I know it seems so hard to understand why an ex would be angry at you when she dumped you.
You may be on your best behavior and you may be saying everything you need to say, but your ex is still angry at you.
It’s as if she’s a different person.
She replies cold and unemphatically or she doesn’t reply at all. As a result of your ex’s peculiar behavior, you can’t help but wonder why your ex is angry, cold, bitter and different to you when she dumped you.
This article will provide you with some clarity.
1)Anger is a powerful state
There is only one thing or rather, one person that gives fuel to your ex’s anger. That person is you. As long as you are in her life, she is going to feel angry at you. The intensity of her anger, of course, depends on the emotions you evoke.
Anger consists of defensive emotions intended to defend oneself. An ex-girlfriend experiencing anger feels opposed, mistreated or hurt. She is using anger as a self-defense mechanism with which she tries to protect herself and stand firmly by her beliefs.
That’s why opposing her free will when she had made the decision to break up with you can infuriate your ex-girlfriend in mere seconds.
2)It’s about her, not you
It’s important to understand that you’re not responsible for your ex’s thoughts, feelings, and actions.
If she dumped you and you can’t help but notice her anger and bitterness toward you, it’s probably for the best that you stay away from her for a while.
Any kind of reasoning, convincing or staying in her life is likely going to make things worse.
Exes that feel angry toward you, will be angry regardless of your actions. Whether it’s because of something you did or said is irrelevant to your situation.
What matters is the present moment—here and now. The fact that your ex is feeling angry toward you even though she dumped you indicates she is not in a talkative mood. She’s far from that.
Holding onto anger is your ex’s problem and you can’t help her overcome it. As a matter of fact, you can’t help anybody that doesn’t want to help himself or herself.
Everybody in the world is seeking happiness—and there is one sure way to find it. That is by controlling your thoughts. Happiness doesn’t depend on outward conditions. It depends on inner conditions.
dale carnegie, how to win friends and influence people
3)Your ex developed a negative image of you
Your ex is angry towards you because she sees you in a different light. For some reason, she was utterly convinced she needed to break up with you so she decided to pull the trigger.
Now that you are separated, she perceives you as the person she created you to be and not as a person of value and worthy of respect.
Your ex dumped you and is angry at you because she doesn’t see you as someone who can be of assistance to her, but rather as a burden. In her mind, you are your old self at your worst and not your normal/best self.
4)Your ex is an emotional wreck
Your ex appears to be angry and over you because she’s merely reacting on instinct.
Her behavior is of impulsive nature and doesn’t require any premeditation or contemplation. In other words, your ex-girlfriend is like a brain-starved zombie. Her brain signals anger and she projects it toward you.
When you ask her questions, she doesn’t want to answer and becomes cold. And when you take an interest in her life and well-being, she withdraws and responds with more distance.
Your ex-girlfriend is dancing tango with you. When you take a step forward, she takes a step backward. And if by some chance you step on her toes, you immediately feel her pain—probably for days.
5)The inability to let go of the past
Lacking the ability to let go of the past is a destroyer of many reconciliations. Many people come short when it comes to forgiving and forgetting and so does your ex when she’s angry, cold and distant.
If your ex is expressing anger and hatred, she’s clearly still upset. Her victim mentality can be blamed for that.
For your ex to let go of anger, she has to take action and use her brain for a while.
She has to examine why she’s feeling this way and discern if it’s truly healthy for her. Once she comes to the conclusion that she is indeed holding grudges, she can then begin to re-examine her behavior toward you and life in general.
A person that lacks the mental capacity to make rational decisions will never be able to let go of the past. Your ex will be stuck in breakup limbo, experiencing the same negative emotions over and over again.
For example, a sensible person being in any type of pain would eventually get curious and find the cause of his or her pain and act upon it. An angry ex-girlfriend oftentimes doesn’t.
The reason for that is because anger feels so empowering, people naturally feel inclined to blame others for the way they are feeling. So if your ex is angry when she dumped you, it’s because she lacks the emotional intelligence to help herself.
6)Your ex is stagnating or deteriorating
On the occasion that your ex’s anger isn’t subsiding, it’s because she isn’t improving as a person. It takes an open-minded person to willingly aspire to do some soul-searching.
Since your ex isn’t improving internally, it implies she’s still playing the blame game by holding on to the victim mentality.
The reason why she isn’t improving as a person is because she hasn’t been given a reason to. Angry people aren’t desperate for improvements. Depressed people are.
