Think aloud
Signs of dumper’s remorse are always right there in front of you. You don’t want to believe that he regrets breaking up with you, but there’s no other explanation for his behavior.
Most dumpees don’t want to get their hopes up. When he comes back into your life, contacts you, and starts talking to you, you don’t want to overanalyze it.
But at this point, things are just getting too confusing. What does he want? Why can’t he just leave you alone? Is it really remorse he’s feeling?
You were hurt when he just walked out on you. Your separation anxiety flew through the roof and you couldn’t believe that he actually decided to leave you after everything you two went through.
And if you’re being honest with yourself, you never got over him. You’re stuck on that man as if there’s no other man out there for you.
You’ve been waiting for him to come back into your life, wanting to see if things would work out again, but you can’t just let him break you again.
The only smart thing to do is not give in until the very moment you’re aware that you’re seeing the signs of dumper’s remorse.
What is dumper’s remorse?
Before we even get into the signs, you need to understand what dumper’s remorse even is. It’s actually crucial if you want to get your ex back.
There’s an entire psychology behind it. Dumper’s remorse is a situation in which your ex breaks up with you, leaves you, and then regrets his decision a while later.
That remorse he feels is simple regret. Regret occurs when he feels like something positive could happen if he decided to come back to you. It’s true that our biggest regrets in life are usually connected to lost relationships.
The only issue with this is that you can’t really manufacture it. You can’t make him feel remorse if he doesn’t see the advantages of coming back to you.
I know that people say that there are ways to make your ex regret leaving you. But even though he may regret it, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll come back to you unless he genuinely wants to.
There’s no set time period for him regretting leaving you and then coming back to you. Everyone says that the no-contact period is crucial, but other exes might come back to you even years later.
The one thing that’s important in this situation is to ask yourself: “Was our relationship worth remembering?” Can you rationally say that it was and that you had an absolutely amazing relationship? If yes, then he might come back to you.
You’ll see the signs of dumper’s remorse. Even if you don’t see it in the first few months after a relationship, you’ll definitely see it later on. He’ll remember you and regret losing you.
12 signs of dumper’s remorse
Now he’s back. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been since your breakup, an ex can always find his way back into your life. You might not even want him anymore, but here he is.
Is that dumper’s remorse you’re sensing? Did he truly regret hurting you and walking out on you?
Because remorse and regret aren’t universal things that you can stereotype, you also can’t assume that every ex who comes back into your life is serious with their intentions.
So why is he here? Are you seeing the signs or is it just your wishful thinking?
Don’t put down your walls just yet. Be on your guard until you see all of these signs so that you can be sure if you do or don’t want to give the relationship another shot.
Sometimes, our exes only want to confuse us. So is he genuinely sorry that he left?
1. He shows up at places that you frequent
This is one of the first signs you’ll see when he first starts experiencing dumper’s remorse. He’ll just randomly show up at places that he knows you’ll be at.
Is there a bar or cafe that he knows is your favorite? A place he knows you’ll be at each day so that he can turn up and “accidentally” bump into you?
You know what it’s like when you break up with an ex – you don’t want to have anything to do with them. You don’t feel the need to see them at all because you’re completely done with them.
But that isn’t really the case when you miss your ex and want them back. If he truly regrets leaving you, then he’ll definitely try to see you.
This usually starts happening once his dumper’s remorse gets triggered. He’ll want to figure out if he genuinely misses you or if his heart is just tricking him for some reason.
He might need a few tries because it’s confusing. He was the one to dump you, so why does he feel like this? Why does he feel like he regrets everything that happened if he was the one who decided to end things?
Not many can know the answer to that question right away.
2. He stalks you on social media
When someone stalks you on social media, they have to make a conscious effort to see you. If it’s your ex, he has to open the app and then go to your profile and scroll through your pictures.
This isn’t something a man does unless he regrets leaving you. He was the one to dump you! He should’ve gotten over you and moved on much faster than you did, but he obviously hasn’t.
You must be wondering: How can you know if someone’s stalking you?
Well, you will see it by accident. Because even though he’ll be so cautious about it, one little slip-up is more than obvious.
For example, you’ll get a notification that he liked a really old post of yours. This means that he had to scroll through your photos to find that specific one and he actually saw all of those other photos, too.
Another thing you can catch is if he follows you from another account. For example, if you decided to block him and he didn’t have a better way to access your profile, then he’ll create a fake account.
