The news from one of my ex-partners that he no longer loved me deeply affected me. I just couldn’t believe that this person who had been gently rubbing my back the night before suddenly stopped loving me. I was so confused and devastated. For weeks after the breakup, I stayed up late. Endlessly googling signs your ex still loves you and asking questions like “does he still love me?” and “does my ex want me back?”
Later, I found out for sure that my ex still loved me, and when he broke up with me and told me it was over, he was hurt. He was angry and had a whole bunch of emotions. Maybe he was just confused.
After this breakup, I helped different people get back together with their exes and create better relationships than ever before. And over time, I have identified signs that your ex still loves you.
Here are 12 signs your ex still loves you.
1. He keeps in touch with you when there is no need.
One of the most obvious signs that your ex still loves you is that he keeps in touch with you. He may send you unexpected messages or call you for very strange and questionable reasons. Men usually do not crave the attention of those they have completely fallen out of love with.
It is a sure sign that your ex still loves you if he keeps showing up in your life.
2. He says he still wants to be friends and tries to make time for you.
Most of the time, when an ex says they still want to be friends, they are really saying they are not ready to deal with the loss.
“Can we still be friends?” is one of those normal things people say when they decide to break up. Because the unknown is scary. Plus, he might be trying to keep you as a “plan B,” especially if he left you for someone else.
He may have genuinely meant that he wants to be your friend now . In practice, trying to stay friends with an ex is painful because it keeps opening up the wound you’re trying to heal. A real sign that he doesn’t want to let you go is whether he tries to date you after the breakup.
You know your ex better than anyone else. If he’s just trying to keep you around to feed his ego, you may not be friends.
3. He has strong emotions towards you.
The more intense his emotional reaction to your breakup, whether it’s love, hate, or terrible deep sadness, the more likely it is that love is lurking beneath the surface.
Research from the University of Birmingham shows that women experience more emotional and physical pain after a breakup, but men do not fully recover from the pain. Men take longer to get over the loss. While women tend to grieve and genuinely calm down sooner, men often do not. This means that if he once loved you, he probably still does and has dealt with the breakup emotionally by burying his feelings rather than fully processing them.
Love and hate are two aspects of the same entity. Too many people say that their ex was ridiculously angry with them after the breakup but suddenly admitted that he was still in love.
Anger is a tricky emotion to deal with after a breakup because it usually masks sadness and pain. If your ex is really mad at you, it doesn’t necessarily mean they hate you. The opposite of love is genuine indifference and apathy. When someone truly doesn’t love you, they usually become bored and don’t care about you.
4. He brags about his self-improvement and achievements.
Does he mention how great he’s doing at the gym? Tell you how incredible his new project is. Or has he finally gotten up and gotten a job?
Maybe your ex is trying to make you jealous. Or, more likely, he still hopes for your approval and wants you to notice that he has changed and be proud of him. Remember, we are not trying to brag to people we are not interested in.
5. He is in no hurry to cut off the ends completely.
Do you still have a lot of his stuff? Or is he in no hurry to give you yours?
After the breakup, I obsessed over the fact that I left a shawl and a book at my ex’s house. The fact that he never returned them (or even mentioned them) made me believe that there was still hope for our relationship. I was completely wrong, but I still loved him and I wanted to believe that he still loved me.
Appealing to the mind is one of the ways people hope their ex still loves them after a breakup. If he or she is not in a hurry to completely cut ties, this is a very common sign that your ex still loves you and probably still cares.
6. His friends or parents subtly try to convince you to talk to him.
If you have mutual friends, they may sometimes hint that he misses you. In front of them, he probably doesn’t hide the fact that he still has feelings for you.
His friends and family, who believe in love and are incredibly tired of hearing him rave about you, will gently nudge you towards each other when your ex still loves you and wants you back.