To put it simply, there are two ways for your ex to improve:
- Willingly
- Forcefully when she has no choice
Unfortunately, anger doesn’t make people want to get off their behinds and invest in themselves.
7)She is biologically wired
Everybody knows human beings are different on the outside as well as the inside. Some people are nice, others are mean.
Some are kind-hearted, others evil. Many times, a person’s characteristics are predetermined at a very young age. Your ex’s upbringing can have a lot to say about why she’s angry at you even if she dumped you.
Because your ex grew up with certain beliefs, she thinks and feels in a way that she has been taught. When she grew past the teenage years, she started using her own head and, coincidentally, reinforced her beliefs and patterns she formed a child.
Assuming your ex is an adult, she is now solely responsible for her own thoughts—which create emotions.
Two men looked out from prison bars,
DALE CARNEGIE, HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE
One saw the mud, the other saw stars.
Your ex-girlfriend may have been raised differently and grew up with different morals and beliefs in a completely different environment.
You may not understand why she’s acting in a different way and that’s okay. Just be aware that she’s subconsciously leaning back on her fundamentals she’d acquired a long time ago as a kid.
8)She was angry all along
Breakups bring out the worst in people. If your ex’s behavior seems new to you, it’s because your ex never had a reason to show you her bad side. As long as she was in a relationship with you and cared about you, she had to have been on her best behavior.
The moment she ended her relationship with you, she no longer had to worry about what you think of her. Finally, her true colors protruded through the surface and you finally got to meet your (now) ex-girlfriend at her worst.
At the end of the relationship, you got to meet her ugly side—which is how she treats people she doesn’t care about. If we consider that people have a good and a bad side, we can safely conclude that we fall in love with people’s good side at first.
After some time as our new relationship unfolds, we are presented with the person’s bad side and either accept it or leave.
Unfortunately, most people don’t show their ugly side until they are pressed against a corner and their self-defensive instincts kick in. In such cases, anger enables people to act completely on instinct.
As a result of their new-found power, angered people become unrecognizable even to those that know them.
9)She’s angry “because she cares” misconception
It’s time we get to the bottom of this. Breakup experts and people on the internet are completely turning Elie Wiesel’s famous quote around. He says; “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.”
People that are feeding you this proverb in the breakup world, don’t understand the real meaning of it. What Elie Wiesel really means with his line is that when a person is in love and gets angry, she expresses emotions and therefore inadvertently shows she cares (not necessarily about you).
If you have an argument with your girlfriend and she gets angry at you for whatever reason, it’s safe to assume she cares to some degree (again at least about the reason she gets upset with).
If anger and resentment is all it took to get a person to love you, then you could go to your ex’s house right now and throw 5 dozen eggs at her house. That would surely anger her.
Here are more Elie Wiesel’s quotes.
“The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference. Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies. To be in the window and watch people being sent to concentration camps or being attacked in the street and do nothing, that’s being dead.” -Source Wikipedia.
There is a thin line between love and hate
There is indeed a thin line between love and hate and one can sometimes jump from one to another. This is way, way, way more often seen in relationships than breakups. The line separating love and hate may be thin, but rest assured that it’s diamond solid.
When someone tells you that your ex cares because she’s angry, they are giving you false hope and wrong information. I have personally worked with hundreds of clients and I can tell you that anger is not beneficial to getting back together with your ex. It’s exactly the opposite.
If your ex dumped you and she’s angrier than the Hulk, please don’t try to oppose her. As you know from the first point in this article, opposing an angry ex brings about more anger and frustration.
10)Your ex is angry because she lacks empathy and understanding of herself
A dumper that has no ability to understand herself and her emotions is missing key elements to eliminating anger.
As you may already know, others may be the cause of what you are feeling but they aren’t responsible for your long-term emotions. How you act and react is completely in your hands. The same goes for your ex.
Because your ex is furiously angry, she lacks the knowledge and willpower to ask herself some important questions. As Anthony Robbins says, “the quality of our lives is often determined by the quality of our questions.” Yes, the questions we ask ourselves is what solves our worries and anxiety.
One of the most successful ways of solving problems is to use the 5 Whys technique. If your ex ever feels the need to stop feeling angry, all she has to do is ask herself some important questions. Questions, such as; “why am I feeling this way? How can I feel better? Do I have the right to project my anger toward my ex-boyfriend?“
11)Your ex is absurdly angry because she sees her past relationship from her perspective.
