden spike of stress hormones due to a traumatic, emotionally stirring event can cause significant damage to the heart, especially to the left ventricle of the heart, making it hard for the heart to pump blood.

In some cases, dumpees even experience a heart attack. 

Not all breakups are that serious, but prolonged anxiety caused by obsession can damage the heart and cause long-term health complications.

The point is that the heart is a muscular organ that remembers the pain it used to feel. Unpleasant events from the past can trigger old and new problems related to the heart and cause them to spread throughout the body.

Typically, they start in the center of the chest in the form of angina and travel into the left part of the body.

You need to know what’s at stake so that your obsession doesn’t develop into panic attacks and physical pain that seriously impacts your quality of life.

A few thoughts about your ex here and there probably won’t hurt you.

But if you keep checking up on your ex and learning things about your ex that you don’t need to learn, you could experience emotional or physical pain and struggle to let go fully. You could get stuck in a downward spiral.

So even if it’s been a while and you feel like you’ve fully recovered from the breakup, keep in mind that your brain and heart may remember past experiences and associate certain feelings with them. They may trigger those feelings when your ex crosses your mind.

This could happen when your visual, auditory, and smell stimuli remind you of your ex and release the hormones associated with your ex. For example, if you used to go to the same restaurant with your ex every week, the smell or taste of food in that restaurant could make you remember your ex and bring back certain thoughts and feelings.

It could make you sentimental and ruin your day or days.

So if you want to know why you still think about your ex, know that it’s because things remind you of your ex. Whether it’s unprocessed feelings and pain or things you associate with your ex, you haven’t fully ejected your ex out of your system.

The breakup might still be fresh in your mind and tell you that a significant part of your life is missing. That means you need more time to meet new people, take up new hobbies, and break old/obsessive patterns to leave your ex behind.

With that said, here’s why you still think about your ex.

What does it mean when you can’t stop thinking about your ex?

What your thoughts about your mean depends on the intensity and frequency of your ex-thoughts. If you think about your ex all the time from the moment you wake up till the moment you fall asleep, you’re probably still in the early stages of a breakup.

You’re in the process of accepting the breakup, grieving, and learning how to cope with overwhelming feelings. Feelings such as anger, depression, fear, anxiety, denial, hope, regret, and unworthiness.

You still care deeply about your ex and want your ex to recommit to you and heal your wounded heart.

On the other hand, if you think about your ex but don’t feel anxious and scared, then you’re probably a bit further into the breakup process. Your ex-thoughts aren’t caused by pain but rather by old habits, memories, and the length of the relationship.

You’ll stop thinking about your ex when you get enough emotional space from your ex and build a life that doesn’t involve your ex. That’s when you’ll realize your ex isn’t on your mind much anymore and that you’re okay with not hearing from your ex and being with him or her.

In the meantime, figure out if you still think about your ex because you’re hurting from the breakup and possibly want your ex back or because your ex was the most important person in your life for a while and you need more time to disassociate feelings from your ex.

If you miss your ex and want your ex to validate you, you’re not over your ex yet. But if you don’t miss your ex and don’t care if your ex is with someone else, then you probably can’t stop thinking about your ex because you developed an obsession with your ex and need time and will to break your obsessive patterns.

You need to avoid things that remind you of your ex and do things that keep you distracted.

Are you wondering why you still think about your ex? What emotions do you feel? Share your reasons for thinking about your ex in the comments section below.

However, if you need our help with your nostalgia and other breakup problems, subscribe to private coaching and get in touch.

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.