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Why does my ex boyfriend still look at my social media?


Daisi215

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He literally hasn't missed A SINGLE story i have posted. He is usually one of the first one's who sees it and is number one on the list of views. He broke up with me 2 months ago, even though I didn't want to break up. Last time we spoke was a month ago. I have been doing no contact since then. Spent this time focusing on myself and bettering myself which is evident in my social media accounts. I just don't get why men do that? Does he still care? I know I wouldn't bother looking at my ex's social media if i didn't care anymore. He's haunting me.

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I know I wouldn't bother looking at my ex's social media if i didn't care anymore.

 

And yet you’re bothering to keep track of when/if he watches your snaps??

 

He’s probably hurting as well, breakups aren’t easy for either party. Maybe it comforts him. If it really haunted you that much, you’d delete him off your Snapchat. So instead of worrying about what he’s doing, which by the way, you can’t control, why not focus on what you’re doing?

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It's just been so hard on me. Blocking someone is a big step. I was expecting him to block me on everything because that is what he did with his last ex, but he didn't. When i decided to start focusing on myself i deactivated my accounts for a good 2 weeks. It helped. I don't go on his accounts, but i do look at who views my stuff (everyone can attest to that), how can i not notice he's my number one? We all know instagrams algorithim for that.

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So let’s look at the facts.

 

-you deactivated social media for two weeks, it helped.

-you can’t help noticing that your ex is following you.

-it “haunts you” that he’s continuing to follow you.

 

How do you think you will best heal, based on what YOU have stated here?

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Stevie Wonder can see it doesn’t really “haunt” you but rather gives you hope but the more time that passes without him actually contacting you that hope is fading so you’re posting here so we can reignite those fires.

 

It would be reckless to tell you to have hope. Mostly because him looking can mean any number of things and until he actually reaches out to you, there’s truly nothing solid to go on

 

So to stay emotionally safe. Try to see it for what it is and remind yourself he broke up with you and if he wants to get back he knows what to do. I’m not saying him liking your status isn’t confusing for you. I’m sure it is but there’s no true way to know WHY he’s doing it ya know?

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If you're ok with him on your social media accounts, what he does shouldn't matter. He can look for all he wants or for all you care.

The main question really is: Why do you care so much what he's doing or looking at? And why are you the one who's keeping track of what he's doing?

 

If you're experiencing dependency or feelings of not enough closure, fix that and have a little pep talk with yourself. Find a safe and private outlet to figure out your emotions and don't be afraid to ask yourself questions. Write in a journal, think and reflect for awhile, some people even literally talk to themselves in a quiet space or they speak with trusted friends or family members. You have a choice in how you want to live your life. I don't believe the actual solution is blocking anyone. The real hack is if you're able to drop your dependency and re-learn/teach yourself how to live freely, independently again without the approval of anyone else and regardless of what others are doing around you.

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I had an ex once ask me to not delete him off social media while he was breaking up with me. Aside from it being a ridiculous request, it enlightened me about these types of situations. He wants control. He wants to know what you're up to, if you've moved on first, if the next guy you date is more attractive, and so on. It's not a sign of love or affection, it's ego at work, and as others have mentioned, it is keeping you from moving on and living your life.

 

I decided to delete all social media after my last breakup and it was the best decision I ever made. You don't even realize that you're sickly obsessed with seeing his name pop up on that list of people until you actually cut yourself off. At the end of the day, it's just not enough that he thinks about you or even that he misses you. You wanted a committed loving relationship and he opted out of that. Unless he calls you or shows up at your door telling you point blank that you're the one and that he's going to make up for all of his mistakes and then backs his words up with actions, staying tied in is just inviting more pain.

 

Blocking him isn't a cure-all, but it is the first step to you not being obsessed with an ex who couldn't be what you needed and wanted. Consider making the hard choice. You may just find some peace of mind along the way.

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Your question to us is "Why?". While none of us has mind-reading powers, I can take a guess: He wants you to keep him in your mind, in a selfish way. He broke up with you, yet he wants to "ping" you every so often, to keep him front of mind for you.

 

It's ego-building for him. Look, I can break up with her, and even though time is passing, she'll be forced to still think of me.

 

This is not an attempt by him to get you back into his life, but rather to keep you tethered to him so that his poor little ego can be stroked. It's all mind games for him.

 

Others have said block, and even though you'll be so tempted, yes, you must do this. I'm sorry about this, it sucks, and yes, I've been there.

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You are very right. It's just hard to completely cut ties with him. We were inseparable for a year. Have you had a similar situation happen to you?

 

Of course. All you need to do is go through the breakup section and see just how many people have experienced this exact thing. I have been a full on social media stalker in the past and all it's ever done for me is given me anxiety and stress and prevented me from actually dealing with the feelings of loss.

