Why Is My Ex Posting So Much On Social Media?

Exes’ social media behavior can be extremely difficult to read at times. Not only do most exes appear relieved and happy, but they also post more than they ever did in the past.

They post more pictures, like more memes, update their status more often, and completely confuse us with their newfound freedom and determination.

By suddenly appearing more active on social platforms, they essentially trigger our fears and insecurities and tell us that they’ve become different people without us.

But in reality, this isn’t what’s going on. They may be happily moving on because they’re set on leaving their old lives behind, but they aren’t necessarily growing as people.

For them to grow, they’d need to reflect on their shortcomings and invest a lot of time and effort in them. Just like dumpees, they’d need to think about their poor choices, regret them very much, and vow to never repeat them in the future.

This is how personal growth works.

But, unfortunately, most dumpers aren’t interested in growing. They’re interested in enjoying themselves, which is why instead of looking within themselves, they focus on external happiness – on things that are new and exciting to them and waste their precious post-breakup time on unimportant things.

I suppose they feel so empowered with relief and so excited about their new lives that they blame their exes for the end of the relationship and neglect the importance of self-reflection.

Dumpees, on the other hand, hate seeing their ex relieved and happy. They hate it because they take their ex’s happiness and relief very personally and oftentimes blame themselves for the way their ex acts after the breakup.

They don’t understand that the reason their ex is happy isn’t necessarily because they were bad partners but rather because their ex had been bottling up negative emotions and lacked the emotional intelligence to express them.

Most dumpers, unfortunately, experience at least some relief. But those who have a victim mentality and lack understanding of themselves and others usually feel very relieved. They feel so relieved they chase after external happiness and go on social media to post about it.

Such dumpers follow their instincts as they tend to lack in the maturity and self-awareness department.

So don’t think that your ex is posting a lot on social media because of something you did or didn’t do. Unless you were abusive to your ex, your ex’s relief is most likely directly related to your ex’s inability to express his or her emotions in a healthy manner.

In simpler terms, your ex’s relief is self-created by unhealthy perceptions of you.

I know it can feel tempting to analyze your ex’s social media posts like a crazy person and find a million ways to hurt your self-esteem, but don’t do that. Don’t hurt yourself just because your ex is posting a lot and seems to be having the time of his or her life.

Always remember that your ex’s emotions, thoughts, and actions are your ex’s doing and that your ex doesn’t even understand why he or she feels so happy. Your ex just knows that the relationship was making him or her unhappy and that he or she can finally be happy now that it’s finally over.

In this post, we’re going to talk about why your ex keeps posting so much on social media. Just to make it clear, this includes Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Tinder, and any website or app where your ex can express himself or herself publicly.

Why is my ex posting so much on social media?

As dumpees, we don’t want our ex to post a lot of happy posts on social media. We want our ex to post only sad and depressing posts because such posts tell us that our ex is having a difficult time adjusting to a life without us and that he or she may soon have an epiphany and come back.

Unhappy posts are the kinds of posts we’re hoping for more than anything, but, unfortunately, we normally get the opposite kind.

We get lots of posts that depict relief, happiness, independence, and confidence—and come across various signs that our ex is never coming back. Signs like our ex talking badly about us and dating someone else.

When we come across unwanted signs, our high expectations immediately go up in a blaze and the world comes crashing down on us. No longer do we think that our ex thinks about us and misses us, but that our ex is having a great time without us and that he or she doesn’t need us anymore.

If this is how you feel – mainly because your ex is posting a lot of pictures and random things on social media, you need to understand that your ex feels extremely empowered by the breakup.

Your ex feels relieved because your ex had been holding suffocating emotions inside for a very long time. However, now that the breakup has occurred, your ex doesn’t need to hold them inside anymore. Your ex can just release them and do the things that make him or her happy.

Although your ex is happy and confident about a new beginning, bear in mind that your ex is merely temporarily happy. His or her suffocating emotions just got freed, meaning that it’s expected of your ex to appear different or even unrecognizable for a while.

