It’s nothing new that a healthy relationship can turn into heartbreak and that the person you thought to be your best friend becomes just an ex-boyfriend.
But sometimes, you give your ex such a hard time that you can’t help but see all of the signs you really hurt him.
Yes, we as human beings tend to make mistakes, no matter what we do.
In our career, friendships, or relationship, a lot of the time, we tend to commit actions that end up really hurting someone.
We’ve all been hurt, no matter whether it was about something serious or it was about some little things that we simply couldn’t get out of our head.
That’s why it is easy to recognize our own suffering.
You know how it feels when someone says something to you and your heart instantly breaks into pieces.
But how do you know whether your actions hurt the other person? Unless they say it out loud, you won’t really get how they feel, right?
Then how can you know that your ex-boyfriend is having a hard time after the breakup? How can you know the signs you really hurt him?
Sit tight, we are going for a ride!
I am going to give you a list of all of the little things you have to pay attention to if you want to know your ex-boyfriend’s true feelings after a heartbreak.
At the end of the day, he can try to hide that he’s having a hard time but he will still be leaving a ton of red flags everywhere.
We will use them to reveal his true feelings and to separate all of the mixed signals into real and fake.
Telltale signs you really hurt him!
We all want to cover up the pain from a heartbreak. You never want to give your ex enough power by showing that you have been hurt by his actions.
That’s why a lot of the time we pretend like we are fine and that our broken heart is apparently not broken at all.
Guys do the same thing. Having been hurt lowers their self-esteem and no man wants anyone to see that.
Even though it’s completely normal for all human beings to feel pain and sadness after a breakup, men tend to hide their true feelings.
They do that because they want to keep their ego high as they have a reputation of being a tough being to keep up.
However, the reality is far from that.
The truth is that the end of a romantic relationship can sometimes be harder to overcome for a man than for a woman.
Society’s rules and stereotypes have made it clear that women can cry out all of the bad feelings that heartbreak brings them.
On the other hand, men are supposed to play it cool and use the words, “I’m over you!” like nothing ever happened.
That’s why your ex-boyfriend will pretend that he is okay but his behavior will give him away.
No matter how hard you try, a lot of the time, it is impossible to hide your true feelings.
If you want to know if he is showing any of the signs you really hurt him, then pay attention to his behavior.
It will give him away and it will reveal his broken heart.
1. He avoids seeing you
If there are no hard feelings, ex-partners can stay friends. It’s rare, but it is possible.
But if every time you try to contact your ex-boyfriend in order to arrange a friendly coffee, he ditches you, the chances are that you really hurt him.
He doesn’t go to the places he knows you will be because he just can’t stand seeing you there.
He simply feels that his well-being will suffer if he gets in close contact with you.
You really hurt him because the idea of spending time with you makes him feel pain.
Maybe you were his true love so the breakup resulted in a broken heart and it is hard to live with that.
Your ex-boyfriend needs some time and space to get over all of the bad feelings that are hiding deep down under that fake smile.
2. He ignores you when you are around
He can’t avoid seeing you forever as at the end of the day, he will probably stumble upon you at some point.
But even when that happens, if you really hurt him, you will see a change in his behavior.
You could be standing right next to him and still feel like he is not even aware of it.
He will avoid eye contact and even if he looks at you, his look will be cold as ice.
You will be standing next to someone who felt like a best friend for a long period of time and the only thing you will feel now is resentment that radiates from him.
Still, you have to understand that he does this just to protect his well-being. He has been hurt but he doesn’t want to admit that to you.
That’s why he pretends like you don’t exist. His broken heart is still not strong enough to admit his true feelings to you.
3. He has completely stopped dating
When a man goes through heartbreak, he starts to fear love.
A lot of the time, he will feel like he has nothing to offer because his previous romantic relationship didn’t work out.
He will especially do that if he was the one who ended up more hurt than his partner.
All of those painful experiences from the past can make him avoid dating completely.
It’s like he is running for his life, away from any sort of relationship that includes true feelings.
If you really hurt him, the chances are that he will stop dating other girls for some time.
His self-esteem is still low and he has no idea how to make himself feel better.
