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The breakup happened at the initiative of the former. But after a while, you suddenly started getting likes from him on social media. Then a message. And finally the call. What is behind this behavior? And how to behave if you still need this relationship?
The desire to end a relationship in most cases is not mutual. “We decided to break up” is almost always a softened version of events for others. It helps to maintain the self-esteem of the abandoned and partly stop the feeling of guilt of the departing. Why can the one who decided to end everything come back into our lives?
He is interested in your life
“Thanks to the distance that has arisen between you, quarrels and resentments are gradually erased. He is no longer annoyed by what he left the relationship. When he thinks about you, only the best moments are drawn, explains interpersonal relationship coach James Bauer. “Caution, all this is still very far from the desire to return you. Rather, he experiences discomfort from the fact that he ceases to understand himself. In psychology, this phenomenon is called the transition from a dysfunctional relationship to a neutral one.
At this stage, he becomes interested in how you live without him. Social networks come to the rescue, where he dives in search of information. You will find out that he was casually interested in you from mutual acquaintances. He likes your posts, and in the end you get the message “How are you?”.
What to do?
“You shouldn’t talk about your personal life on social networks, much less respond to his messages under your posts,” says James Bauer. — You do not repel him with this, but, on the contrary, increase interest in yourself. Gradually, his perception will shift more and more from a neutral assessment of your relationship towards positive memories. After all, once you chose each other and wanted to be together.
He proposes a meeting
Watching you from afar, but not having satisfied his curiosity, he decides to make direct contact. “The psychological explanation for this is the same — the former partner cannot get rid of the internal dissonance,” Bauer explains. — This makes him more and more restless, he wants first of all to sort out his feelings. Gradually, the situation turns from neutral to more emotionally colored, where the leader is no longer the one who broke up, but the one who was left.
The former partner does not understand what is happening with you and with him, why he is so restless, and seeks to find out what is behind your silence, whether you are playing with him or rejecting him.
What to do?
The offer to meet and talk is worth agreeing to. If you start to stubbornly evade, he may regard this as an unwillingness to see him. The task is to keep the former in the dark about his feelings and rock his inner swing. Then the lack of your presence and attention will return him to the best time of the relationship.
He offers friendship
When you go on a date, be prepared for it. “In the stage of experiencing the loss of a relationship, we often see hope for something more in the offer of friendship and agree,” comments the coach. “You should only be friends if he offers you a real relationship, and you, in turn, decide to start with friendship.”
What to do?
You don’t have to deceive yourself. When they say to you: “You are dear to me,” this means that the ex wants to keep you in sight, but he is still far from regretting the breakup. By agreeing to friendship, you again give him the role of leader, finding yourself in the position of a follower. However, sometimes he offers friendship with sex. Of course, in the position of the so-called «friends with benefits» the benefit is still exclusively on his side.
“Agreeing to this would be an even bigger mistake,” Bauer said. “You won’t get your lover back by trying to tie him back to you bodily. There is no love here, but there is almost certainly a loss of self-respect. The dynamics of relations in such a scenario will only be negative. You feel in a weak and dependent position, he takes advantage of this position.
He proposes to start over
This scenario is not guaranteed, but it is possible. If you endured the role of an observer, and the other half honestly walked the inner path that led to a conscious desire to return, then … no, this is far from a happy ending. This should not be a continuation of the story from the same note, but a fundamentally different relationship.
It’s good if you switch roles at the same time. If at first the partner left and left you no choice, now you decide whether to be together. The worst reason for returning is the partner’s desire to restore a sense of stability that has been lost. In this case, the internal conflict will not be resolved, which will lead to a series of partings and returns.
A conversation is needed, and often more than one, in order to understand at what point and what exactly broke down in a relationship. It is important to learn to hear each other and take mutual responsibility for what happened.