As you know, there are two sides to every story. Subjectively looking upon her past relationship angers your ex even if she ended it with you.
She can’t get rid of the victim’s mentality as long as she views herself as the victim. So when she takes her side of the story and converses with her friends or family, she indeliberately completes her story.
Bystanders always first stick with the person complaining and ranting. That’s how your ex objectively completes her story and makes you look bad.
She doesn’t “need” to hear your side of the story as long as she’s convinced she’s right. And because she’s convinced she’s right, she feels angry toward you.
In her mind, she’s still on the battlefield with you, solving the issues from the past, pretending to be the victim.
Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn—and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.
Dale carnegie, HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE
What do angry exes want?
If your ex is unbelievably angry, she definitely doesn’t want you to reciprocate with anger, nor does she want you to placate her anger. You can be the mightiest being on the planet and you won’t be able to calm her down. In fact, any deliberate attempts to soothe her hatred will only result in disappointment.
Angry exes want peace and quiet. They want exactly the opposite of what you feel the most tempted to do. It’s impossible to convince your angry ex-girlfriend into your way of thinking. She is not in a receptive state for you to do so. If she’s angry, you will only make her angrier. At best (if you don’t slip up), you will stop her from getting even angrier.
Your ex is still angry with you months or years later
If your ex is angry at you for no reason or if it’s been a long time since the breakup, it’s because she can’t let go of the past and snap out of the downward spiral.
All the points in this article apply to an ex that is still angry at you months or even years after the breakup.
Hopefully, you’ve come to a realization that it’s not your fault for the way your ex feels toward you. Her mentality is simply too fragile and underdeveloped to see you in a better light. This should make you think twice about whether you should attempt to be friends or even more with this person.
What can you do if your ex is angry?
If your ex dumped you and is angry, cold or bitter toward you and you don’t know what to do, read through the 11 points again. The more times you read through, the better you will understand your ex’s post-breakup anger.
To be honest, it’s truly way more about what you don’t do, rather than what you do. I know you feel inclined to do something right here and now but that’s not how it works.
If you’re looking for direct instructions on how to placate your ex, here’s how you win the post-breakup anger battle with your ex-girlfriend.
1)Apply the indefinite no contact rule
If you expected some direct, pitiful, apologetic approach with your angry ex-girlfriend who dumped you, you’re in for a treat. Since she’s trying to protect herself from whatever danger, you will only make her happy if you remove your attention. At the moment, she’s angry at you so your only option is to run so far away from her, her anger will subside on its own.
2)Forget about changing her mind
You can’t and shouldn’t interfere with your ex’s healing. Yes, anger toward you also requires healing. Anger is your ex-girlfriend’s disease and indefinite no contact is her medicine.
There is no other way to crawl back in her heart. Slow and steady may win the race when you start your own business or when you desire a promotion but not in breakups. Creeping into her subconscious mind occurs when you are not trying to change her mind. Any direct attempts only manifest the opposite of the desired effect.
3)Don’t change her, influence her
Changing her mind directly is not going to happen. You can, however, do your best to influence her.
This means you stay away from her and let her watch from afar. The best way to knock her off her pedestal is to show her you aren’t concerned about what she does or who she spends time with. Your ex, like most exes, will probably start socializing with new people and do some new activities.
She will appear as if she has an identity crisis—pretending to be someone she’s not.
While she’s doing that, pull out your bucket list from underneath some pile of books in your attic, blow the dust off and continue from where you left before you got involved with your ex. If you don’t have a bucket list, make one and get to it immediately.
The more you show her you enjoy your life without her, the more envious she could become and the more you will actually appreciate your life on Earth. Whether she realizes your amazingness or not is a win-win situation for you.
Jealousy oftentimes brings people back together and breaks them apart as well. It’s powerful, yet short-lived. If you’re a bit lucky and play your cards right, this strong set of emotions that can change the way your ex feels about you.
Tying to change an angry ex that dumped you is likely going to hurt you and slow down your recovery. Instead of trying to change your ex, step away from that which hinders your recovery and change yourself.
If you influence your angry ex by leaving her out of the picture, she could become receptive to jealousy and envy. And if she’s really angry and out of control, it might just get you blocked. I’ve seen both happen many times. So if your ex blocks you, retrace back to the beginning of the article and read the 2nd point again.
4)Stay true to yourself
When your ex dumps you, gets angry and acts like a victim, she will subconsciously pick fights with you. She will look for a million excuses to tell you “I told you so” and make herself look even more innocent.