 

It's a great first step to go no direct contact... the next step is to break social media contact which includes unfriending / unfollowing and possibly blocking if needed. Don't let this guy drive you to distraction with meaningless actions like watching your social media.

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It's usually because they still have feelings for you, like 99.99% of the time. As someone else had said, being the breaker-upper doesn't mean they don't have feelings for you anymore. There have been times I broke up with someone and I didn't want to; it was just that based on what I had felt for a while and/or things that were happening in the relationship, it just wasn't right to stay anymore. It's hard on both sides in cases like this.

 

My advice to you is to block him, especially since you said you were the one who didn't want to break up and are working on yourself. Blocking him now would help in that because now not blocking him is making you wonder things you don't need to anymore. I actually think you should have blocked him from the get, but in a way it's good that you didn't, either, because some people do that right away, but then because they still have feelings and aren't exactly ready to move completely away yet, find some other way to look at their ex's social media. You didn't do that, and have let both of you simmer your feelings for a bit by having access to each other's social media still. Maybe it's time now to finally block so you don't think about him too much or anymore moving forward. I did that myself one time because I just don't like knowing someone I don't want in my life anymore is watching me. They can find some other way to, but I just don't want to know about it. As long as I don't know, I don't care.

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Sadly it sounds like you are hoping to get back together and trying to find "signs" that this may happen. However, if he wanted to reconcile you would know for sure.

Does he still care? I know I wouldn't bother looking at my ex's social media if i didn't care anymore.
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If an ex follows you on social media on a regular basis it means they are still very affected emotionally. I would not post anything sad or negative if I were you, but rather positive news no more than once a week. No references to the breakup whatsoever. My ex-wife still follows my social media religiously even though we haven’t been together in nearly 5 years.

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Does he care? Yes, just not in the way that you wish. Usually when an ex is trolling your social media like that after they dumped you, it's just alleviating guilt. They actually want to see that you are doing well and moving on because it makes them feel better about dumping you. Notice - it's selfish motivation. Second possibility has already been touched on - ego. If you are on there crying and sending cryptic messages that they can attribute to themselves, it feeds their ego in a look at what a loser you are and how much power they have over you still. Also completely selfish motivation and kind of twisted too.

 

When you opt to block them, you are taking your power back from them. You no longer subject yourself to them, what they do, what they might be thinking, hoping for something, etc. You are setting yourself free of them. Do it. It will feel hard, but it will ultimately feel good and let you heal and move on faster.

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I can relate to this. My ex split with me last month. He's since led me on and backed off again when I called him out on it. His actions contradict what he's said to me when we've had conversations since. He has told me he still likes me, what ever that means to him. I think he's a very confused person. One day he deleted me entirely saying if I can't be friends with him he doesn't want to see photos of me and what I'm doing - a few hours later he re-added me.

 

I don't "follow" him on instagram - I don't look at his stories, snaps, posts, etc., but he watches everything I put on there. Sometimes he even replies to my story posts. I personally don't get it. Could be he's just trying to be friendly by responding. In both cases, perhaps he just "taps" through stories. Maybe there's nothing in it at all. Maybe he still has feelings for you. It's hard to just guess. I still have feelings towards my ex but actively not seeing HIS stuff is helping me move on. If he wants to keep tabs on me in his own way then he can do that if he wants. 98% of the time I never reply to his responses. Though I think if it continues for much longer I'll be forced to remove his account from my followers. I agree with you - it is hard to completely cut ties when you still want the person. If I didn't want to be with someone I wouldn't be interested in seeing what they're up to, end of story. People can be strange.

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My ex split with me last month..... I personally don't get it. .

 

If he did the dumping, he probably wanted a friendship to alleviate guilt and validate himself, to keep you in orbit as a potential Plan B, and to wean himself completely away more gradually.

 

As you said no to friendship, he is still trying to do those things, by trying to engage with you via your social media.

 

The "I'm going to block you" was a gambit to get you to change your mind - I see it didn't work.

 

98% of the time I never reply to his responses.

 

You should not even be replying 2% of the time. If you don't want to block him fine, but make use of that setting that turns off notifications of what he does.

 

What he is doing is not that strange really - dumpers want to stay engaged with you as a friend to make it easier for them.

 

He also wants to stay in your head, because when you said no to friendship you took some power back, and they don't like that.

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@RayRay63 - that all blows my mind. When I've dumped in the past I've never done this to anyone. This has been recurring week after week. I would've expected him to get bored by now. Why keep pinging me over and over again? The RS wasn't even that long.

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Why keep pinging me over and over again?

 

Well, if you are occasionally acknowledging his contact, even 2% of the time, he is getting a little validation, and smugly thinks he can get you back if he wants. So he'll continue.

 

I would say don't respond at all, and blocking him is the best way to do that.

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