A few ways you can figure out if it’s truly him behind the account is if you recognize the profile picture, or that profile constantly checks in on your activity.
This is definitely one of the signs of dumper’s remorse, albeit a more subtle one. Because why would he stalk you if he truly wanted to be out of your life?
3. He contacts you, even though he’s in a relationship
It’s just logic that he’ll be the first one to move on. The breakup tore you up and you probably won’t start a new relationship before you genuinely heal from all the pain he caused you.
So chances are that he’s in a new relationship already, but sometimes you feel like his partner more than the actual girl he’s dating.
He’s complaining to you about her, telling you how he’s feeling, and completely disregarding the fact that he’s in a relationship and shouldn’t be texting his ex.
Do you truly believe that your ex would be talking to you at all if he didn’t regret losing you? He’d be happy that he’s with someone new and got you out of his system.
But he obviously doesn’t feel that. What he does feel is the need to talk to you, to stay in touch with you, to keep up with what’s going on.
You’re still the one he feels most comfortable with.
This is one of the genuine signs of dumper’s remorse. Don’t ignore this or just convince yourself it’s no big deal.
Would you text your ex if you were in a relationship with someone new? He doesn’t care about the feelings of the new girl in his life because he wants you more than he wants her.
4. He wants to hang out with you
One of the best signs he regrets hurting you and breaking up with you is if he still craves your attention.
How long has it been since you split up? It’s been a minute, right? You probably saw each other a few times after the breakup, but it wasn’t really anything serious. You just couldn’t get the habit out of your system.
But right now, it’s weird because you don’t really expect him to contact you and ask you to hang out with him. You don’t want to ignore an opportunity to hang out with him, to see him, and to enjoy his company.
He does this to give himself time to analyze his feelings. Seeing you right there in front of him isn’t the same thing as just thinking about you.
By wanting to see you, he’s giving himself the opportunity to see if his emotions for you are truly there or if he’s just being nostalgic.
He might try to take you out to different places, just to find the right time and place to tell you about his feelings. Sometimes, everything has to be right for a person to actually open up about regret.
So don’t turn him down if you’re ready to take him back.
5. He really respects you
If you hurt him in any way, shape, or form, he wouldn’t feel an ounce of respect for you. But if you know for a fact that you didn’t do anything wrong and he continues coming back to you, then you know that he respects you.
He respects you because you always took care of him, always tried to work things through, and never overreacted about anything.
This man has mad respect for you and you know that because he always asks for your help or for your advice.
Even when you go out together, he never makes inappropriate jokes, nor does he try to touch you. He knows his boundaries and genuinely listens to you when you’re talking.
You know that men don’t usually do this. They almost always have some type of a hidden agenda.
The thing with him is that he’s showing signs of dumper’s remorse. And now he just wants to enjoy your company because he doesn’t need anything else from you.
This man respects you so much that he couldn’t cross any of your boundaries.
You must have done a long list of things that’s shown him you’re truly not like anyone he’s ever met.
6. He can’t stop asking about you
It’s a fact that an ex who keeps asking about you or talking about you isn’t over you. He is still thinking about you constantly.
I know that you’re looking for signs of dumper’s remorse, and this one isn’t even that subtle. He’s trying really hard to keep it hidden, but it obviously isn’t working.
You probably still have mutual friends. When a couple breaks up, you have that awkward stage with all of your mutual friends where you’re still talking to them occasionally.
So when one of those mutual friends tells you that your ex has been asking about you, even though he probably texted you a couple of days prior, something’s up.
You know that you wouldn’t be asking about an ex that you’ve dumped because that would only send very mixed signals.
But he does that because he probably knows that those same mutual friends will tell you about their little encounter. You’ll question everything and that way he’ll be constantly on your mind.
7. He constantly asks you about your life
Why would someone who dumped you want to know if you’re doing fine? He made the decision to break your heart and walk away!
He was the one who didn’t want to be a part of your life anymore, so why is he even interested in you right now? Is this just a cruel joke?
I know that you’re confused and probably even angry about it at this point, but it’s one of the more obvious signs of dumper’s remorse.
He wants to know if you’re doing alright. He regrets hurting you. He’s sorry he made you cry and broke your heart. Now he wants to know if you’re doing alright and if you’re better off without him.
Let’s call a spade a spade here. He wouldn’t want to know these things if he didn’t still have feelings for you. You know that you wouldn’t talk to an ex like this if you didn’t care about them.
