My Ex Misses Me But Doesn’t Want Me (What to Do)

Question: My ex misses me but doesn’t want me, what do I do?

After 3 weeks of no contact, I reached out to my fearful avoidant ex. I told him I miss him very much and he said he missed me too. Since then we have been in contact everyday. I’m mostly the one reaching out but sometimes he reaches too. Because things have been going on really well, I felt confident enough to ask  him how he feels about us getting back together. His response was that some days he thinks he wants to get back together and other days he just wants to move on. I asked him if it was anything I said or did that made him want to move on and he said no. He said in the 3 weeks we had no contact he had began to move on but when I reached out he realized just how much he misses me. But his feelings about not getting back together haven’t changed. He doesn’t know how he will feel 3 months down the road, he might want to get back together months from now but he also doesn’t want me to to wait for him.

I told him we can be just friends for now, and he said he’s okay with that but he can’t promise me that this will lead to a relationship. He also said he is seeing other women and if that hurts me, he’d prefer for us not to be friends.

This is so confusing for me. He misses me and says we may get back together, so why we can’t get back together now and try to work on being in a relationship. I don’t understand why we have to wait 3 months. If he doesn’t want me know, what will make him want me in 3 months. What do I do now? Do I go no contact and reach out in 3 months or do we keep talking and see if he will change his mind.

Yangki’s Answer: I’m sorry you have to go through this but I also think that you might be misinterpreting what he said. He’s not saying  he doesn’t want you, he’s saying he doesn’t want to get back into a relationship right now. Those are to different things.

I don’t know if this helps, but it’s actually very common for avoidants to miss an ex but not want to come back. And like he said, it has nothing to do with anything you have said or done, it’s just how he feels at the moment. The fact that he thinks he might want to come back confirms that this is less about you and more about him.

There may be things going on in his life he hasn’t told you about when makes him think he can’t be in a relationship and deal with whatever he needs to deal with at the same time.

He is an avoidant, it’s possible that he is dealing with relationship and/or  closeness exhaustion and not read to jump right back into a relationship only a few weeks after the breaking up.

The third possible reason for him feeling that some days he wants to get back together and other days he just wants to move is not sure if how he feels about you is how he should feel, and wants to see other women to make sure his feeling for you are how he should feel.

If he wants to keep in contact and you go no contact and reach out in 3 months, he may not want to let you back in his life either because it’s too painful to let you back in after you cut him off (which felt like abandonment) or because he’s moved on with someone else. This is very likely because he said in the 3 weeks you had no contact he had began to move on. Imagine what can happen in 3 months.

On the other hand, staying in contact doesn’t guarantee that he will change his mind, and he said it himself, he can’t promise you that this will lead to a relationship. But keeping the lines of communication open gives you the opportunity to try to improve on your dynamic which will increase the chances of him wanting to come back in 3 months or sooner. It also allows you to see if he is moving on with someone he is seeing and out your loses sooner than wait to find out in 3 months that he moved on a long time ago.

That said, it’s up to you to decide what is right for yourself. He’s taking care of his needs and not in a selfish way since he’s been honest with you, I think you should too. I’m not saying you should deny your feelings for him and/or go out and see other men but that you should take care of yourself by helping yourself heal from the pain of not being wanted.

Not being wanted does not mean not loved. He may still love you, but loving someone and wanting to be with them are two different things. You need to come to terms with this because only then can your mind be free to see the options ahead of you. As long as you remain in this place of non-acceptance, your mind will keep coming up with all sorts of stories about a reality different from what is; and you’re likely to act on those stories other than on reality itself.

Give yourself the love you want from him and take care of yourself the way you’d have wanted him to. Once you fill that “empty” space he temporarily occupied, you’ll find that it doesn’t feel as bad as it does now.

If you decide you want him back, work with what you have now instead to trying to recover what you had. But to be able to get him back and stay together, you must first take care of you. You’ll make better decisions and respond better when you’re in a “good place”.