I recommend watching the video above all the way through to learn ways an ex tests you, how, and why.
To clarify, I’m going to explain how your ex tests you and I’m going to explain ways that your ex tests you. This is after a breakup where they’ve broken up with you.
The first way that your ex usually tests you is with a friendship offer. You’ve probably heard me talk about this before, and I’ve said do not accept friendship, and that is still true in this case.
When they offer friendship, it’s usually because they don’t want you to get too far away, but also because they feel guilty. They want to throw you a little bone to do something kind for you, so that they don’t feel so guilty about breaking up with you.
A lot of this is to appease their own conscience about what they’ve done, because they don’t want to think that they have done something awful to you. They want to feel like that on some level you’re okay with it.
If they say, “can we still be friends?” and you say, “yeah,” then they think, “okay, well at least they get to be friends with me, because I’m so wonderful and attractive that surely that means a lot to them.” It’s like a consolation prize for not getting to date me anymore, since I’m dumping them. That’s kind of how they think about it, and they think that everything’s cool if you two are friends and that you will be okay with it. So, they don’t have to think about you hurting.
There’s a lot of good in this because if they worry about you hurting, it means that they do care about you, but don’t get too excited because they are not where we want them to be yet, but it’s better than if they just didn’t care at all because then we’re talking about someone who does things to others without caring that they hurt them.
This person lacking empathy could be a literal narcissist or even a sociopath, so don’t get too upset if they offer friendship just simply because they are concerned about you to some level and they’re trying to appease some of their own guilt, which that’s good because it means they actually do have a soul, but you should not take the offer of friendship.
Now, I’ve talked about how you can turn them down for this. The simple way is just saying no, I’m not interested in that, but thank you. Or, you can just be kind of flippant and casual with it, and just say sure, yeah, that’s fine.
Don’t worry about your ex putting you in the friend zone or thinking that you’ve fallen for their plan just because you agreed casually. It’s more about what happens after. The most important thing, as I’ve said in other videos, is to not act like a friend. Friends call each other, share news, and interact almost as though nothing has changed, except that there’s nothing physical between you. You probably won’t say you love each other and that kind of thing, but you shouldn’t engage in any of it.
They’re testing you, they want to see if they can keep you close just in case they change their mind, and they want to see if you will bail them out from the consequences of feeling like they hurt you. They’re trying to make this as easy on themselves as possible by doing something for you that they can feel good about. Don’t let them off the hook that easily.
Secondly, don’t let them think that you’ll be close and nearby just in case. Third, don’t let them think that you are so desperate to be with them in some way, to be around them, to just have their presence a little bit, that you would be demoted to friendship. It’s really an insult when you want to be with someone romantically and they offer you friendship, so see it for what it is.
Number two is when your ex posts sad things on social media. They might say things like they’re lonely or disappointed with life, or say things like “I’ll always love you” and you don’t know who they’re talking to. The test here is that they’ll say vague things that could be about you or could not be about you.
The fact is, sometimes people will reach out to their ex and they’ll say “hey, I saw your message, I wanted to reach out” because they think it’s somehow intended for them and that they should reach out. This is not their opportunity.
Your ex is probably testing you by seeing if all it takes is something like that for you to respond. They’re also seeing if you’ll do all the work, seeing if you’ll be the one to fix what they broke, so that all they have to do is just say they’re sad and you come running to try to help thinking that this is about you and getting back together with them and maybe just maybe they want to get back together or they’re thinking about it.
In order to successfully navigate the post-breakup period with your ex, it’s important not to fall into certain traps. The first trap is agreeing to be friends with your ex, because this will make it difficult to create any romantic tension or attraction in the future. Instead, it’s important to maintain a distance and not act like a friend. This means not engaging in regular communication or sharing personal information, and not providing emotional support.
The second trap is responding to your ex’s social media posts. If your ex posts sad or vague messages on social media, they may be testing you to see if you will reach out to them. By not responding, you are showing them that you are not willing to fix what they broke and that they must take responsibility for their actions. This will also make them reflect on the breakup and question whether it was the right decision.