He doesn’t seem to mind talking to you about your life and about his own.
Whether you bumped into him in town or got an unexpected text from him, the scenario is the same in both cases. He wants to prolong the conversation as much as he can.
This man makes sure to talk to you about everything.
The biggest sign of dumper’s remorse is if he asks you about your current love life. He doesn’t ask you just to see if you’re happy, but also because he wants to know if you’ve healed and moved on from him.
8. He’s suddenly incredibly nice to you
He broke up with you! This man straight up locked eyes with you and proceeded to break your heart. Well, he sure didn’t feel any remorse back then. So after all of that, why is he so nice to you right now?
He was so cold and distant. Even if he wasn’t, even if he tried to preserve your heart as much as he could, he still decided to end things.
Now he’s a ray of sunshine around you and it’s weird. You don’t want to trust his niceness because there must be something behind that whole change in demeanor.
The most probable reason behind this is that he really regrets the awful things he said or did to you. He might not necessarily want you back, but he sure is sorry for the way he treated you.
You can decide for yourself how to respond when you see these signs of dumper’s remorse. It’s completely up to you to kick him to the curb or be nice in return.
Though you have to understand that something must’ve happened to him, something must’ve clicked in his head that made him change his behavior.
He probably thought about everything, realized the things that he did wrong, the regret ate him up, and here he is right now.
If you wait a while longer, you might even hear an apology come out of his mouth.
9. He apologizes constantly for the way he treated you
Pay close attention to his behavior. Just as you might feel like you have things to apologize for, so does he. He might even want to apologize for many more things than you.
He probably means every word that comes out of his mouth. The issue is that you’ll start to analyze (and probably overanalyze) everything he says.
If you know you can trust him and his words, then there’s no reason in this world to question him. He might be trying to get close to you again and obtain your forgiveness.
And after he’s gotten it, he’ll tell you how he’s been feeling this entire time.
At that point, you won’t have to question him or his intentions, because he’ll tell you everything you need to know. He’ll apologize for everything he’s done and ask that you forgive him.
He’ll probably not spill everything all at once, though. He might try to apologize for one thing at a time, and over a short period, he’ll list every little thing that he thinks he did wrong during your relationship.
You can’t get a much clearer sign of dumper’s remorse than this. He sure wouldn’t apologize unless he really feels regret.
10. He brings up positive memories
Dumper’s remorse is deeply rooted in the fact that the dumper always thinks about the things that could’ve gone right.
Those positive memories you share are his own little reminder of all the amazing things that you went through together.
However, before he tells you that he regrets breaking up with you and leaving that amazing relationship of yours, he has to make sure that you remember everything just the way he does.
So he will start reminding you of those beautiful memories that you made together. He wants to remind you that he didn’t just inflict pain on you, but that you were once also very happy with him.
Before he brings up anything about getting back together, he’ll try to awaken those old emotions you felt for him, to test the waters and so be sure you won’t reject him.
11. He compliments you and flirts with you a lot
A dumper shouldn’t even spend a moment flirting with the dumpee after the breakup. So why does he look at you like he’s never seen a more beautiful woman in the world?
This can only mean that he’s been thinking about you a little bit more lately. It’s one of those signs of dumper’s remorse that you can’t ignore even if you wanted to.
He doesn’t shy away from flirting with you, nor does he try to hide his obvious attraction to you.
He’ll compliment everything about you. From your intelligence and charisma to your humor and body. This man sees everything that he let go of, and now he can’t believe just how stupid he was.
He definitely regrets walking away from you and now he wants you back.
12. He just got dumped
Let’s be honest for a moment here: Exes usually come back for themselves. They want to diminish the feeling of hurt and regret that they’re experiencing because it only makes them feel more awful about themselves.
So what happens when he gets a taste of his own medicine?
This might hurt, but he may just be looking for a quick heal. He wants to get validation, love, and affirmation from someone he knows is good at giving it.
He wants you to help him get back on his feet so that he can then leave you once again and continue with his own life.
So, if your ex has been in a relationship for a while and got dumped, chances are good that he only wants you to be his quick little fix. He knows that you’re heartbroken and would probably let him back easily.
This is a huge issue, because he isn’t thinking of you at this point at all!
He probably feels sorry for himself and can’t feel in charge unless he has someone to totally adore him. This isn’t easy to hear, but it’s probably the truth.
Think carefully about your next move.