It’s important for you to understand this so that you don’t think your ex is posting so much on social media because of you. It is, of course, related to you because your ex associated a lot of negativity with you and held unhealthy emotions inside, but it isn’t because of you.

Each and every person is responsible for his or her emotions, including your ex. And your ex just needed to deal with them quickly and efficiently. But because your ex didn’t or couldn’t deal with them, your ex failed at communicating them to you and projected them onto the world in a form of relief.

Another important thing to note is that your ex is regaining his or her identity. Your ex had been with you for a very long time and got accustomed to your traits, behavioral patterns, hobbies, habits, and routines and made them a part of him/her.

By doing so, your ex got closer to you emotionally and acquired a piece of your identity (became somewhat like you).

Now that the relationship is over, though, your ex doesn’t want that anymore. Your ex wants to disassociate from you characteristically and behaviorally and focus entirely on his or her own traits.

This is how your ex can distract himself or herself and not think about the things the two of you have in common.

Why would your ex not want to think about you or be reminded of you, you ask?

That’s very simple. It’s because your ex felt incredibly smothered by your presence (not necessarily attitude) for days, weeks, or even months prior to the breakup and now needs time to be alone to recover from the stress that he or she has suffered.

If your ex is posting a lot on Instagram, Facebook, or various social platforms and apps—and this behavior doesn’t resemble your ex’s usual behavior, it’s more than likely that your ex is in the 1st – relief stage of a breakup for the dumper.

Your ex is trying to self-prioritize because doing so brings your ex peace.

One thing you need to become aware of is that your ex may be happy now that your ex feels empowered with relief and various post-breakup emotions. But as time goes by and your ex gets out of the relief stage, that’s no longer going to be the case.

I can almost guarantee that your ex will revert to his or her usual self and post a lot less than now. This is because your ex will lose the main motivator for posting a lot on social media.

That motivator is an emotion – elation which is caused by relief which is caused by unhappiness, caused by (false) perceptions and the inability to express emotions properly.

Your ex could, of course, pick up the habit of frequent posting. But let’s face it, most people don’t. Habits take months to form and only days to break. And your ex has only a few months of time to permanently change before he or she reverts to his or her old self.

So start no contact and give your ex some time to go through the dumper stages at his or her own pace.

In no contact, you’ll be able to relax a bit and learn that your ex is posting a lot on social media mainly because he or she has escaped emotional imprisonment and now feels relieved with an abundance of freedom and independence.

If you still can’t figure out why your ex keeps posting so much on social media, have a look at the infographic below. It will simplify things.

I’d like you to understand your ex’s behavior so that you don’t immediately assume that your ex’s Facebook or Instagram posts mean that your ex has changed within.

On the contrary, they mean that your ex feels relieved from the breakup and that he or she is engaging in things that are new, different, and distracting.

Some of the things dumpers often do after the breakup are:

• meet new people
• make new friends
• post a lot on social media (or conversely, disappear from social media)
• pick up new hobbies
• date new people
• engage in excessive self-destructive social activities such as drinking and partying

Please note that dumpers do these things because they’re relieved and not necessarily because they’re awful people. Dumpers merely find new ways to distract themselves because doing so allows them to enjoy their freedom and independence.

And no, they don’t distract themselves because they’re struggling to cope without us. This is rarely the case—and it’s what fake breakup experts want you to believe.

Most of the time, our exes avoid us like the plague because they’ve been unhappy with us for so long that they’ve accumulated anger, contempt, impatience, or disgust.

It hurts to hear this, I know, but they’ve been feeling trapped and wanted to distance themselves from us to protect themselves from producing even more unhealthy thoughts and feelings.

Sadly, most dumpees are in denial about their ex’s lack of romantic feelings and have a difficult time coming to terms with the fact that their ex is focusing on moving on.

