Question: Yangki, are there instances where an ex will miss you because you are out of their life? If so, in your experience do these exes come back? How long before they start missing you?

Yangki’s Answer: Almost all exes miss you when you are no longer in their lives. It’s just one of those things. You share some part of your life with someone, they are gone and there is an empty “space” where they used to be. Unless of course that space is quickly filled with someone else, or had already been filled before the break-up.

How long it takes for an ex to miss you varies from individual to individual. Some people immediately, and others it happens gradually.

Exes who don’t have much going on in their lives, don’t have a large social network or people they feel “close” to, and as a result depended so much on you for their happiness will feel the impact immediately. It doesn’t mean they’ll reach out to you right away or that they’ll ever, it just means they feel the “emptiness” immediately.

It will take longer for an ex to miss you if:

They are angry about something and all they can think about is the negative things about you and the relationship.

They’re avoiding feeling the pain by distracting themselves.

It’s over for them — for good.

If your ex has an avoidant attachment style (See: Understanding An Avoidant Ex).

How deep the “missing you” goes also varies from individual to individual as well. In my experience, the “missing you” is much deeper in relationships where:

Both parties felt the relationship met their needs and were both genuinely happy on most part;

Two people were together for a long time, and;

The break-up is “mutual” or “friendly” — no hard feelings.

The irony is that these are the same relationships where exes feel that there is no reason to cut off contact, or feel that “no contact” is not practical (e.g. children are involved, they work in the same place or have same circle of friends, they’re truly good friends who genuinely care for each other).

I’ve also worked with men and women who had an overemotional break-up where hurtful things were said, but the relationship as a whole was happy on most part. They missed what was good about the relationship, and by inference missed their ex.

The part about your ex missing you that is often not talked about is that:

Some exes reach out because they miss you and want you back. Others reach out because they miss you and miss the relationship but don’t want you back. They just want to be friends.

Most of the time exes reach out because they’re feeling lonely and want to see what’s going on in your life (if you miss them or have moved on). These are the ones that reach out to you when they are drunk, just had a bad date or just been dumped by someone else. They are not missing YOU the person, they are missing how good you made them feel. It’s all about THEM.

So many stories of exes that “miss you”, reach out, stay in contact for a while and pull away and/or disappear again. Some exes do this over and over until they don’t miss you anymore. They literally use you, to get over you!

They miss feeling a certain way and that’s all they come back for, or want. They don’t want YOU back, they just want to feel good again. It’s was about THEM from the very beginning.

That’s why focusing too much on “Is my ex missing me?” “When will my ex start missing me?” “How long does it take before my ex starts missing me?“, “How do I get my ex to miss me?” is unproductive.

An ex missing you means very little if they are not making an effort to stay in contact and showing that they’re interested in YOU and not just filling a void in their lives.