It’s important to remember that after a breakup, the responsibility is on the person who initiated it to do the work in terms of reaching out and repairing the relationship. While eventually, the effort should be 50/50, after a breakup, it should be nearly 100% on their end. If they directly message you, respond casually but do not carry the conversation. Let them do the work and earn you back if that’s what you want. By giving them the breakup and maintaining a distance, you are showing them that you are a strong, independent person who will not settle for less than you deserve.
That will make you look bad. Don’t fall for it, don’t do it. This is just another test. Let them complain on social media, let them say they’re lonely, let them say they’re sad. They need to be uncomfortable, they need to hurt. This needs to be a negative process for them if you want them back. And so by making them take the consequences of the breakup, by giving them the breakup and letting them sit with it, you’re giving yourself a better chance, first of all. But secondly, you’re not showing them that you will fix what they broke. In fact, you’re showing them the opposite, that if they do something, they have to sit with the consequences, and it could mean losing you. Now that’s a powerful position, because it shows you are not afraid to stand back and not do anything about it. And I know that you feel that when I say things like that, when I say stay back, give them the breakup, don’t do anything, I know that’s a scary concept. But embrace it, because it gives you the best chance of getting back together with them and re-attracting them, and showing them that you’re strong and you could be lost, that this breakup could be a terrible mistake on their part. And that’s what we want them thinking.
So when they post like that, it means usually, usually it means that they’re confused, that they’re thinking about the relationship, they’re reflecting on you and their time with you, and they’re wondering if the breakup was the right move. And so they’re making a small little concession, hoping you will cover 90% of the way and they only have to move ten percent. That’s not fair. They broke up with you, the ball’s in their court, they should at least come 50%. We all talk about equality, everybody says they want it, but a lot of times people act like what they really want are the benefits and not the negatives. And that’s true of a breakup. When they’ve broken up with you, a lot of times they want you to do the work. But the good news is if you don’t, it’s actually more attractive, and it will cause them to do the work, which is better for both of you because they get to witness themselves actually moving towards you and working for you and earning you, which is great.
Now, eventually of course we want it to be 50/50. But after they’ve broken up with you, it should be nearly 100% on their end. The only thing you should do is respond if they directly message you, and then it should be casual and you shouldn’t carry the conversation. They need to do the work. This is not just the principle of the thing. I’m not just saying this because, well, they broke up with you so they should do the work. I’m telling you what gives you better chances, better odds of actually getting back together with them if that’s what you want. And it is, to give them the breakup and let them do the work.
So don’t fall for the test of their sad social media posts. Before I get to Point number three, take a second and get more information on my emergency breakup kit. You can get more info at myexbackcoach.com or in the link here in the description on YouTube. It’s a powerful guide to help you get your ex back, same emergency breakup kit at myexbackcoach.com or the link is in the description below.
Number three: sometimes your ex will test you by activity on your social media posts. So maybe they like what you said, they click like, maybe they respond with something really casual to a picture you posted. These things should not warrant a response from you, and the reason is, first of all, it’s not direct contact. This is not them reaching out to you, wanting to interact with you. This is a public post where they’ve made a post that everyone else can see, and so it’s just as much a conversation with other people as it is with you.
Second, if they just clicked like on a picture, even if it’s a picture of a place you two went together, hopefully you’re not posting pictures of the two of you. Hopefully, you’ve seen some of my videos, and you know that would be a very bad thing to do. So let’s just assume you’re posting a picture, maybe a place that you two went together, not trying to get their attention, but it just happens to be there. Though that’s not something that I would recommend, or maybe it’s just a picture that you took for everyday life or a statement about something that’s happened in your life, good, bad, or indifferent, and they have clicked.
So don’t fall for the test of their sad social media posts. Before I get to Point number three, take a second and get more information on my emergency breakup kit. You can get more info at myexbackcoach.com or in the link here in the description on YouTube. It’s a powerful guide to help you get your ex back. Same emergency breakup kit at myexbackcoach.com or the link is in the description below.