Part of it has to do with their coping mechanism as the human brain tends to resist any change that threatens its attachment. An even bigger issue though seems to be that dumpees spend a big portion of their time looking for false hope in places where people are willing to give it to them.

This is why they often fall prey to internet scammers preying on their hope. Some of the internet scams you can find these days are:

• the 30-day no contact rule
• text your ex back
• jealousy tactics
• manipulation techniques
• spells to get your ex back
• apology/love letters to an ex

Dumpees’ internet “saviors” basically claim that dumpers will miss them romantically after a certain period of time and that they will run back to them if they say the right words to them.

In truth, that doesn’t happen very often as dumpers’ negative associations aren’t tied to time and their ex’s effort. They’re tied to dumpers’ abilities to disassociate negative associations from their ex and to the painful, self-reflective events going on in their lives.

This means that dumpers think about their dumpees and miss them when:

1. They break up with them in the heat of the moment (when they still have feelings for them).
2. Or when they realize they’ve made a mistake the hard way (through pain and suffering – when their post-breakup plans fail).

Most dumpers experience some nostalgia, reminders of the past, guilt, and even feelings of regret from time to time. There’s no denying it as dumpers are human beings with feelings too.

But this doesn’t mean that their occasional increase in negative feelings indicate love and romantic interest.

All it means is that they respect their ex as a person and that there are certain parts of the relationship that they think fondly of.

I know that this wasn’t easy to read if you recently got broken up with. But if there’s one thing you take from this article, let it be that what you want from your ex is the exact opposite of what you need.

• If you want your ex back, what your heart actually needs is for the pain to stop. You want yourself back and not necessarily your ex who caused you pain.
• If you want your ex to love you and give you recognition, you need to fall in love with yourself. You need to convince yourself that you matter and that you deserve love.
• And if your ex’s social media posts hurt you, confuse you, or annoy you and you want to learn more about your ex, you need to stop caring about it. You need to detach from your ex and mind your own business.

Your heart isn’t telling you what it needs to be happy. It just knows what it requires for the pain to stop as quickly with as little effort as possible.

So if you can’t stop wondering why your ex keeps posting so much on social media apps or websites, answer this question for me.

Why do you care what your ex does? Are you curious about your ex or are you hurt that your ex is doing something new without you?

Learning the truth will make it easier for you to focus on yourself and stop analyzing your ex’s social media.

What to do if my ex is posting a lot on social media?

Now that you know why your ex is posting so much on social media, let’s look at some of the things you can do to stop your ex from playing with your mind.

First and foremost, if you’re obsessing over your ex’s social media and you can’t seem to stop no matter what you do, there’s a very simple solution to your problem that requires very little effort.

Make it impossible for you to obsess.

Delete or unfollow your ex or delete social media. And if that doesn’t work because your ex’s profile is public, stop using devices that support social media apps.

Go back to using those old Nokia phones if you have to and do whatever it takes to stop checking up on your ex.

This is the easiest way to overcome your stalking obsession as getting your ex out of sight will also get him or her out of mind.

Secondly, tell your friends not to update you on your ex anymore. Explain to them why it’s important for you not to receive updates on your ex and ask them to keep you in the dark until you tell them it’s okay to talk about your ex again.

This will slowly but surely help you detach and allow you to appreciate yourself again.

And thirdly, get busy and do something you love or would love to do. The fact that your ex’s social media activity bothers you so much means that you’re hurt or that you lack personal goals and ambitions.

Either way, whether it’s your happiness or personal goals, something is lacking. So set some new goals, get busy with your life, and do your best to lose interest in your ex’s Facebook or Instagram posts.

When you finally stop checking up on your ex, you’ll realize that your ex’s social media activity doesn’t make a difference in your life and that you’ve got more productive things to worry about.

Is your ex suddenly posting a lot on social media? Are you worried that your ex is moving on without you? As always, leave your comment in the comments section below.

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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. Learn more about me or get in touch today.