Why Does My Ex Keep Coming Back?

When your ex keeps coming back, it’s evident that your ex likes you and finds you attractive. But when it comes to staying attracted for a longer period of time, attraction is not enough. It’s missing a key component that would let your ex recognize your worth and transform that worth into an emotional desire and bond.

That’s why even though your ex comes back, nothing much changes for your ex internally. Your ex still sees you the way he or she perceived you before the breakup. Your ex may seem apologetic and really into you for a while, but when your ex gets what he or she wants (your validation, support, sex…), your ex starts feeling secure and doubtful.

And because doubts are very dangerous for a relationship, he or she slowly drifts away, detaches, begins to question his or her love for you, and leaves.

Your ex just doesn’t have the skills and willpower to keep the love bond strong. Every time your ex leaves, it becomes a bit easier for your ex to leave and stay away from you. There’s no or very little fear of losing you and you finding someone else before he or she returns.

Unfortunately, you may be partly responsible for this. If you kept taking your ex back on the spot, you weren’t standing up for yourself and motivating (or rather forcing) your ex to self-invest. You were just letting your ex use you for whatever emotional or sexual needs your ex needed you for.

If that’s the case, you may want to change your tactics. Instead of letting your ex do what he wants, get serious and take control of the situation. Your ex needs to see that he has only one final chance to prove his worth and loyalty. If he blows that chance for any reason, you’ll be the one to leave him and reject him.

And that could cause him pain. Especially if he still has some love left for you and wants to make things work.

So don’t just let your ex walk all over you. If your ex leaves and comes back once, shame on him. But if he does it twice or more, shame on you for being so gullible. Accepting him back on impulse shows you haven’t discovered your worth. And if you haven’t discovered your worth, you shouldn’t expect your ex to find it for you.

Your ex would have to be extremely emotionally intelligent to love you when you’re struggling to love yourself. But since he keeps leaving and returning, it’s safe to say he’s not that kind of person. He’s the kind of person who treats you the way you treat yourself.

Treat yourself with confidence and respect and he treats you with patience and care. Treat yourself poorly by tolerating abuse or unhealthy behavior and he thinks he can get away with anything and treat you accordingly.

If you ever get back with your ex, your ex has to consider himself lucky. He has to discern your worth and start investing in the relationship as well as in himself. If he doesn’t do that, you can forget about having a good relationship with him. People don’t grow without a reason.

They grow when they want to or need to.

The topic of this post is “Why does my ex keep coming back?” We’ll start by discussing why your ex comes back after a while and why your ex leaves when he or she gets comfortable.

Why does my ex keep coming back?

If your ex keeps coming back, your ex obviously needs something from you. Your ex has cravings or issues he or she thinks you can help with. This means your ex either sees something in you or is coming back for the wrong reasons.

The right reasons would be love, affection, respect, plans for the future, regret, fear of loss, and separation anxiety. These things would tell you that your ex is attached to you and that it’s possible to have a fulfilling relationship if he or she tries harder.

The wrong reasons would be jealousy, guilt, shame, boredom, loneliness, fear of being alone, relationship benefits without commitment (sex, validation, gifts, money, etc), and anything that doesn’t make a relationship healthy and balanced.

Some dumpers also come back because they miss the connection and acquaintanceship with their ex and confuse it for love. But such dumpers tend to detach very quickly (usually after a week or two) and appear disinterested again. They know they like their ex as a person as they have a lot in common with their ex, but emotionally, they just can’t stay connected.

They’re too different.

So keep in mind that when your ex comes back just to take from the relationship, the relationship could struggle to develop into a giving relationship. It could deteriorate with time (rather than improve) and lead to a loss of (romantic) feelings. Your job as a dumpee is to keep your eyes wide open and look out for signs that your ex has come back for his or her own needs.

And you can do that by:

• Asking your ex lots of questions (why did you come back, what’s going to change? why do you think the relationship ended…)
• Taking power back (if your ex regrets leaving you, he or she will do ANYTHING you propose. Don’t be afraid of taking charge)
• Looking for doubts, fears, anger, or cold and distanced behavior in your ex (if you spot it, your ex is almost certainly going to get overwhelmed soon and leave. You can protect yourself in advance by knowing what to expect or leaving your ex)
• Evaluating your ex’s desire to invest in himself/herself and the relationship (you can’t expect the relationship to have different results if nothing changes)
• Discerning if your ex prioritizes you and is afraid of losing you (a regretful ex will always make sure your needs are being met)

If your ex comes back for himself or herself, you’ll likely think he or she came back for you because your ex will spend a lot of time with you and show he or she is content with you. But whatever you do, don’t get deceived. Just because your ex is showing you he or she is happy doesn’t mean that your ex loves you.

Love and happiness don’t always go hand in hand after the breakup. Sometimes happiness consists of relief from being accepted back. So take the time to figure out if your ex is giving as much as he or she is receiving. The more your ex gives to you and does for you, the more he or she wants to impress you and stay with you.

My advice is to learn if your ex is investing in you or taking from you. On the surface, these things may look similar because you feel loved and needed, but their meaning is completely different. One shows your ex wants you for you and the other that your ex wants to benefit from you.

That being said, here are 6 explanations why your ex keeps coming back time after time.

Why does my ex keep leaving?

Since your ex keeps leaving, let’s not sugar coat it and pretend everything is as it should be. The truth is that it’s not.

There are underlying issues your ex needs to resolve and personal matters you need to work on. Normally, breakups happen because of poor communication. Couples don’t tell each other how they feel and why they feel that way, so they become susceptible to stress, temptations, fears, and falling out of love.