If you can’t avoid contact with your ex, the best advice I can give you is to do your best not to push her buttons. Avoid petty conversations and asking her the questions that will infuriate her.
Be your best self—the person you, your friends and your family would be proud of. If you’ve improved since the breakup, don’t let your ex pull you back into the abyss. An angry and bitter ex-girlfriend means trouble from the past that you shouldn’t concern yourself with in the present or the future.
Your ex will try her very best to annoy and irritate you with her anger and bitterness. Don’t lower yourself to her level by falling for her lack of patience and understanding. Instead, carry on, knowing it’s out of your control.
5)Mind over matter
Your ex left you and is now acting angry toward you because she “can’t” control her emotions. Instead of thinking about her behavior, she is instead reacting to your actions and inactions and expects you to feed her ego by validating her existence.
She expects you to lower yourself to her level so that she can run away when you have an emotional meltdown.
If your ex is angry when she dumped you and you want to fix things, know that you can’t change her perception of you through sheer force. You should also remember that fighting anger with anger creates much of the same.
Alternatively, pacifying an ex often requires a different strategy—the mind over matter approach. This means you must persevere through your ex’s anger problems and do your best not to make it worse.
In breakups, your mind is the key and your emotions are your enemy. Find a way to utilize your brain’s potential and think about your actions. In this way, you will maximize your chances and achieve the most you possible can with your angry ex.
The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.
Sun Tzu, the art of war
Sun Tzu’s principle to winning a war applies to your breakup as well. You wish to win your ex over with as little trouble, effort and hurt as possible.
The easiest way to minimize damage and assure victory is to strategize your every move and follow your brain, instead of your heart. An angry ex can’t be overcome in an emotional way. If it were possible, you would have your ex back by now.
What you can do, is indirectly guide her bad at her own pace. If she takes a step toward you, you do the same. If she backs away, you reciprocate.
Although anger is a powerful state and a weakness at the same time, it can often be manipulated. Anger can’t, however, work to your advantage when you are trying to get back with an angry ex that dumped you.
6)Consistency
The last point on this list that could help your ex stop feeling angry is your consistency with yourself. Gain people’s trust by sticking to your promises and your positive attitude.
Doing one task only once doesn’t make it a part of you. It takes multiple attempts and a minimum of 66 days to crawl out of your comfort zone and form new patterns.
Nobody believes drug addicts when they say they will stop their addiction. It works the same way for you. If you say you will do something, make it clear and carry it out.
Failing to carry out a task or a promise will result in inauthenticity. And the more times you fail, the more people will lose trust in you.
I know it’s absurd to see your ex angry when you should be the angry one for being left behind. Did this article answer your question – “why is my ex angry when she dumped me?” If it did, please leave a comment below.
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. Learn more about me or get in touch today.
One of the most helpful and well written relationship articles I have ever read! Total game changer for me! Thanks
Thanks for the positive comment, KurtManley.
I’m happy you enjoy reading the blog.
Zan
Hi Zan
I’ve had a three year affair which my wife found out about in early 2019! I was planning to leave my wife for the woman I had the affair with (we went out as young adults in 2004 & have great history but it was just bad timing) but I spent the rest of 2019 trying to appease my wife as I felt guilty & I wanted to leave the marriage in sort of good terms. This included going on a family holiday in the summer & a trip to Ibiza with friends in October 19. All this convinced my lover that I cared more about pleasing my wife and not being with her and she was second choice! My wife found out that we were still seeing each other after the Ibiza trip and turned up at my lovers house when I was there and said I loved her & I’d never leave her and we’d still been occasionally having sex. This has devastated my lover and I’ve spent all of 2020 telling her that I made a huge error and please give me a chance to redeem myself, her biggest issue is not that she doesn’t love me but more that she can’t forget how I treated her and made her feel. This Christmas she’s been with her estranged husband (who doesn’t know anything) & her small children. We met last night and she’s said she’s so so angry with me, so very very upset and so frustrated & once again she doesn’t think she can get over what I’ve done.
We both sobbed and sobbed! But she just kept getting angry and said I just can’t believe how you’ve treated me!
Do I now leave her alone to try & figure things out? Is no contact my best option to allow her to try and get past the anger stage?
Can we also reverse the genders pls?! My ex boyfriend seems to always be mad at me, but he keeps coming back to me. I’m contemplating forever no contact. Its definitely true tho, ppl show their bad sides with time. He got anger issues but why he comes back & messes with my emotions?! Ugh.
