Here’s Why You Should Ignore His ‘I Miss You’ Text

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Here you are again. It’s a few months post-breakup and you’ve been working hard to forget your ex. You’re spending time with friends, going to the gym, crushing it at work, and… ”bzzz bzzz.” Here he is to fuck it all up.

The “I miss you” text message post-breakup is both a beautiful and terrible thing. On one hand, it makes you feel validated about the relationship. Clearly he still thinks about you and all the nights you spent crying weren’t just for nothing. But it can also be very toxic and detrimental to the progress you have made to get past the breakup. You’ve been hoping and waiting to hear from him, and now that you have, there are many reasons why you need to ignore that “I miss you” text message.

1. He’s doing it to boost his own ego

Alright, ladies, you know you’ve done this too. You start feeling insecure, so you put out feelers to receive some positive feedback. The “I miss you” text is the virtual version of “Do I look fat in this dress?’ He’s baiting you. He hopes that by reaching out with vulnerable sentiment, you will delve into a lengthy conversation about how wonderful he is and all the reasons you miss him. This brief conversation might feel therapeutic, but once he gets the validation he’s looking for, he’ll disappear again.

2. He’s testing you

Sometimes the “I miss you” text is a form of manipulation. He wants to see if he has the power to screw you over, and then reenter your life whenever he feels like it. Shut this down immediately. By letting him back into your life, you send the message that he can control you.

3. Things fell apart with the other girl, so he’s defaulting back to you

This is the most brutal and most likely cause of the “I miss you” text. Men and women grieve breakups differently. Women take time to be alone, understand what went wrong, and get back into the dating scene once they’ve recovered. Men will find a new girlfriend on their way out of your apartment. They move on fast.

While this can be a huge slap in the face for you, it generally backfires for them as well. In the rebound hookup, men aren’t looking for partnership qualities, but rather someone who can fill the void right now. As time goes on, they will start to see that the person they rushed into dating isn’t actually someone they could be with long-term. That’s when they’ll start missing you.

If your partner moved on quickly post-breakup, the “I miss you” text feels AMAZING. It makes you feel validated, like you won. But you still need to ignore this text. Remember how awful it felt to see that he moved on to someone else so fast. How he disrespected the relationship that you believed to be meaningful. Let him know that you aren’t a woman he can throw away and come back to when the others don’t work out.

4. He hasn’t changed, but you have

The “I miss you” text has a way of surfacing just as you start to feel better. You’ve put in the hard work to recover and he doesn’t like to see you moving on. Maybe you ran into each other and you seemed happy, or maybe he heard through a friend that you’re seeing someone new. Either way, you don’t need him anymore and he can’t stand it. The “I miss you” text is his attempt to derail the progress you’ve made and make himself feel important again. Don’t allow this. You have worked hard to find yourself again, to love yourself when you felt like no one else did. You took care of yourself when he couldn’t and he’s not worth losing the strength that you’ve found.