When your relationship has come to an end, with the pain of separation lingering in the corners of your heart, you can feel deeply out of place.
You might even feel trapped inside your head, second guessing if your ex is genuinely not interested in you anymore or just pretending to be over you.
Now you might question:
- is there still hope?
- Is my ex still interested?
- Does this sound like you?
- Do you feel like you constantly receive mixed signals?
- Are you deeply longing for the answers what to do with your ex?
- Or that it should be better for you to stop the dreaming about them coming back once and for all?
You might have been through a major heartbreak and now you donât know what to do.
Should I let go or is there still hope?
These questions might pop up in your head and now youâre looking for direction. Youâre in the right place.
In this blog weâll be diving deeper into gaining clarity if your ex is truly over you or just pretending to be.
Signs Your Ex Is Pretending to Be Over You
1. They are in a rebound relationship
Your long-term relationship just ended and within a short period of time it looks like they have âmoved on like you were nothing.”
They pretend to have found the love of their life while at the same time, just recently, they were still deeply in love with you.
And, does your ex is still keeps the contact with you even though when they are in a new relationship?
Then, Gwendolyn Seidman (Ph.D)shares in this research that if thatâs the case, the current relationship might not be so serious as you believe it is.
Big chances are that theyâre just burying the feelings away with having someone else. They are using their new partner to get under your skin.
Nothing can distract us more from our true and honest feelings than a rebound relationship.
2. They still go out of their way to fight with you
Letâs face it: When someone truly doesnât care about you, they wouldnât put all the time and energy into starting arguments or playing the blame-game all day long.
You only put in energy in the things that matter to you.
If theyâre still fighting with you and trying to get your attention related to matters of the past, they might still carry positive feelings for you and your ex is pretending to be over you.
3. They give mixed signals
Theyâre still interested in how your day was or they still like all of your social media posts.
When you see them somewhere, they try to establish prolonged eye contact.
They come close to you but still, they maintain enough space to keep you in their life.
If you donât know where you stand with your ex even after you thought you âclosed the book together” and they still do some of these things, theyâre not completely over you.
If youâre dealing with a lot of hot and cold behavior, then it’s evident that your ex partner still love interest in you.
4. They keep their old routine
I remember Julia, she was so in love with her ex-boyfriend who clearly stated that he didnât want to be with her anymore.
They broke up.
However, she kept going to the same places where they used to hang out. She kept sitting in the same bench where they used to have their lunch together.
She wasnât able to let go of the routines that kept her connected to her past lover. If your ex is still doing this, this is also a clear sign your ex is waiting for you.
In the end, if you truly cut the chords with someone, would you still go to the same old places that reminds you of them and your past?
5. They try to make you feel jealous
Earlier they were hardly active on social media platforms, but now theyâre on it all the time.
Theyâre showing their âamazing lifeâ, while deep inside, you know something feels off. This new party animal image portrayal is nothing more than a coping mechanism.
Where they at first were completely heartbroken, they now suddenly seem to have it all together. Posting photoâs with other people, posting photoâs of going out or any type of behaviour that feels far different from how they used to behave.
This behaviour can be offline or online.
If you have a gut feeling that something is suddenly off, it’s possible that your ex is trying to make you feel jealous and secretly hoping to get your attention.
6. They keep wanting to talk over the reasons for your breakup
Your ex keeps bringing up ghosts from the past. They keep talking and fishing into your waters to understand why you had to move away from them.
No matter what you do or say, they canât seem to accept that the break up really happened and they keep looking for ways to understand why the two of you had to seperate.
In the head and heart of your ex, you havenât faded away and they canât seem to convince themselves that the break up is real.
If they canât find acceptance and keep trying to find a weak spot inside you, that might lead to reconciliation, you can clearly see, that they havenât find peace in the separation.
It’s a huge sign that your ex is pretending to be over you.
7. They haven’t “publicly” acknowledged the breakup
If they havenât openly talked about the break up, if they havenât made it real to their family or mutual friends, itâs because they don’t want it to be real.
Letâs be honest. When your ex isnât talking about the break up to the people around them, the stakes are high that they are hoping to get back together in future.
8. They have Drunk Dialed You
I believe you might have had an experience (one or two) with alcohol, where you can feel that the drinking is making you loosen up more.
If you have an ex that is constantly calling you while he is drunk or even emotional at night, youâre more on their mind than you believe you are.
In this article, research even says that when you drink, it can allow you to expand your communicative freedoms by overriding your typical self-protective defence mechanisms.
They might feel in control during the day time, but when the night falls, the reality of what they truly feel, comes to light.
9. They ask you questions
They are overly invested in you by asking questions constantly. Questions that might even feel controlling to you.
Questions like:
⢠Who you were with or who you went out with recentlyâŚ
⢠Whether you’ve a new partner or notâŚ
⢠Asking if anyone has been in the house (if you both used to live together)âŚ
⢠Checking where you had been too recentlyâŚ
⢠Asking to check your phoneâŚ
⢠Asking anything that is sensitive relating to your relationshipâŚ
If this sounds like your ex, theyâre trying to pull information from you to see where your head is at and if they still can get a chance with you.
10. They’re sabotaging you
When someone canât have you, the âbeautiful wordsâ can fast turn into harsh comments, or critical behaviour that isnât supporting your growth.