It has been 24 years (now both married with children, never met again, facebook friends now) and my ex (the dumper) is still angry – at herself and then at the drop of a hat picks a fight. Honestly woman, I thought returning my high school class ring and asking me if I would like her to mail it or meet was a nice gesture.
After receiving her perfume-soaked package with my ring arrived we chatted a bit more (I decided not to meet, just chat). Then within two texts I had “assaulted her identity” and that she has “a right to speak her truth.”
I actually had this article and read it before responding, I thought the misunderstanding was pretty straightforward – surely an educated, rational mind could gently and rationally guide her past this little and previously unknown personal emotional trigger, as she was also of educated mind, to a normal catch-up conversation, and then laugh it off later. Ha ha ha.
FU*K NO!
In less than a minute I had assaulted her identity, then she went on a tirade of emotionally justifying that I had “turned something into what (she) said as something that wasn’t (and like the article says, nothing – not one thing (I wasn’t emotional and even went into this expecting an emotional response)- I said mattered or even registered), and ended by making the claim I was a threat to her marriage and livelihood.
I cannot wait for indefinite no-contact to come, I pray to God I never see this woman again, but know she will “show up” at a funeral in the future, in which no one wants her there, and my family and friends expect me to tell her not to come. It’s not that I won’t, or can’t, it’s just over the years you really see the cognitive distortions of the world in someone like this.
For others, male dumpees, all I can say is this: Not only is she still angry, she will get more and more unrecognizable and angry, yet at the same time her foundational issues, over decades, become more and more clear.
Great read!
This article was a huge disapointment. There are some people whom you are better off without in your life – your ex being one of them.
Let them think they hate you – nothing good can ever come from talking to your ex
Me and my ex gf had broken up about 2 months ago, but we started working on things and seeing each other half way through that all. Then one night we went to a party and she got super drunk and made a fool of herself, and we got into a fight. Next day she tried to fix things and I wasn’t ready to hear it, so afew days after that she gave up on fixing things, and jumped into a new relationship with a much older man she dated before. She would still talk to me here and there, one day even FaceTimed me afew times before ignoring me for 2 days. Then randomly one day she was super mad at me saying she didn’t trust me and I was angling people towards her to try and get her back, and that all the money in the world wouldn’t get her to come back to me. I just have no idea where the anger came from or who said what to her, but it caught me off guard and she deleted me.
It’s truly heartbreaking that my ex won’t get out of her own way. I don’t think she even knows why she’s angry with me other than I wasn’t as perfect as she wanted me to be? I didn’t even make any huge mistakes. I’ve even explained my mindset on a couple items she brought up again the other day. These items happened 7 years ago & we were still together after they happened.
I strongly believe she has victim mentality and if she’s hoping to get into a healthy relationship, I’m not sure how she can considering she can’t let go of the smallest slights.
I love this girl dearly and have done everything right in trying to reconcile but I get so much hot & cold behavior along with ridiculously strict boundaries that I question why I still try. We had an amazing 4 years together and a long history before that but this side of her is exhausting.
Excellent article!
Thank you so much for the post. I have been divorced for over 11 years and still have difficulties with my ex-wife. I really thought that she would move on as she remarried soon after our divorce. Not to the one she was seeing but to a person she knew from high school.
I took the high road for my children (Both very good and wonderful girls) who are now 19 and 16. I kept thinking it was me. That I had warranted the anger and bitterness by doing something awful. But as the years have gone by. I now believe she was always angry.
I look back and everything she went through was always someone else’s fault. DUIs, dropping out of four nursing schools, always broke or spending too much.
She has never had that moment. I have had many moments where I had to check myself and evaluate things I had done in my past. Many apologies to people I hurt over my years.
I just thought this was my karma. lol
Things happen, was married/together for 18 years! Suddenly “depressed and no longer in love with you”. Her best friend (who was never a fan) also had a big hand in it. She left me, got tattoos and basically became a new person. Blames me for everything! 18 months of abuse, hatred, etc. While you can’t control people, you can control yourself. Now after 3 years with a wonderful girl who loves me and the children and life is so much better. For those recently out of a longterm relationship, strongly suggest to avoid the temptation to get back simply because you miss the routine. Everything happens for a reason! sometimes (most often) for the better.