Every couple can break up. But only couples who don’t work on themselves keep breaking up again and again. They lack self-awareness and willpower to reflect and grow, so they carry on the same way as before and exhaust each other.

If they don’t fix their differences, they eventually break up for good and start dating other people (not necessarily in this order).

I’m not saying it’s your fault your ex keeps leaving. But like it or not, you are partially responsible for improving communication, expressing gratitude, making plans for the relationship, and keeping things fresh.

And as we’ve discussed, you’re also responsible for respecting yourself and making sure you have a life outside of the relationship.

This may sound mean, but I need to put it out there. Nobody wants to be with a person who feels lost, depressed, sorry for herself, and laser-focused on her partner. People just don’t respect others’ emotional struggles because they have plenty of their own. They don’t want to take on others’ problems as well unless they went through them before and/or are extremely understanding of their partner’s predicaments.

With that out of the way, let’s now talk about why your ex keeps leaving.

The most important reason is that your ex keeps losing the will to fight. He or she doesn’t appreciate everything you have to offer, so naturally, your ex loses interest and leaves. There’s no reason for your ex to stay when your ex doesn’t know why he or she is with you. Staying with you only forces your ex to invest time and emotions that your ex doesn’t have.

That’s why your ex feels smothered and overwhelmed.

It’s hard to say what exactly your ex isn’t happy about, but when a long-term ex leaves, this is normally an indication that commitment is missing because the dumper hasn’t learned how to increase it.

And he or she can increase it by:

• maturing up (improving self-awareness, self-control, morals, attitude, behavior, relationship skills, perceptions)
• discerning the dumpee’s worth
• expressing gratitude
• investing time, effort, money in the relationship
• bonding with the dumpee
• working on resolving gender/cultural/religious differences
• dealing with doubts, stressors, and differences in opinion in a healthy manner

Many dumpers think they need to leave their ex because they’re not happy. But little do they know that they are often responsible for their unhappiness. Sure, their ex triggers certain perceptions and feelings, but those feelings come from within.

And the intensity to which they experience them depends on how developed they are as people.

Here are 6 reasons why your ex keeps leaving you.

What to do when my ex keeps leaving and coming back?

At the beginning of this article, we’ve mentioned that self-respect is important and that you need to start taking back control the moment your ex wants you back. But what we haven’t talked about enough yet is that you’ll have to appear completely different next time.

You’ll have to show your ex you’re not going to tolerate more disrespect and that it’s his or her final chance to grow up. You don’t need to say that you have plenty of people who want to be with you lined up because such statements will annoy your ex, but do say that you’re done being taken for granted and that you need him or her to make a decision.

A decision to self-invest and do things your way or leave right away. Your ex has to stop thinking of you as a backup plan – as someone who’s always going to be available to him/her. That’s why you have to exude self-respect and state your terms the moment your ex knocks on your doors.

It’s the only way your ex will notice that time for games is over.

The only problem with this is that your ex has come back a few times already and that there’s a decent chance your ex won’t be desperate enough to do what you want him or her to do. But if that’s the case, you don’t need your ex back anyway.

If you reconcile and merely resume from where you left off, your relationship will end again – similarly or the same way as before and hurt you again.

So if you want to do the right thing when your ex keeps coming back but won’t commit, put an end to your ex’s coming and going. Stand in the door when your ex comes knocking on them and turn him or her down if he or she doesn’t agree to your terms and conditions.

That’s how you’ll stop your ex’s unhealthy patterns and regain your self-worth.

I can’t express how important it is not to get back with your ex on impulse. You’d done that before and it didn’t work. Now it’s time to take charge of the reconciliation and change the whole plan.

Instead of welcoming your ex back, stand tall, push your shoulders back, lower the tone of your words, and hold up one finger for each time your ex returned. Say, “This is how many times you’ve come back. Each time, I took you back because I thought you’d realized your mistakes and improved.

But this time, I’m not going to do that. If you’re ready for a romantic relationship and want to prove you deserve another chance, you’re going to have to work for it.

You’re going to (this is the part where you point out your ex’s flaws):

• Constantly tell me what you’re thinking and feeling
• Sign up for therapy
• Learn to express yourself better
• Control your temper
• Show more gratitude
• And do everything you previously couldn’t or didn’t want to do and improve

I’m going to monitor your progress for the next couple of weeks. If I’m happy with what I see, I might consider giving you one final chance. But if you quickly go back to your old ways or if you put on a show just to impress me, I’m going to leave for good.

I’m at my wit’s end, (insert your ex’s name – it adds weight to your words). You can take a day to decide if you’re ready to invest in yourself and grow in ways that you need to.”

And that’s it. The point of this approach is to take back power and control and let your ex see you’ve grown significantly since the breakup. You don’t want your ex to think of you as a meek, submissive person who’s incapable of putting his or her foot down. You want your ex to respect you and also fear losing you.

Those who aren’t afraid of losing their ex-partner shouldn’t be with their ex-partner. They should first figure out why their ex plays no significant role in their life.

With that said, I hope I was able to answer the question, “Why does my ex keep coming back?” I also hope you’ve learned how you can respect yourself and what you have to do to stop your ex from using or abusing you for selfish gain.

Let me know in the comments section below what you think about exes who keep coming back. Feel free to share your story as well so others can learn from it.

And as always, if you want to learn more methods about telling your ex to stop goofing off, get in touch with us by subscribing to coaching.

See you next time.

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.