Your ex broke up with you. You cried, you sobbed, and you begged. But your ex still doesn’t take you back. You decide that it’s best to just leave her alone and focus on rebuilding yourself. You stop contacting her.
But unfortunately, it’s not as straightforward as you thought. You open Facebook and you see a post of your ex looking happy and having fun with her friends. You see her Instagram story with a text in picture that says she is finally feels free. You fire up twitter only to find out she had a wild party last night.
And seeing all this makes it hundred times more painful than before.
How can she be this happy when you are still barely able to get out of the bed in the morning?
This is a very common scenario after a breakup. I call this “the toxic power dynamics after a breakup”. It doesn’t happen after every breakup. But it does happen when one party in the breakup is the type of person who likes to have power in all their relationships.
One way to not let such a person affect your emotional and mental health is to understand this toxic power dynamics.
They are using social media to get to you
This weird power dynamics usually starts happening once you stop contacting your ex. When you stop begging, pleading, asking them to get back together. Until now, you have been providing a sort of comfort for them. Even though they broke up with you, they know that you are there for them. Waiting for them to change their mind.
So, in a way, even though you have broken up, they didn’t have to go through the pain of losing you. They never had to go through the grief. They never had to entertain the feeling that they might lose you forever.
On the surface, it may seem that your ex should be okay with the breakup because it was their decision.
But grief doesn’t work this way. When you lose someone you were attached to, you go through grief. It’s as simple as that. There is no way to avoid it.
You contacting your ex was making them feel like they haven’t lost you.
But when you stop contacting them, they panic and become scared of losing you forever.
The Toxic Power Dynamics comes from an Egoistical Mind
This is where it gets little bit tricky for your ex. They never expected this grief. They never thought they will feel so terrible after breaking up. Wasn’t the breakup supposed to make them feel better?
If your ex is in touch with their emotions, is self-aware; they will soon figure out that they are going through grief and they will be fine after a while.
But if your ex is the type of person who always needs to be in control, who always needs to have the upper hand in a relationship; they will do mental gymnastics to make them feel better.
She will do things to get a reaction out of you. She might do something to make you feel like you still have a chance of getting back together or she might do something to make you feel like she is already over you.
In both cases, her subconscious mind is trying to get a reaction out of you. It’s trying to get you to contact her, so she doesn’t have to go through the pain of losing you forever.
What should you do?
Ideally, you should just continue grieving and healing from the breakup. You should only contact them after you have done no contact and are sure there is still something there.
If you don’t play into this toxic power struggle, your ex will soon stop playing the mind games. They will eventually accept the grief and start healing themselves.