HI BOBBY
MY SITUATION STARTED PRETTY MUCH THE SAME AS YOURS, MY WIFE FELL UNDER THE SPELL OF MIDLIFE CRISIS BACK IN SPRING 2017, SHE STARTED TO CHANGE ALMOST OVER NIGHT, STARTED GOING OUT NEARLY EVERY NIGHT,GOT TATTOOS (SHE ALWAYS HATED THEM, GOT ME TO REMOVE MINE) BOOB JOB,BOTOX HAIR ,MAKE UP SEXIER CLOTHES, SHE GOT MORE AND MORE DISTANT UNTIL (JUMP FORWARD TO September 2019) i TOOK HER OUT FOR DINNER WERE SHE ASKED FOR A SEPARATION!
I KNEW SHE WAS GOING THROUGH SOMETHING BUT ALWAYS FELT I SHOULD STAND BY HER NO MATTER WHAT, I GAVE IT A FEW MONTH BEFORE I WENT HOME TO BRITAIN FOR A MONTH TO GIVE HER SOME TIME AND SPACE WITH OUT ME AS THAT IS WHAT SHE ASKED FOR , BUT THIS ONLY SEEM TO ANGER HER MORE, ON MY RETURN SHE ASKED FOR A DIVORCE AND I AGREED (IT NOT WHAT I WANT)BUT SINCE GETTING ADVICE FROM A VERY CLOSE FRIEND AND THINKING I WAS DO ING RIGHT BY HER, I DIDNT MOVE OUT, WHICH NOW I FEEL WAS MY BIGGEST MISTAKE AS ME BEING AROUND ONLY SEEMS TO ANGER HER. SHE SAID ME GOING WAY WAS BANDING HER AND THE KIDS. JUMP FORWARD TO THE PRESENT.I PLANED ON MOVING OUT AND STARTING SMART CONTACT AS WE HAVE KIDS BUT WE ARE NOW ON LOCKDOWN IN SPAIN AND THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO TO REMOVE MYSELF FROM THIS SITUATION BUT I PLAN TO MOVE AS SOON AS I CAN, NOT BECAUSE I DONT LOVE IT BECAUSE THE ONLY WAY I CAN SEE HER GETTING OVER THIS ANGER SHE HAS FOR ME IS TO STAY AWAY.
I AM IN PIECES AT THE LOSE OF A 23 YEAR RELATIONSHIP AND THE LOSE OF WHAT WAS A VERY BEAUTIFUL PERSON. I DONT KNOW THIS WOMAN ANY MORE , SAD…..
This is one of the best articles I have read about this subject. My husbands ex wife changed the locks 16 years ago and refused to even try to save the marriage – he is a decent man. He was not having an affair or anything. She is still angry at him 16 years later. She sends angry emails, angry texts. He cannot go round to her house to see his daughter ( 16 years old and on autistic spectrum) because she won’t allow it. He has been more than kind to her over the years – pays the child support without fail, gives her extra money if she asks and still she swears and yells.
I have asked him to have the no contact rule but he has to because of his daughter. When we got married, she tried to run him over…. that is how bad she is. She drips poison in the daughters ear.
I am just longing for the day when he is free of her – 2 years left.
Hi Zan. After a seemingly amicable breakup with my fiance 3 mos ago I experienced a major blowout with her today out of the blue. She contacts me about once a week and we have been on fairly good terms. She sent me a text this morning about her health issue and as i was busy at work i sent her the thumbs up emoji. Apparently this infuriated her. She texted me saying she “wouldn’t bother me anymore and take care. Not thinking clearly I forced her to have a phone conversation with me while she was at work and she said that showed I didn’t care about her. I tried to explain and now she is furiously angry and basically hung up on me and also unfriended me on social media. I was devastated because I thought we were making progress towards a possible reconciliation in time. You article puts it in total perspective and of course I now regret trying to explain myself, as apparently it wasn’t about me to begin with. Thanks for the insight!! I guess it really is time to move along for good.
Hi Patrick.
Your ex has the typical dumper mentality. She feels victimized and will continue to get angry at you when you don’t meet her expectations.
I suggest that you keep moving on and let her deal with her issues on her own.
Kind regards,
Zan
Literally everything you said here was true in my experience.
