The Exes Who Don’t Come Back

Will my ex come back is a question I guess many of us are familiar with. Once a breakup happens and we are not the ones who wanted to go through with it, the wonder begins. Will they come back? Will we have another chance? Will we have the Hollywood moment of two people who after some time finally realize they can’t live without each other?

Sometimes exes come back.

Sometimes they don’t.

Sometimes the story is a lot more complicated than a simple ‘they came back because they loved me and they didn’t because they forgot about me’.

A few of my exes made surprise visits to my life. They were unexpected, random, and mostly unpleasant.

In time, I realized there was no point in waiting for someone. It didn’t make the breakup process any easier. Waiting on them was like, taking a few puffs then and there when you are trying to quit smoking. A never-cut bond, a useless hope, a perfect way to deny the pain. Then again, time, universe, life, whatever you call it, it thought me why I shouldn’t wait and so on.

But if you are still waiting…

And they aren’t showing up…

There are a few things we need to discuss.

Them not showing up has very little to do with you and more to do with them.

Not to give out false hope, let me tell you my story.

So back in the day, this particular ex, after some drama decided to end things in the most inhumanly possible way. I was crushed. Devastated. Heartbroken. For months and months, I waited for an apology, a comeback, a Hollywood moment. No show. The more time went by, the more I took things personally.

• He wasn’t coming back because he didn’t want me anymore.
• He wasn’t coming back because he never cared for me.
• We meant nothing to him.
• He never missed me.
• He moved on.
• He possibly got another girlfriend.

Back then, to me, if he didn’t show up, that would mean I was worthless. Our memories were worthless. By thinking this way I lowered my self-esteem way down. And yes, you can still position yourself to a higher or a lower place even after your break up with them. I chose to lower it down. Rather than saying, ‘we had good memories, that was a finished chapter, he must have been hurt too after we were done’, I chose to say, ‘I didn’t mean anything to him and our whole relationship was based on a lie’.

The audacity I had to call the shots for him too? Lowered self-esteem with Godly ego on the side.

A year after we were broken up, we somehow had a chance to talk again. It wasn’t a comeback or anything but more like a very difficult catch-up call. To my surprise, he told me how difficult it was for him to deal with our breakup. He said, and I quote, ‘I was in so much pain and guilt, I fell into a depression and was out of this world for months. I thought about you a lot and thought about calling you but I had no strength.’

I remember being shocked.

I was wrong.

I kept positioning him in my head that he was this perfect guy, I forgot to realize he was just a human being too. He had feelings too. He was in that relationship too, so of course, when it ended his life changed too.

It is so easy to think negatively after a heartbreak. Believe me, I have been there several times. I learned in time though, how we position ourselves after an end is crucial for our healing and for our new chapter to be healthy.

That boy lives thousands of miles away from me now. I think about him from time to time. The difference now though is, when something reminds me of him, I don’t put myself down by thinking I’m not over him, I tell myself, I’m just being reminded of a past memory. No need to write a story for a good memory, just taking it as it is, without interpretation.

If exes don’t come back, it is never as easy as saying they didn’t have any feelings whatsoever. To be honest, we may never know why they never showed up. It just matters how we look at the situation and not to take something personally when it is 100% out of control.

With much love,

April Moons.

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Previously Published on medium

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