Why Do I Want My Ex Back So Bad?

If you’re missing your ex and wondering why you want your ex back so bad, the reason you want your ex back has very little to do with your ex’s personality and the relationship itself. It’s got mostly to do with the fact that your ex rejected you and affected your self-esteem.

He or she made you take the abandonment personally and caused you to put him or her on a pedestal and obsess about getting back together.

The breakup triggered your deepest insecurities, childhood fears, relationship traumas, self-esteem issues, and fears of not being able to have kids or finding a long-term partner (in time). It made you question your self-worth and ability to be happy in and out of a romantic relationship.

Since your ex left and doesn’t want you back, you’re now in a lot of pain. You’re experiencing withdrawal symptoms due to a lack of happy hormones provided by your ex. As a result of withdrawal, you’re missing your ex 24/7, thinking you need your ex to be happy and feel secure.

What you’re forgetting is that you were happy before you met your ex and that pain is making you overvalue your ex and undervalue yourself. It’s forcing you to think your ex is the solution to your problems rather than the cause of it.

Your anxious brain doesn’t know you need to detox from your ex and find purpose and joy outside of the relationship with your ex. All it knows is that your ex’s abandonment and absence threaten your safety and that you need your ex back to feel safe and fulfilled.

We could say you’re dealing with a bit of an addiction. You were used to receiving love and validation from your ex on a daily basis, so you’re not happy without your daily fix. You feel that something’s missing and that you must reconnect with your ex in order to love yourself and feel complete.

Again, your ex wasn’t such an amazing partner and person that you can’t live without him or her. It’s the feel-good hormones your ex released into your brain that you can’t (or rather don’t want to) live without. In the relationship, these hormones constantly reassured you that your ex was committed to you and that you had nothing to worry about as long as your ex was willing to put the work in.

Now that your ex isn’t willing to put the work in and isn’t around anymore, you don’t feel your ex’s commitment and the hormonal effects it produces. You feel that your ex has gone back on his or her word and abandoned you to pursue happiness elsewhere.

You don’t feel loved by your ex, so you don’t love yourself either. You find it hard to accept that a person you love doesn’t love you back and that you can’t do anything about it. The feeling of powerlessness is driving you crazy and making you contemplate all kinds of explanations and solutions to feel better.

Sadly, it’s not making you look for ways to get over your ex, but for ways to get back with your ex. Getting back with your ex is the fastest solution to stop hurting and start feeling in control of your emotions and life.

That doesn’t, however, mean it’s the best solution. It’s just a solution to get rid of pain. The right thing to do is to work on healing and self-improvement.

Anyway, your ex is gone, so you no longer feel empowered, needed, and secure. Instead, you feel weakened, unneeded, and insecure and think your ex is the best thing since sliced bread. You’re scared, anxious, and tired of hurting, so you want to get your ex back before someone else wins his or her heart and “steals” your ex from you.

I know you’re scared, but you’ve got to understand that you feel so strongly about your ex because you feel abandoned and undesired. You want your ex’s attention more than ever and are willing to do anything to get another chance with your ex. You probably blame yourself for some of the things you’ve said or done and wish you could undo the damage.

Unlike your ex, you regret making mistakes and wish to learn and improve from them.

So if you keep wondering why you want your ex back so badly, know that pain, caused by a lack of happy hormones is the main reason behind your desire to reconcile. Your ex shattered your self-esteem, made you feel unworthy of his or her love, and caused you to think and dream about him or her.

In other words, the breakup and its aftereffects made you obsessed with your ex and convinced you that your ex was the best person you ever dated (and could ever date). The thought that you lost someone so great and that your ex could bless someone else with his or her amazingness terrifies you.

It causes competition between you and your ex’s next potential partner.

Therefore, you want your ex back so bad because the breakup and your ex’s post-breakup actions and inactions told you that your ex is a one in a million and that you can’t do better than your ex no matter how hard you look for a replacement for your ex. Your validation-deprived brain is making you think that you truly love your ex and that you’ll never be happy without your ex.

The truth, though is that you’ll be happy again. You’ll be even happier, provided you take the breakup seriously and invest in yourself rather than your ex. If you stop interacting with your ex and get busy with your life, it’s only a matter of time before you learn to love yourself, fall out of love with your ex, and see that your ex is no unicorn.