I work with this girl and we got to know each other for 3 months (a lot of flirting) I would get a lot of heart emojis hugging teddy bears and when she went on vacation i said i would miss her she said I’ll miss you more this flirting went on for 3 months and one day after it appeared to me she was throwing major comments that led me to believe she wanted me to ask her out I did so after thinking long and hard I asked her out to dinner after work and she could pick the night since she has a child but I also said if you are uncomfortable with this I’ll understand. She replied 3 hours later saying I appreciate you but I do not think (she mentions a a guy’s name) would appreciate it very much. This was the first I ever heard of this guy …if I knew he existed I would not have wasted 3 months. I replied That’s OK i understand now she has a hard time looking at me and acts like i slept with her and dumped her. If life was so wonderful with this guy why was she flirting with me and striving for my attention ? (notice she did not say I do not want to go out with you or even use the escape I gave for her that we work together and I would not be comfortable.) It has been a few months and she is a little more cordial toward me but still does not look at me but at a times once in a while not often will get a smiley emoji Is her life just a mess ? ( just an FYI I am pretty popular at work and i don’t date girls from the office but this one made me break my rule) signed me Baffled
Me and my ex were together for 5 months. Things just clicked for us. One day she decided to move in with her dad in which he lives an hour away. She moved in with him so she could save money. She was still working in the area where I lived so I was still seeing her a lot. But one day she got a job down where her dad lives and that kind of hurt the relationship a little bit. But we were still staying together because she was coming back. But one day she texted me and told me she doesn’t want to move back. So I’m just confused why she dragged this relationship on. I feel like she knew she didn’t want to come back but dragged me along. She speaks very highly of me to everybody. We were suppose to celebrate Christmas. She bought us a Christmas tree and she decorated my apartment. But now she doesn’t talk to me and sees me as stranger now. I did nothing to her, we never fought or anything. The relationship was damn near perfect. I tried my best talking to her but she doesn’t listen. Now she blocked my number. She’s acting angry towards me like I did something to her. She removed me off FB but didn’t block me. She still has my family on her FB. How can someone be mean towards someone that you thought were happy and now all of a sudden they flip a switch and angry at you and all you did was care for her and everything. I talked to her mom a few days ago because I took her tree over there because I didn’t have room for it. Her mom said she was very happy with you and that she’s just a confusing person and doesn’t know what she wants. She has a baby daddy and they were on and off for 8 years and her mom said I don’t see her getting back with but he could’ve gotten in her head a bit also. She lives an hour away from him though. But once again it’s only an hour. She lives an hour from me too. So Idk if she wants to be closer to him because of the kid.. idk. It’s just a lot of stuff that’s been going on in my head. This relationship doesn’t make sense on how it ended
Me and my ex were together for 5 months. Things just clicked for us. One day she decided to move in with her dad in which he lives an hour away. She moved in with him so she could save money. She was still working in the area where I lived so I was still seeing her a lot. But one day she got a job down where her dad lives and that kind of hurt the relationship a little bit. But we were still staying together because she was coming back. But one day she texted me and told me she doesn’t want to move back. So I’m just confused why she dragged this relationship on. I feel like she knew she didn’t want to come back but dragged me along. She speaks very highly of me to everybody. We were suppose to celebrate Christmas. She bought us a Christmas tree and she decorated my apartment. But now she doesn’t talk to me and sees me as stranger now. I did nothing to her, we never fought or anything. The relationship was damn near perfect. I tried my best talking to her but she doesn’t listen. Now she blocked my number. She’s acting angry towards me like I did something to her. She removed me off FB but didn’t block me. She still has my family on her FB. How can someone be mean towards someone that you thought were happy and now all of a sudden they flip a switch and angry at you and all you did was care for her and everything. I talked to her mom a few days ago because I took her tree over there because I didn’t have room for it. Her mom said she was very happy with you and that she’s just a confusing person and doesn’t know what she wants. She has a baby daddy and they were on and off for 8 years and her mom said I don’t see her getting back with but he could’ve gotten in her head a bit also. She lives an hour away from him though. But once again it’s only an hour. She lives an hour from me too. So Idk if she wants to be closer to him because of the kid.. idk. It’s just a lot of stuff that’s been going on in my head. This relationship doesn’t make sense on how it ended
Zan,
I came across your article.
Clarification at it’s best.
Still ponder. My previous partner would email photos of him cuddling with various others.
Union broke after confrontation due to a third party situation caused by ex.
Played the victim card post break up and made false accusations in order to protect reputation.
Was it an egotistical thing?
Thanks,
R.J.
Hi R.J.
I’m afraid it was very immature, vengeful and ego-driven.
He showed you that he can’t contribute to your life in a positive way.