It’s not that he still loves you and doesn’t want to meet anyone else because he is still hoping that the two of you will get back together.
Instead, he is afraid that this next girl will hurt him the same way you did.
In order to save himself from that happening ever again, he will be cautious with his dating life and who he lets in.
He doesn’t want you back; it is his heart that he wants to get to the state it was in before you hurt him.
4. He’s looking for a cure in new relationships
I have already mentioned to you that if you really hurt him, he will be afraid of love.
However, it can result in another approach to the problem and that is a rebound relationship.
Actually, a lot of them!
Firstly, he feels like they will help him forget about you, and secondly, they help him get his self-esteem back.
New relationships may seem like a great way for him to gain power over his heart and mind.
At this point, it is the pain that controls his body and he wants to change that.
So, don’t be surprised if you see him with this one girl today and with another tomorrow. It is all part of the process of getting himself back on track.
He feels like before, you were the one who was pulling the strings. Now, he wants to be the one pulling them.
Going out with a lot of girls at the same time feels like a great way to achieve what he wants.
No strings attached, just a pure desire to get over a heartbreak.
5. He has deleted you from his social media
We can already see that if you really hurt him, he will try to avoid any type of contact with you.
This probably means that he will delete you from all of his social media profiles.
He will remove all of the pictures of you and him and maybe even block you so that he doesn’t see your name anywhere online.
You are no longer friends on Facebook or Instagram, just like you are no longer friends in real life.
The reason why he does this is because it hurts him to see that you are having a good time while his heart is broken.
He doesn’t want to be scrolling through your posts, having a hard time accepting what just happened while you casually move on with your life, like you were never honest about your feelings.
His self-esteem is already low and he doesn’t want to make it any lower by seeing that you are over him already.
It feels easier to remove you from his social media profiles than to constantly have you in front of him (at least virtually).
6. He posts hurtful and depressing posts about you on his social media
If you broke his heart into millions of pieces, he might do something like this. It is one of the signs you really hurt him.
Of course, you will already be deleted from his social media by now, so you can’t see any of his posts, but this info will get to you.
He might still have your best friend on his Instagram and she will tell you that his posts and stories have become too depressing.
It feels like he is drowning in pain and negative thoughts. Nothing seems to work out for him as he has been hurt like never before.
He’s letting go of his feelings, believing that he will feel better once he posts them online.
Instead, he is putting himself in a vicious circle, which is hard to get out of.
7. He drinks too much
If he was the kind of guy who would only drink a couple of beers on a night out but now you see that he is constantly drinking, it can suggest that you really hurt him.
He is trying to drown the sadness with the help of a huge amount of drinks, even though he knows it won’t do him any favors.
This way of coping with reality serves him as an escape. He doesn’t want to feel the pain anymore.
Instead, he wants his old self back but he is struggling to make it happen.
8. Even if you engage in conversation, he can’t hide his anger
If you really hurt him, he will feel a ton of negative emotions toward you.
At the end of the day, he is just your ex-boyfriend now and we all know how that works.
So, if you by any chance find yourself in a situation where the two of you are trying to have a conversation, you will hear the anger in his tone of voice.
No matter how hard he tries to hide it, he can’t stop thinking that you really hurt him and broke his heart into pieces.
That’s why you shouldn’t be surprised if you see this change in his behavior. His feelings are hurt and he can’t look at you the same way anymore.
No matter what you did to hurt him, in his eyes, you will be changed forever.
At first, he will feel hate, though maybe later on, looking at you won’t evoke any hard feelings.
But it takes time and he certainly isn’t ready for that right now.
9. He talks badly about you
If he doesn’t know how to deal with his emotions, he might start talking badly behind your back.
His emotions are a mess right now and he doesn’t know what to do. So, instinctively, he will try to make you feel hurt the same way he does.
And to do that, he may believe that the best way is by making you look like a bad person.
He is putting all of the blame on you like he wasn’t a part of the relationship.
The reason for this is to convince others that they should stand by his side and support him.
To be honest, he is not doing himself any favors as it only makes him look bad. However, he can’t help feeling this way.
He needs to make you look like a bad person but he doesn’t have the courage to tell you how much you have hurt him.