Number three, sometimes your ex will test you by activity on your social media posts. And so maybe they like what you said, they click like, maybe they respond with something really casual to a picture you posted. These things should not warrant response from you. And the reason is, first of all, it’s not direct contact. This is not them reaching out to you wanting to interact with you. This is a public post where they’ve made a post that everyone else can see. And so it’s just as much a conversation with other people as it is with you.
Second, if they just clicked like on a picture, even if it’s a picture of a place you two went together, hopefully you’re not posting pictures of the two of you. Hopefully you’ve seen some of my videos and you know that would be a very bad thing to do. So let’s just assume you’re posting a picture, maybe a place that you two went together, not trying to get their attention, but it just happens to be there. Though that’s not something that I would recommend, or maybe it’s just a picture that you took for everyday life, or a statement about something that’s happened in your life, good, bad, or indifferent, and they have clicked like.
Like a lot of the times people will ask, should I contact them since they liked it? Should I reach out? That would be really waiting heavily on your side as far as the work of interacting and talking to this person about the relationship and doing things to get back together if indeed they are interested. And they click like and they’re hoping you’ll do something, they’re baiting you. They’re wanting you to do a lot of the work so they can keep feeling this superiority in terms of attractiveness, because if you’re the one doing all the work, then they feel like you’re working to earn them, and like you just want them so badly and you’ll do anything, and they can just sit back while you do the work.
Plus, it looks like that you’re just waiting on any little small thing, and then you’re going to be excited that they actually interacted with you. That will make you look very bad, and you can tell by the description option that doesn’t sound very attractive. If you’re just super excited that somebody liked your post and you’re going to reach out even after they broke up with you and all these things, that’s not going to put you in a good place to reattract them. It’s going to be unattractive if you do that, and it’s going to certainly look like you are more into them than they are into you, because your effort was so much greater than theirs.
If they just clicked like and then you sent them a full-on text, your effort is much more than theirs, and so it still looks out of balance, which can cause attraction to drop even more, and if it had come up some while they’re thinking about the relationship, then it’s going to fall back down. So do not fall for it. Don’t fall for the small social effort on their part to loosely and indirectly interact with you. It needs to be a direct message, not just a like on your post or even a comment. You could click “like,” but I would just leave it. But you certainly shouldn’t text them or call them because that’s way beyond what they did and the very maximum you should do is to simply match them.
So, if they reach out to you, you can reach out to them to call them back if you missed the call. Or, if they text you, you can text them back. But you don’t do more than them. That’s very important. Do not do more than them because it will lower your attraction. They will move further away from you and you will put yourself in a worse place if you’re wanting to get them back.
Another way that your ex can test you is by asking your friends about you, knowing that it will get back to you. And they do this for a similar reason. They’re seeing if they can do as little as possible for you to do as much as possible. So, they ask your friends how you’re doing. Your friends go tell you, and you get excited because you think, “They’re asking about me!”
People will ask, “Coach Lee, they ask my friends about me. Should I reach out?” No, you shouldn’t because they didn’t ask you. Your ex didn’t reach out to you. And even if there’s some blocking that’s happened or your phone numbers change, they know how to interact with you. Even if they just find some social media account, they can send you a direct message.
They know how to get in touch with you.
Even if they just find some social media account, they can send you a direct message. They could ask your friends, “Hey, what’s his new number?” if you changed your number or something. So, they know how to directly get in touch with you.
Do not fall for the idea that they just don’t know how to get in touch with you, and they’re trying this to somehow get a secret message to you or to encourage you to contact them.
In fact, keep your friends out of it. Do not talk to your friends about the breakup if possible, and that’s especially true if they have any kind of contact with your ex. Don’t talk about it, pretend like it doesn’t exist because we don’t want your ex thinking that you’re struggling with this and you’re confiding in all these people. People have trouble keeping their mouths shut, it’s just a fact of life, especially if they can justify by spreading gossip and talking about interesting, juicy things by saying that they’re helping. They’ll think, ‘if I go tell her that he’s crying himself to sleep and miserable without her, or if I go tell him that she can’t stand it and she’s out of her mind missing him,’ people actually think that this will help. And just recently, last week in fact, before making this video, someone’s friend thought he could help and he interacted with her with the ex and made the situation worse.