Best,
Zan
Hey Zan, just wanted to thank you for all these helpful articles. My ex and I broke up around 3 months ago and I took it pretty badly, i was already going through a rough time in my life when we broke up and I ended up breaking down and begging for a day or 2 until I started reading and watching videos about no contact. About 2 months into no contact we were still working together and she started to become very nasty and unhappy whenever we saw eachother at work. So i decided to quit the job we had shared together to get away from her toxic behaviour having no idea she was actually mad at me. Fast forward about a month, I messaged her on instagram to apologies for some things I had said and done during our break up and she just told me that talking to me was hard and made her angry but she understood that I was just trying to make myself feel better. I have no more reason to contact her and now I truly believe that I will never see her again in my court and that the ball has rolled off the field per say. Thank you zan, for all the insight in your articles that I have had the pleasure of reading over the past few months, and any insights or advice is always welcomed! 🙂
Hi John.
Your breakup had to occur for things to change for both of you. Now that you’re no longer together, you need to focus on the things that you can control. Focus on getting over your ex and on fixing your shortcomings.
I guarantee that you won’t care much longer if you keep going strong and continue detaching from her.
You’re doing great, so keep it up!
Zan
This site is a great comfort! After being reasonably calmly divorced for 12y. my ex is giving me plenty to worry about. She will not come to a family celebration if I am there, she says she has blocked all (electronic) communication, sends the same letter to both addresses I use etc., etc. This makes a real problem for the rest of the family.
I had already worked out the importance of me not getting upset. Confirmation of this plus some tips I hadn’t thought of are very comforting
Hi Brian.
I’m glad you liked the article.
I wish you the best of luck!
Best regards,
Zan
Hi Zan.
Another great article! I found myself identifying with and nodding and re reading. We’ve talked about my situation in comments and the topic of this article I found really relevant to me.
I found myself on the curious end of an ex who became angry in no contact, because of no contact. Weird. When we were speaking in the 4 weeks after a relatively low drama (albeit devastating feeling to me) breakup, it was fine, zero bad words or vitriol (from my part) and she wanted it to continue talking as friends. Essentially using me as attention and making her feel good I suppose. A nice little taper off for her. A plan Z in her distant Earth orbit. This weird dynamic she was enjoying relied solely on me ringing her. We didn’t talk much, perhaps 1 once a week over 4 weeks.
As you know 4 months ago I put a stop to this, 4 weeks post break up when I moved away from the area. After one pleasant friendly call that she earnestly ended “speak soon” I vowed that was it. I never rang her again. Reason being it was killing me. I just needed to have time. I didn’t contact her 2 months later on her 30th. It became apparent by various social media “memes” and posts she was becoming increasingly dismayed at my lack of calling and then angry. If she was angry by that point she was furious by my total silence during her 30th and positively aghast at my silence a few weeks when Easter rolled around. It was then she blew her lid, de friended and blocked me on social media out of the blue and after 4 solid months of me not bothering her one iota,
So my ex went from a low drama (no shouting or nasty outbursts etc) breakup, friendly chatting terms she wished to continue but became angry after I went into NC. I sometimes ponder, given 4 months of no contact has took a girl who wants to have me calling her and turned her into an angry bitter woman that could another 4 months see her start to simmer down. Or perhaps that’s it, she’ll just crystallised me as a bad guy for being so callous as to not call her and just vanish ( I don’t believe this rubbish myself, rather just know from instinct that’s how she sells the narrative to herself).
I must admit I thought things were meant to improve your image and value in your exes eyes during NC, not make a “could be worse” situation and make it much worse ha, but then that’s my ex for you! She is not one to do much self critique and one hell of a stubborn sod.
I continue NC and things as discussed. Great article! I always pop by the site to keep my motivation up.
Hi Dave.
Thanks for the comment. I hope you’re doing well.
You have every right to remove your attention from your ex if staying in contact is hurting you. In my opinion, protecting your heart was the right thing to do despite enraging her with your silence. In moments like these, you must remember you did nothing wrong and that you’re not responsible for her anger.
It’s her turn to come to a realization that it’s not your lack of care that is angering her but her desire for attention. Hopefully, she will be forced to re-evaluate herself one day.
Best regards,
Zan
Hi Zan. Thanks for the great post.
I have a query.
The 3rd point as you mentioned in the post happens in the family disapproval
Hi Prashant.
The third point can apply to disapproving families as well.
Best,
Zan