Unicorn partners don’t break up with you. They especially don’t deny you closure, call you names, blame you for the breakup, and make you suffer all on your own. Caring exes sympathize and empathize and give you space to process the separation.

In today’s post, we talk about different reasons why you want your ex back so bad. Make sure to find the explanation that fits your unique situation.

Your ex was mean, uncaring, or abusive

If your ex neglected or abused you and frequently took you on emotional rollercoaster rides, the reason you’re struggling so much to let go of your ex is because your ex put you through many ups and downs. He or she made you trauma bond and develop an unhealthy attachment to the relationship.

Slowly, your ex made you normalize unhealthy arguments and power struggles in the relationship and forced you to become dependent on him or her for a sense of purpose and self-love.

When the new power dynamics became a part of the relationship, you convinced yourself your ex truly loved you otherwise he or she wouldn’t have stayed with you through all the highs and lows. Your ex would have left you and found someone new to be with.

Although immature, bitter, and traumatized exes do tend to monkey-branch when they get tired of fighting with their partner and being in total control, they also stay in a relationship for as long as they can. They try to make the relationship work even though they appear unhappy most of the time.

When they feel hurt and victimized, they express their emotions poorly and hurt their partner. They do it in such a way that they rob their partner of importance and power.

The biggest issue is that they make their partner lose his or her voice in the relationship and over time, cause him or her to become okay with it.

So if your ex treated you poorly and took your power away, bear in mind that you want your ex back so badly because your ex made you think he or she loved you wholeheartedly. The high highs and low lows you went through as a couple created a tight emotional bond, highly dependent on the feelings you felt when you fixed problems and received validation.

You now miss the way you felt when you patched things up and felt hopeful about the relationship.

You overinvested in your ex and convinced yourself you needed your ex to be happy

If you lost yourself in the relationship because the relationship became more important than your identity, you want your ex back so badly because you sacrificed everything for the relationship. You put everything you had into it and expected it to return your hard work and commitment.

Things probably worked for a while. While your ex had feelings for you, your ex invested back and made you feel loved and needed. He or she assured you that feelings were mutual and that you had nothing to worry about.

But when things got old and stressful and your ex got to know you, your ex started taking you for granted. He or she didn’t need to try as hard as you because you were more than willing to do the hard work for him/her. Your ex saw that you needed him or her significantly more than he or she needed you and considered him/herself the prize.

Why wouldn’t your ex think that way of him/herself if you were constantly on the chase?

If you wanted way more attention, love, and reassurance than your ex, you overinvested in your ex or your ex underinvested in you. Either way, you put in way more effort than your ex and stayed hungry for love and assurance. You kept waiting for love and relief that would never come.

That made you depend on your ex and lowered your self-importance.

So keep in mind that imbalanced/unhealthy relationships make dumpees want their dumpers back way more than healthy/respectful relationships. When a dumper has significantly more power throughout the relationship, the dumpee feels worthless and desperate for attention after the breakup as well.

This is because he or she hoped that his or her investment would pay off and ease his or her worries and fears. Since the emotionally invested dumpee got dumped rather than acknowledged for his or her hard work, he or she feels deceived and wants the dumper back to feel important.

You have unresolved childhood issues, relationship fears, codependence issues, or addictions

Childhood issues such as inattentive parents, abuse in the family, addictions, substance abuse, and divorced parents can cause self-esteem issues and complicate the dumpees’ letting-go process. They can make dumpees cling to their romantic partners for love and self-love and prevent them from walking away from people who no longer treat them well and want them.

If you have unresolved childhood issues, addictions, financial issues, or various (self-esteem) problems that stem from the past, you probably consider your ex your go-to person and your savior. You think of him or her as someone who can help you sweep your problems under the rug and help you forget about them for a while.

This means you’re over-relying on your ex for your problems. Instead of working on them with a therapist, a self-help coach, or alone, you’re expecting your ex to do the job for you and make you feel accepted and loved. You’re not trying to be self-reliant because it’s easier to rely on your ex than it is to change emotionally.

If this is the case, you want your ex back badly because you haven’t resolved your issues. You probably haven’t tried hard enough and want your ex to continue to help you feel important and successful in life.