Again, he chooses the easier path that unfortunately doesn’t bring him closure or relief.
10. He drunk calls you
In this case, drunk calls won’t be his way of assuring you that you two should get back together. They won’t be filled with, “I miss you,” or, “I need you.”
Instead, if by any chance he drunk calls you, it will only be to tell you how much you have hurt him.
He might call you names, try to provoke you, or tell you how bad of a person you are.
The combination of drinking and all of the pain from a heartbreak doesn’t bring a great result.
Instead, he looks like a fool who can’t control his emotions.
Still, you can’t really blame him if you know that what you did to him was terribly wrong.
If, for example, you cheated on him, then you should at least understand that he feels like something struck him out of the blue.
He is on a roller coaster of emotions and he just doesn’t know how to get off so he tries various unnecessary ways, thinking they will provide him with relief.
Unfortunately, none of them will work as long as he doesn’t accept that he has to move on if he wants to feel better again.
11. He falls back into bad habits
One of the important signs which shows that you really hurt him is if you see your ex-boyfriend going back to his old habits that he decided to change long ago.
At one point in your relationship, he may have made the decision to go to the gym regularly and now you see that he has gained weight and completely stopped living a healthy lifestyle.
Or maybe he stopped smoking a few years ago but now he lights one after the other, like a passionate smoker (which he hasn’t been for a long time).
One of the reasons he does this is because he feels like he doesn’t need to impress anyone anymore.
Maybe you inspired him to turn to a healthier lifestyle and now he hates the idea that he did something because of you.
You really hurt him and he wants to erase you from all of his plans and motivation, even if it means that he will go back to his bad habits.
He still can’t understand that by doing this, he is not harming you at any point. Instead, he is only destroying himself.
But it feels like you hurting him completely took over the control of his life.
He can’t get back on the right track as he no longer knows which way is right and which way is wrong.
12. He keeps himself occupied
You really hurt him and he wants to stop thinking about that. But how can he achieve that when his mind is constantly thinking of what you did to him?
Well, the best way seems to be to keep himself occupied.
You have never seen him this way. From a man who worked only because he needed to, he has become a workaholic who takes his job home.
A guy who loved to spend time alone with his thoughts and feelings has become someone who is always surrounded by a group of friends.
From someone who spent his free time playing video games or watching movies, he has become someone who always runs to help other people with their tasks because he just can’t be left alone with his thoughts.
You really hurt him and his coping mechanism tells him that he needs to keep himself occupied with other things so that he doesn’t think about you.
Don’t be surprised if you see him running from place to place, always helping others, and always spending time with a group of people.
He is just too scared to be left alone, one-on-one with his own feelings.
It feels like it will hurt too much…
13. He bottles up his feelings
One of the signs you really hurt him is if you notice that he bottles up his feelings.
He just can’t openly talk about what he is going through. Instead, he keeps it inside and hides it from others, thinking that will help him.
He doesn’t talk about it to anyone, including his friends and family, and instead, he stubbornly deals with the pain on his own, struggling to admit the truth.
Once again, he may be doing this because he doesn’t want to give you power.
And to him, admitting that you really hurt him and that you tore his heart into pieces looks like he is admitting that you are the one who is in control.
So, he keeps quiet, pretending that everything is okay, until he cracks.
At some point, he won’t be able to take it anymore and he will have to accept the truth.
“You really hurt me but I am strong enough to move on,” are the words that can help him get closure and move on with his life.
He just needs the courage to say them.
If you notice that your ex-boyfriend is experiencing most or all of the signs you really hurt him, you should find a way to help him.
If this behavior continues to last for a long period of time, it could lead to depression or serious mental health problems.
It’s understandable that he doesn’t want your help but you can contact his friends or family members whose help he won’t reject.
Even if you are someone who hurt his feelings, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have a right to help him.
You can maybe start with a sincere apology and admit that what you did was wrong.
You probably didn’t have any intention of hurting him but it happened. Now you have to deal with the consequences of your actions.
Just don’t make him feel like you are only helping him to clear your conscience.
Instead, you need to be honest about your intentions because otherwise, you can end up hurting him even more.
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