So I tell people, don’t talk to your friends about it because if they think you’re really hurting, they will overestimate their ability to help you when they don’t know anything about this. Leave your friends out of it, talk to your parents maybe, but make sure they don’t reach out to your ex. You can talk to someone who does not know them, but don’t talk to your friends about it. Just leave them out of this whole thing, they just mess things up even if their intentions are good.
Before I get to the fifth way, let me remind you to take a quick moment to subscribe to this channel so you can receive notifications when I upload more content like this. In addition to breakup advice, I’ll be creating videos on relationships, attraction, and the dynamics of couples. To subscribe, simply click on the little button below that says “subscribe.”
Now, let’s move on to the fifth way that your ex may test you. Sometimes they will act like nothing has changed and will start to interact with you. They may begin texting you about random things and act like it’s okay for you to have these conversations without mentioning that you’re broken up and that they hurt you. This behavior can be confusing and frustrating for some people, but it’s often because your ex wants you to beg for them back and make the effort to reconcile. They want to know that losing them has hurt you and that you still want them.
It’s not that your ex wants to hurt you or enjoy your pain, but rather they want to feel attractive and wanted. If you had a good relationship in the past, they may also like the idea of having you close by in case their feelings for you resurface. It’s important to be aware of this behavior and not fall into their trap if you’re trying to move on.
It’s kind of like when they pitch friendship, they want to be able to interact with you and they also want you to make them feel better about it. Because if you two can just interact as though nothing happened, they feel like they’re doing you a favor. And they think, ‘Man, I’m such a good person because I broke up with them, but I’m doing this so they don’t hurt. I’m letting them keep me a little bit. That’ll make them feel better, and that way I don’t have to feel guilty.’
So a lot of this, just like some of the other things I’ve mentioned, is where they’re doing it so they don’t feel guilty. But the minute that you make it more than it is, they will feel that repulsion where you’re not as attractive because you’re way beyond what they want. And anytime you show more attraction than the other person, it actually lowers their attraction even more. And so you need to be careful. You need to be very careful how you come across.
So if they’re trying to interact with you, I’m not saying that you ignore them. But you need to keep things casual and reserved. Be polite, but they need to know that you do not accept that they can just interact with you as though nothing has changed. Because something has changed. The only way that you’re going to reunite with them is by showing them there are consequences to them breaking up with you and that this doesn’t just get to be the same and they get all the privileges they want of being your significant other, but they don’t actually have to be your significant other.
So you’ve got to show them that even though, yes, you’re not a rude person, you’re not going to ignore them, and that’s important just so they know they can actually reach out if they want to say, ‘I want to get back together.’ They’re not trying to make you do more work, but they need to know that you won’t ignore them. However, it’s important that you don’t act like this is a huge favor and you’re all excited and it just made your day that they texted you. That’s a great way to lower your chances even more. So don’t fall for that test either.
So there’s another way that your ex can test you. They might ask for their things back or talk to you about getting your things to you. Sometimes this is just a normal thing, where they feel like it’s the right thing to do and they might get some closure out of it. But sometimes, especially if it’s something trivial like a pair of socks, it’s best to just let it go. Don’t contact them about small things if you can do without them.
But if your ex is talking to you about getting your things back, and it’s a very small thing like a sock or something, then just know that they’re wanting to see if they can do just a little bit and you’ll still show your interest. You’ll still try to talk them back into it. Because even though it can be irritating to them at first, it also makes them feel more attractive, which they like. So some of this, even if they couldn’t really put it into words, is them wanting to feel wanted by you. Even though they’ve broken up with you, they want to feel that you still want them, because it feels good and makes them feel attractive.
A lot of this is based on you making them feel good and them doing nothing for you. So don’t fall for these things if you want your ex back or if you just want to maintain your dignity.
My Emergency Breakup Kit expands on this and provides more sophisticated strategies that work to get your ex back.
After you access the kit, you’ll be surprised at how much someone can learn about getting an ex back after two decades in the relationship-recovery service.
Originally published at https://myexbackcoach.com on March 2, 2023.
