12 Signs Your Ex Still Loves You
When one of my exes told me that he didn’t love me anymore, it shook me to the core. 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 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 for 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 sides of the same coin. 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 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 didn’t return them (or even mention 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 way people hope their ex still loves them after a breakup. If he or she is in no rush 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.
When your ex still loves you and wants you back, his friends and family will gently nudge you towards each other because they believe in love. And because they are incredibly tired of hearing him rant and rave about you.
7. He doesn’t move on.
Is your ex persistently single to “find himself”? If he doesn’t move on with someone new after breaking up with you, then this could be a sign that he’s hoping you’ll get back together. He could also be so devastated by your breakup that he can’t imagine dating someone new.
8. His girlfriend hates you.
This is one of the weirdest signs that your ex still loves you and wants you back. But hear me out. Rebound relationships usually involve a lot of emotional release, as the recently separated person hasn’t had much time to get over the breakup before meeting someone new and moving on.
As a result, his new girlfriend has probably heard a lot about you. She is most likely supportive of him, but she also has a lot of her feelings for you.
If your ex didn’t feel anything for you, he wouldn’t talk about you as much. You’d probably make her curious. But when his new girlfriend hates you, she’s probably feeling competitive and trying to protect her territory. The fact that this is an issue at all points to his unresolved feelings for you.
9. He stalks you on social media.
Is your ex scrolling through your Facebook and liking your posts? Is he still commenting and sharing what you post? Did he recently follow you on Instagram out of the blue? These are all signs that he may still have feelings for you. Guys don’t waste their time and energy on useless things like keeping in touch with you online if they don’t care about you.
If you don’t want to get back together, break up with him because constantly bumping into him won’t help you move on or feel better about the breakup. The temptation to stay up late wondering pointlessly what your ex is up to is hard to resist.
Research shows that people who keep in touch with their exes on social media are more likely to damage their new relationships.
10. He wonders about his rivals.
Does he ask you if you’re seeing someone new? And if he already knows you’ve moved on and there’s someone else in your life, does he still ask about it?
The most important sign to look out for is that if your ex misses you, he may act jealous.
11. He calls you when he’s drunk.
A man calling and texting you while he’s drunk can be annoying and confusing, but it shows that he’s thinking about you when his defenses are down.
Unless you share some kind of shared responsibility with him that requires you to pick up the phone at all hours, do yourself a big favor and ignore any late-night texts or calls from your ex right now.
Just don’t answer the phone at, say, 11:00 PM. If he has something to say, he’ll eventually say it sober. So don’t believe anything he says if he decides to contact you drunk.
12. He is still by your side.
Does he offer to fix something, do something for you, or share his resources without you asking? It could just be because he’s a nice guy who still cares about you. It could also mean that he misses you, still loves you, and wants you back. Men show their caring through their actions more than any other way.
Is your ex doing any of these things? Do you want another chance to have a great relationship with him? Then you need to take action before it’s too late.
