“Does he miss me? Does he regret what he did? Does he think about me?”

These questions have taken more time and mental effort than I think I’d be comfortable admitting. If I had taken a fraction of the time I spent thinking about these questions to learn a new language, I would have written this post in seven different languages ​​by now.

You’ve been through a terrible, painful breakup with an emotionally unavailable man who broke your heart. Whether you did enough things to cause drama/awkwardness or it was too painful to be “friends” with your ex or you agreed to go your separate ways or whatever, you’ve stopped communicating and are no longer in touch.

The worst, right?!

You don’t want to hear from him, but on the other hand, that’s what you want. That’s what you want. It’s like a drug and you’re going through the most painful withdrawal symptoms. Every day you don’t hear from him feels like an eternity, and with every passing minute, your heart starts to sink deeper into self-blame, obsession, and FBI-style stalking. Your self-esteem drops to zero and you start to question your worth because if you were good enough, he would have reached out to you by now. He would have done something… anything.

All you hear is silence.

You never imagined that he would break up with you so easily. You see him living his happy life on social media with a new girl who looks exactly like you (and whose profile is private). You’re in pain and you’re trying your best to get through every minute without losing her.

Related : Hopeless Romantic? Calling all Hopeless Romantics

Every time you hear a text or hear your phone ring, your heart races and you think, “Maybe it’s him?” It never is.

After going through breakups with toxic exes that I knew weren’t good for me, I still wonder…

“Does he miss me? Does he regret what he did? Does he think about me?”

I was dating the most emotionally and negatively charged person in the world, and yes, he broke my heart and yes, I was completely tying my worth to his post-breakup inaction but I didn’t care. I needed to know.

“Does he miss me? What do you think? How can he be with her while I’m miserable here missing him and stalking him online nonstop? Does he regret what he did and all the crap he put me through?” I would ask anyone who was willing to listen and I think they tended to tell me exactly what I wanted to hear. My heart couldn’t handle hearing what my gut already knew.

After so many tears and heartaches, I now understand it all better.

So, you want to know: “Does he miss me? Does he regret what he did? How come he keeps thinking about me and not communicating with me? Does he even think about me?”

First, we need to translate what “Does he miss me? Does he regret what he did?” means:

“Does my emotionally unavailable, selfish, toxic ex, who failed to respect me in our relationship, understand what he did wrong and, more importantly, what he lost?”

You’re looking for confirmation that you’re not as forgotten as his actions made you feel. That’s why you’re obsessing over every detail. You’re looking for any reason to:

Believe that there’s still a chance.

Find something on his social media profile that hurts you and makes you want to stop thinking about him. But because your software is set to “validation-seeking mode,” instead of taking that information to motivate you to move on, you use it as an anchor to sink deeper into self-blame.

Missing someone you were close to and intimate with is completely normal. It means you’re human and you have blood running through your veins. But you can’t expect him to be capable of communicating and feeling in ways that his actions have already made him incapable of.

Losing sleep over whether the trash in your house is better; wondering if it attracts more trash; and having a good time in the dumpster is a big red flag. It’s a sign that you need to work on loving yourself.

Everything I missed after breaking up with toxic exes was just my expectations. I was convinced that the amazing, loyal, respectful, emotionally available “prince” he was in the beginning would somehow come back at any moment.

People don’t change, they just slowly reveal who they are.

So, back to the question: “Does he miss me? Does he regret what he did?”

Yes, he’s thinking about you. Especially if you broke up with him.

Yes, he misses you and regrets what he did. And that’s not all I mean.

But the thing is, emotionally unavailable men will remember you when you cut them off and they will miss you, meaning they miss what you gave them. They will regret not having you as a fallback. They will never regret it in the way we would hope, because true regret from an emotionally unavailable person will always involve regret.

Regret requires empathy, maturity, emotional connection, and the ability to objectively examine their actions for what they are (so that growth and development can occur).

Toxic people are only capable of selfish regret, not selfless regret.

Their disconnection will never allow them to have true regret. This sad and very limited range is the extent to which they can “miss” and “regret.” And honestly, you deserve so much more than that and you know it.

Don’t mistake “missing you” for missing the girl who didn’t know your worth.

Don’t mistake “missing you” for missing the way you made him your equal.

Don’t mistake “missing you” for missing the control he once had over your emotions.

Don’t mistake “missing you” for missing his selfish needs being met at every turn.

Don’t mistake “missing you” for missing the validation he would have gotten by exploiting your hunger for his needs.

Accepting any of the above as the kind of “missing” you deserve in life is an insult to your emotional intelligence.

Yes, I get that you’ve lost your mojo and your ego has been damaged because you feel rejected. But if you continue to seek validation from someone who can’t even validate themselves, you’ll end up, just like them, always looking to other people and superficial possessions to dictate your worth.

If your ex misses you the way you deserve, trust me when I say, you won’t have to search for a “does he miss me?” blog post.

Related : How To Control Your Emotions Before They Control You

He won’t text you or “like” a negative photo of you or watch one of your Instagram stories just so you can spend the next week analyzing inconsistent reasons. He’ll act on the feelings he’s attached to.

Don’t be discouraged because that’s not going to happen. Imagine if you and I went to an animal shelter and I asked to hold a kitten. Then when we sat down and held the kitten, she started making a huge fuss because I thought the kitten was going to bark and meow.

Crazy, right?

Your ex is a cat, and guess what? The cat’s meow. Expecting him to miss you the way you deserve and come back to the relationship table as a non-toxic person is as ridiculous as expecting a cat to bark. A cat will never bark. Stop wasting your time.

“Does he miss me? Does he regret what he did?” You know better now. And you can finish your emotional sentence.

Replace your sadness with boredom. Eventually, your anger will be replaced with indifference.

Indifference is the ultimate release.

You can start caring for and loving yourself now. You can.

I remember during one of the worst and most painful breakups, my ex finally reached out to me after a few months. He sent me a few angry and childish texts, and then after a few weeks of silence on my part, he said everything I wanted to hear and more… in another text.

It was hard but I never responded.

He never called to see if I was alive, nothing. That was the turning point for me, the “aha!” Where I realized he wasn’t stalking me — he was stalking a response from me because he felt like he lost control after I broke up with him. Then he had to “get revenge.” I didn’t take the bait. And in the process, I got my life back.

It was more about his bruised ego and image management than it was about genuine remorse and missing me.

You deserve so much more than someone who “misses you” from afar while unloading his emotional feelings.