I still remember the story I had with one of my exes, Marco (not his real name), who was my most intense ex to say. He could be the sweetest guy, the one who would step up for me.
He would go left or right for me, until we separated. After the break up he was so full of jealousy when I talked with other men (we lived in the same village), that he could completely lose it.
He regularly just approached me and talked down on me with harsh comments whenever he had the chance. He started to expose things that my mother, my sister or even my friends âsaidâ about me.
He made up stories about what the people in my village were saying. He did all this to just talk me down because he lost his sense of control over me. People can make weird moves when they feel out of control.
If your ex isnât supporting your growth, if your ex is constantly making harsh comments to you, itâs fair enough to question if you should leave the gates for contact still open.
Do you really want someone in your life who isnât coming from an authentic, honest and loving place, have access to your precious heart and mind?
11. They look out for reasons to bump into you
We all might know or have experiences with that âcreepy exâ that just shows up to be everywhere where you are too.
You might even witness your ex just showing up on every party, every cafĂŠ, every place. When someone is obsessively in love with you, all they see is âyouâ.
This is also what Researcher Patrick Cavanagh explains here: “Our brains unconsciously bend our perception of reality to meet our desires or expectations. And they fill in gaps using our past experiences.”
When your ex is full of love for you and show up in every corner, theyâre doing everything to maximise the chances to get to see you.
If your ex always seems a little bit “too closeâ, even though you donât have the same group of friends, theyâre still interested in you.
12. Theyâre reaching out to your circle to know what youâre doing
Another way of behaving that can include that theyâre just still head over heels about you, is that theyâre still trying to gather information about you through your (closest) friends.
This might seem innocent, but chances are high, the love is still there.
Do you really think someone would still be interested to know about your day to day throughout mutual friends or closest circle, if they didnât care at all?
13. They respond positively to you contact them
There is a difference between being kind and being too open and inviting. There is a thin line between those two.
If you send them a message and they seem to keep the conversation flowing by asking you personal questions, using emoticons, slowly opening more doors, chances are very high theyâre still interested.
However, this can also indicate that theyâre open for friendship and truly are being kind.
Letâs face the facts. âWhen someone doesnât care, they wouldnât have asked.â As in this article, Berit Brogaard, D.M.Sci., Ph.D, clearly states this according to her research.
The only way to know this, is to trust your gut feeling and the time, as the passing of time will most likely reveal the truth.
14. Youâve caught them looking at you
One of the biggest signs to know if your ex is still not over you, is to watch out for a couple of signs according to body language.
According to research, one of the major signs to know if someone is attracted to you, is eye contact. When someone is genuinely interested in you, they will be looking more deeply into your eyes and holding your gaze.
Besides this, other indicators in body language that are signs of attraction according to this research are:
– They lean in
– They tilt their head as you speak (a sign of engagement)
– They smile at you
– They make eye contact with you
– They reach out and touch your arm, hand, back or leg
These are the signs your ex is pretending to be over you but is not.
15. They havenât taken back their belongings
Can you go back to a time that you had a break up (if any) with someone that you didnât love anymore? Or maybe even the break up of a (close) friend that comes to mind?
One of the first things that you do, when you seperate from someone you choose to seperate from, is to slowly (or fast) collect what is yours so that you can start to move on with life.
You donât want to let it linger around. You see it as a closed chapter. Isnât this true?
If your ex is still not taking back their belongings, the chances are high they still secretly hope of getting back together.
16. Your ex still keeps your things and gifts
We tend to hold onto things because we find it hard to let them go. If your ex still has all the gifts and things that are connected the two of you together then your ex is pretending to be over you.
The separation truly becomes real when we say goodbye to the last things that still connect us to our ex-partner and past relationship.
If your partner isnât letting go of these things, they might still love you more than you think.
What you can do?
First of all, the most important questions to ask yourself is:
- do you really want to be with someone who is pretending to not like you?
- Or someone who genuinely doesnât want to be with you?
- Do you really want to keep looking back to someone who isnât ready to step up for you and give you what you deserve?
- Someone who isnât willing to choose you fully and possibly even pretending that you donât count?
You canât force people to show what they feel, especially not your ex. They might have their own reasons, their own protection mechanisms, to not let you come close.
This might be because of their fears, insecurities or even self-doubt. It also might be because they just donât want to be with you anymore, which can be a very hard pill to swallow.
Whatever it is, you canât change people and you canât force people.
If you didnât check off most of the boxes of the signs above, the chances are big your ex is genuinely not interested in you anymore. This is something that is beyond your control.
The only thing that is within your control is you. Only you can decide how you deal with the situation.
The only way through this, is to not wait until your ex chooses you and to not let it hold you back. Choose to make yourself your first priority and let the world around you change with you.
Takeaway:
Now that you know all the signs your ex is pretending to be over you but still has feelings, it’s time to understand something more important.
Instead of placing all the attention on your ex, take your power back by focusing on you.
I know how hard this can be, especially when youâre still hoping for them to come back or when the signs are saying differently.
The universe has a plan for every one of us. Sometimes that doesnât feel like it, but in the end, you should have trust and hope that the universe is inspiring in your favour. Itâs working for you, not against you.
