Why Your Ex Sends Mixed Messages

If your ex is sending mixed messages, you’ll be familiar with this situation:

• • Things with your ex seem to be turning around.
  • They smile, laugh and it almost feels like you never broke up.
  • But the next moment your ex is dodging your calls… it’s like they’re a different person.

Why is your ex sending you these mixed messages?

What does their ‘hot and cold’ behaviour really mean?

Read on (or watch the video below) to find out!

What Your Ex Sending Mixed Messages Means

If you’ve been there yourself, you know how frustrating this can be. It’s like they’ve got your emotions attached to a yo-yo, giving you plenty of hope one day and then crushing those hopes shortly thereafter.

The first thing you should understand when your ex is sending you mixed messages is that this is completely normal.

Your ex isn’t weird or unique because he or she gives you a positive vibe one day and then seems cold or completely indifferent the next.

In my experience, women tend to be more likely to send these kinds of mixed messages after a breakup, but men are definitely guilty as well.

The bottom line is that it’s very common for an ex to go “hot and cold” after breaking up.

BUT WAIT! It’s important that you don’t read too much into your ex’s actions.

Sure, sometimes you can get a genuine idea of your ex’s feelings by reading between the lines, but it’s also very easy to overanalyze or misinterpret things.

RELATED:Best Text Messages To Send To Your Ex

Try not to spend all your time thinking about things your ex has said or done, re-reading their texts and snooping their social media.

Doing so isn’t going to get you any closer to winning them back, so it’s always better to focus on the things you can control than to stress about what your ex is doing or saying.

Why Your Ex is Hot and Cold

Well, typically these types of mixed messages from your ex is a result of their own internal struggle. He or she has obviously decided – at least rationally and consciously – that your relationship isn’t worth pursuing, hence the breakup.

But just because they’ve chosen to end the relationship doesn’t mean that your ex isn’t having second thoughts or struggling to adapt to life without you.

They’re having trouble dealing with the breakup

They’re probably just as heartbroken about the breakup as you are, and, just like you, they’re on a bit of an emotional roller coaster ride. Surely you’ve had your ups and downs since the breakup as well, right?

When you’re out with your friends, having fun, everything seems OK… no crying, no sitting around thinking about how much life sucks, and so on.

But an hour later, when you’re alone and your friends are no longer around to distract you, those emotions can sometimes come flooding back, and all of a sudden you feel the heartbreak and loneliness again.

Your ex is experiencing the same emotional roller coaster… one minute they’re feeling confident about their decision to break up with you, because life is going well, their mind is occupied, and they’re not feeling the post-breakup emotions.

The next minute, they’re alone, missing you like crazy, and they cave in to these emotions and pick up their phone to call you or send you a text.

They’re doubting their decision

Keep in mind that your ex may also be struggling with their decision to break up with you.

Their head says that it’s the right choice, and their heart says that they should run back to you and get back together so that their pain will disappear.

Your ex is experiencing mixed messages within themselves, too. If you’ve dumped someone before, then you know exactly what I’m talking about.

The heartache that you feel after breaking up with someone can often cause you to give in to temptation and take them back, even when you may logically believe that’s the wrong decision.

When your ex is going through these same emotions, they’re usually going to have enough self-restraint to resist the temptation to run over to your house and ask to get back together.

RELATED: Should You Be Friends With Your Ex?

But they may not be able to stop themselves from texting you to say that they miss you, or calling you to chat because they’re lonely and missing your company.

On the other hand, when they’re feeling good or they’re keeping busy, then they’re not going to be feeling those downer emotions and they’re more likely to ignore your call or say something that gives the impression there’s no hope of ever getting back together.

Obviously, if you’re trying to rekindle things with your ex, then the fact that your ex is struggling with the decision to break up is good news.

When he or she tells you they miss you, or seems to be particularly affectionate on a particular day, those feelings are usually real.

The problem is that your ex can usually squash those feelings with the rationale belief that breaking up was the right decision.

They’re keeping their options open

There’s one other reason why your ex may be sending you mixed messages… and that’s because they want to keep you as a backup plan in case they decide the single life isn’t as great as they’d hoped it would be.

Sometimes this is something that people do without actually realizing it consciously, but it’s still fairly common, and it actually makes sense when you think about it.

If your ex was the one to initiate the breakup, and he or she knows you still want to be together, then they’re in total control of the situation.

They’ll send you a series of confusing up-and-down messages that leave you thinking there’s still hope of getting back together, while they take the time to feel things out and see what life is like without you by their side.

This allows your ex to either enjoy the freedom of being single or to pursue other romantic options.

While they occasionally send you affectionate messages or signals to make sure you remain interested and don’t lose hope of getting back together.

Basically, this gives your ex the best of both worlds: they get to break up with you and test out what it’s like to be single while they keep you as their backup plan, knowing you’ll jump at the chance to get back together if they ask.

This is obviously a bit devious of your ex to play this kind of game and toy with your emotions just so they can keep their options open, but it’s also very common and completely logical from your ex’s perspective.

However, if you want to get back together with your ex, then you absolutely cannot let yourself fall into this trap and be your ex’s backup plan… it’s very dangerous to hand over all the power and let your ex have total control.

You can escape this situation by using the No Contact method. This will force your ex to stop playing games and make them rethink their decision to end things.

Remember not to overanalyze or overthink your ex’s words and actions, and definitely don’t let yourself get sucked into a situation where you hand over all the power to your ex.

Brad Browning

Brad Browning is widely regarded as the world's most trusted breakup experts, boasting over 12 years of experience working with clients from around the world. Brad's #1 best-selling breakup reversal guide, The Ex Factor, has helped more than 130,000 people from 131 countries to re-unite with an ex. Brad is also the author of Mend The Marriage, a comprehensive self-help guide that teaches married couples how to save their dying marriage and prevent divorce. Brad’s YouTube channel has over 400,000 subscribers and 50 million views, and he has been featured in a number of well-known media outlets and industry journals.