If you want to stop relying on your ex for basic human needs, you must engage in introspection and figure out where your problems stem from. Discover what or who is responsible for your over-dependence on your ex and what you can do to be independent.

When you figure that out, your problems won’t instantly disappear.

You’ll merely become aware of them and be able to make a plan to resolve them. I encourage you to think about your shortcomings, regrets, and (ignored) personal issues and commit to improving them. Once you’ve improved them, you’ll be more developed/independent, feel much happier, and miss your ex much less.

Your support system, social life, and post-breakup strategy suck

If you’ve shut yourself in and/or don’t have anyone to open up to about your problems and feelings, you have a lot of things on your mind you haven’t been able to express. You want your ex back super badly because you suffer alone and have a lot of time to think about your ex.

You’re not spending time with friends and family and trying to distract yourself from the source of the pain (the breakup).

A good support system and an active social life are essential parts of letting go of a broken relationship. They’re as important as finding healthy hobbies and exercising your body and mind. You could find yourself longing for your ex day and night if you’re not doing enough to physically and emotionally distance yourself from your ex and distract yourself with people and things you enjoy.

If you don’t do no contact, check up on your ex, or continuously learn from friends and family that your ex is doing great without you, you could think you’re the reason your ex is doing great and want your ex back for validation purposes.

So take the breakup seriously and stick to the rules of no contact. Surround yourself with people you like and improve the parts of your life that need improvement. That way, you’ll stop wanting your ex back as fast as you can. It might take a while to create an independent life, but eventually, you’ll stop thinking about your ex and start being grateful to the people who truly care about you.

You can’t find a replacement for your ex

If you’re trying to replace your ex with someone new while you’re still coping with the breakup blues, you’re probably failing badly and wanting your ex back more as a result. You’re seeing that no one can replace your ex and make you feel how your ex made you feel.

This is because you’re looking for a copy of your ex rather than a completely new individual. You’re not emotionally ready and open to dating someone different.

So if you’re trying to get serious with someone new before you’re over your ex, keep in mind that you’ll rebound and suffer immensely. You’ll wish you could go back in time and do things differently just to get another chance with your ex.

I encourage you to take your time to get your ex out of your system. Don’t look for a replacement for your ex when you’re still in love with your ex because you won’t be able to find one. You’ll only feel worse and miss “the good old times.”

Consider dating someone new only when you’re over your ex and/or feel excited (not desperate) to give and receive love.

You’re not happy with your post-breakup life

General unhappiness could be another reason why you want your ex back so bad. If you’re not happy with your new life (especially if things have gotten much worse), you probably miss the pre-breakup times when things were better. You wish you could get back with your ex and continue to feel happy and in control of your thoughts and feelings.

Some things that make dumpees want their ex back after the breakup are:

• a loss of job
• financial problems
• health issues
• stress, anxiety, or depression
• fallouts with friends and family
• self-esteem issues
• lack of goals and purpose
• problems settling down

Unhappiness after the breakup tells dumpees (as well as dumpers) that they need to do something about their life if they want to be happy. Dumpees need to work on detaching from their ex whereas dumpers need to reflect and figure out if leaving was the right thing to do.

You have separation anxiety

If you just got broken up with, it’s normal to experience separation anxiety. Separation anxiety indicates that you were attached to your ex and had a bond with him or her. Had you not gotten hurt after the breakup, it’d mean that you didn’t love your ex at the time of the breakup and that you had no expectations of him or her.

You see, the majority of dumpees experience gut-wrenching separation anxiety. They feel rejected and hurt and need time to get over the breakup. They can’t just forget their ex and act like nothing happened. To do that, they must accept the breakup and fall back in love with themselves.

So rest assured that separation anxiety is a healthy part of the detachment process. It tells you that your ex left you when you had feelings and plans for the relationship.

You’ll have to slowly accept that your ex is gone and create a future your ex isn’t a part of. A future in which you don’t obsess over your ex and need your ex back to feel happy.

Why do you think you want your ex back so bad? Share your views in the comments below.

However, if you want to chat with us about your reasons for craving your ex, sign up for 1-on-1 private coaching.

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.